What happens when a Global Marketing Manager for Scotch whisky steps out of her day job to mentor a social enterprise tackling period poverty?

In this episode, Andrea talks with Julie Pender, Global Marketing Manager in Pernod Ricard’s Global Travel Retail team. Julie works on Chivas Regal and Ballantine’s Finest. She mentored Bare Earth CIC on the Regenerous mentoring programme, alongside her colleague Sally.

Julie expected to wear her expert hat. Instead, she found herself acting as a coach and helping the team focus on “one step forward”. Along the way she discovered that part of her value was opening doors to other people. She talks about hitting a plateau, building confidence in her transferable skills, and learning to deliver through people. She also explains why the colleagues she mentored alongside turned out to have “hidden depths”.

If you’re thinking about mentoring, or wondering what skills-based volunteering can do for your people and your organisation, this one’s for you.

• Mentoring isn’t consulting. It’s a light-touch sounding board where you hold space, ask questions and keep people accountable.
• Your network is part of your knowledge. Julie brought in colleagues from across Pernod Ricard with specialist expertise.
• Plateaus are part of the process. Moving from adviser to coach was the point where things started to move.
• Clarity beats ambition. Bare Earth CIC’s biggest gain was focus: park the other ideas and pick one step forward.
• It’s a different kind of development. A new intellectual challenge builds confidence that your skills transfer.
• Silos come down. Julie and Sally would otherwise only have chatted in the canteen queue. Instead they swapped skills they now use in their own jobs.
• You don’t have to commit fully to get involved. Joining the showcase as a feedback panel mentor is a lighter way in.

The timestamps come from the transcript. If you add an intro, music or ads in the final edit, they’ll shift.

• 00:05 – Welcome to The Edge of Transformation
• 00:28 – Julie’s role: global travel retail, Chivas Regal, Ballantine’s and Scuderia Ferrari HP
• 01:19 – Loving your job and the “duvet flip”
• 01:42 – Meeting Bare Earth CIC and their mission to end period poverty
• 03:45 – First impressions: big ambitions and a small team
• 04:31 – What surprised her: light-touch consultancy and unlocking access to others
• 06:51 – Hitting a plateau and shifting from expert to coach
• 07:25 – Why discomfort is part of the learning
• 08:04 – How it compares to traditional training: a new intellectual challenge
• 09:50 – Breaking down silos: from canteen chat to skill swap
• 11:48 – Advice for would-be mentors: get uncomfortable
• 14:04 – What Bare Earth CIC got out of it: clarity
• 15:05 – Line manager buy-in and learning to deliver through people
• 18:13 – How the Regenerous mentoring sprint works
• 19:40 – Why Julie would join as a social entrepreneur one day
• 20:30 – Who Regenerous is looking for this year
• 21:04 – Mentor return rates and the art of matchmaking

Andrea Gamson is joined for our final episode of Season 1 by conflict resolution specialist, mediator, author and social entrepreneur Maria Arpa, MBE. Maria shares how her work began in response to gang violence in her community, why she believes conflict can be approached with radical empathy rather than fear, and how her organisation, Peaceful Solutions funds its work through a network of 7 charity shops.

They explore the Dialogue Road Map, the connection between conflict in prisons and workplaces, the value of boundaries and self-awareness, and why lasting change begins with examining our own patterns. Maria also reflects on relationships, leadership, rehabilitation, and building a legacy through training the next generation of conflict resolution practitioners whilst at the same time creating jobs for people coming out of prison, who notoriously find it hard to secure work on release.

Most businesses get sustainability backwards. They skip straight to offsetting, buy a badge, and call it done.

Rondi Allan has worked with over 450 of them. A former Price Waterhouse chartered accountant who sat on boards in six countries - and flew a million miles in two years doing it - she co-founded Sustainable X to bring corporate sustainability experience down to the SME sector that regulation hasn't reached yet.

Her most uncomfortable finding: there's a hard limit on what most businesses can do on carbon. You put in sensor lights, switch to a renewable tariff, cut your miles, ask your landlord - and then you hit a ceiling. That's just the fact.

This episode is about what happens next. Why the E in ESG is the hardest letter. Why "carbon neutral" is being restricted as a claim in Europe. Why one badminton club's question to a shuttlecock manufacturer might change a global product line. And why the biggest barrier isn't cost or knowledge - it's the echo chamber both of us are sitting in.

If you run a business and you've ever wondered whether any of this is worth the effort, this one's for you.

• Why the refuse → reduce → reuse → recycle → offset hierarchy matters, and what it costs you to skip to the end
• The hard ceiling on carbon reduction - and why the social side is where the real headroom is
• Which sustainability accreditation to choose, and the question to ask before you choose any
• Scope three explained without the jargon
• What the offset market doesn't want you to look at
• The one question that unlocked a £1m contract for a client

Resources mentioned

Sustainable X - sustainablex.co.uk. Free resources including seven ways to use sustainability as a commercial value lever with customers. Contact: info@ or rondi@sustainablex.co.uk

The People's Emergency Briefing - nebriefing.org A 50-minute film introduced by Chris Packham CBE, following the National Emergency Briefing at Westminster Central Hall. Screenings are in-person only by design - the model exists to get MPs into rooms with constituents. Workplace screenings are available, so Rondi's lunch-and-learn suggestion holds.

Books:

Regenerative Leadership - Giles Hutchins & Laura Storm.

Net Positive - Paul Polman & Andrew Winston.

Accreditations discussed: EcoVadis, B Corp, Planet Mark, ISO, SEDEX.

Rondi Allan is co-founder of Sustainable X, a UK sustainability consultancy working with SMEs, which celebrated its sixth birthday on the day this was recorded. A former chartered accountant with manufacturing and supply chain expertise, she has worked across four continents and sat on boards in six countries. Originally from Australia. She co-founded Sustainable X with Nick Reilly, a Practitioner of the Institute of Environmental Management & Assessment.