In this uplifting and deeply personal episode of Women's Business Voice, we meet the founder of Sanity Daily, a Top 10 UK mental health blog and award-winning podcast. Her story is one of survival and self-discovery - navigating 17 tumours, divorce, single motherhood, and the challenges of starting life afresh in a new country.

Through her own healing journey, she found purpose in helping others reclaim their mental well-being. With a strong background in corporate and higher education, she shifted gears entirely - becoming a certified NLP Practitioner, Mental Health First Aider, a certified yoga and meditation practitioner and passionate advocate for women’s emotional wellness. Her Therapeutic Journal is now a lifeline for mothers seeking calm, clarity, and connection in the chaos of daily life.

This episode is a gentle yet powerful reminder that self-care is not selfish—it’s survival. And through storytelling, journaling, and community, we can begin to heal what the world so often tells us to hide.

Find out more about Women's Business Voice and future episodes at https://womensbusiness.club/s/voice and explore the journal at https://therapeutic-journal.com/

In this profoundly moving episode of Women's Business Voice, we sit down with Lena Thompson, a speaker and transformational guide whose journey across Soviet Russia, Israel, and South Africa was marked by trauma, war, and survival. From watching coffins of fallen soldiers pass by as a child to experiencing chemical war drills and relentless upheaval, Lena's early life trained her to be strong—but at a deep emotional cost. Her eventual breakdown became her breakthrough, forcing her to confront years of suppressed pain and begin the healing journey that would transform her life. Now, Lena is on a mission to help others move from survival mode to a life of wholeness and emotional freedom. Join us for a powerful conversation on trauma, resilience, and the radical act of feeling. Lena’s story is a testament to what happens when we stop running from pain and begin reclaiming our true selves.

Find out more about Women's Business Voice and future episodes at https://womensbusiness.club/s/voice and visit Lena at https://payhip.com/LenaThompson

From Side Hustles to Empires - Histories of Women’s Working Lives, featuring a series of conversations between Dr Amy Edwards and a range of expert historians. Women were once Britain’s largest computing workforce and a hidden engine of growth in the world of technology. Dr Mar Hicks will explain the ‘gender flip’ that occurred in the world of computing in the 1960s and 1970s, and what this meant for the thousands of women who worked in science and technology.Dr Amy EdwardsAmy is a senior lecturer in Modern British History at the University of Bristol, where she has worked for the past 10 years. Her research focuses on how ‘ordinary people’ experience large economic changes and how people in the past worked, saved, spent, and invested their money. Her first book, Are We Rich Yet? Told the story of how the worlds of business and finance became part of our day-to-day culture. It looked at things like the business press, financial advice columns, investment based boardgames, and the popularity of the filofax in the 1980s. But more recently she has been carrying out a research project that looks at the lives of self-employed women from the 1950s to the 2000s. Professor Mar HicksMar Hicks is an Associate Professor at the University of Virginia’s School of Data Science. Their research explores histories of computing, large-scale digital infrastructures and the relationship of both to wider society. They’ve published a number of books on this topic, including a recent edited collection called Your Computer is on Fire and their award-winning book, Programme Inequality: How Britain Discarded Women Technologists and Lost Its Edge in Computing. Both have this real interest in using the history of technology to help us address our current problems with digital structures and technology. Their current project looks more closely at the ways people have resisted powerful digital and technological systems. So hopefully they can tell us more about some of this work today, as well as to teach us something about about what it was like to be a woman working in computing in the twentieth century..See this and other episodes in the series at https://womensbusiness.club/s/voice

In the 1970s the Women’s Liberation Movement campaigned for women’s rights. But as well as being political activists, many second wave feminists were entrepreneurs, who also experimented with business practices. Dr D-M Withers introduces us to the publishers and book workers of second wave feminism in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s to discuss how they navigated masculine systems of finance, and equity in running their businesses.

Dr Amy Edwards

Amy is a senior lecturer in Modern British History at the University of Bristol, where she has worked for the past 10 years. Her research focuses on how ‘ordinary people’ experience large economic changes and how people in the past worked, saved, spent, and invested their money. Her first book, Are We Rich Yet? Told the story of how the worlds of business and finance became part of our day-to-day culture. It looked at things like the business press, financial advice columns, investment based boardgames, and the popularity of the filofax in the 1980s. But more recently she has been carrying out a research project that looks at the lives of self-employed women from the 1950s to the 2000s.

Dr D-M WithersD-M Withers is Lecturer in Publishing at the University of Exeter. Their research focuses on the post-war publishing industries, especially feminist, queer and women-led companies. They have published widely on the history of feminist publishers, Virago Press, including their book, titled Virago Reprints and Modern Classics: the Timely Business of Feminist Publishing which came out in 2021. D-M is also a publisher, and runs Lurid Editions, which publishes queer books from the twentieth century archive. So there is no one better placed to help guide us through the history of women and the publishing industry!

See this and other episodes in the series at https://womensbusiness.club/s/voice

https://www.womeninpublishinghistory.org.uk

Lurid Editions - https://www.lurideditions.com

Link to the Carmen interview with Mavis Nicolson where she talks about not making the bed, and never doing the housework! https://youtu.be/9zflvW_qS6I?si=nsVl3V9d_RwFHMsw

From Side Hustles to Empires - Histories of Women’s Working Lives, featuring a series of conversations between Dr Amy Edwards and a range of expert historians. Speaking about her upcoming book on disability in Britain, Professor Lucy Delap will talk about the barriers to employment that have often faced women with disabilities. In particular we’ll be discussing a number of women who responded to job market discrimination by setting up businesses, working for themselves and becoming entrepreneurs.Dr Amy EdwardsAmy is a senior lecturer in Modern British History at the University of Bristol, where she has worked for the past 10 years. Her research focuses on how ‘ordinary people’ experience large economic changes and how people in the past worked, saved, spent, and invested their money. Her first book, Are We Rich Yet? Told the story of how the worlds of business and finance became part of our day-to-day culture. It looked at things like the business press, financial advice columns, investment based boardgames, and the popularity of the filofax in the 1980s. But more recently she has been carrying out a research project that looks at the lives of self-employed women from the 1950s to the 2000s. Professor Lucy Delap Today we’re joined by Lucy Delap who is a professor at Cambridge University, where she researches the history of feminisms, spanning Britain, the United States and the British empire. In 2020 she published Feminisms: A Global History which expanded her scope even further. She’s been involved in a number of oral history projects too, helping to produce the The Business of Women’s Words collections at the British Library, which is all about the feminist publishing industry. She also has lots of experience in working with policy makers, to help use what we know about the past to help inform practice in the present. Perhaps most relevant for today, however, is Lucy’s current project on the history of employment and labour for disabled people in twentieth century Britain. See this and other episodes in the series at https://womensbusiness.club/s/voice

From Side Hustles to Empires - Histories of Women’s Working Lives, featuring a series of conversations between Dr Amy Edwards and a range of expert historians. This episode, we’ll take a look at the history of women in the world of finance, from stockbrokers to financial advice columnists. Professor James Taylor invites us to discover more about the women who fought for a space on the Stock Exchange floor.

Dr Amy Edwards

Amy is a senior lecturer in Modern British History at the University of Bristol, where she has worked for the past 10 years. Her research focuses on how ‘ordinary people’ experience large economic changes and how people in the past worked, saved, spent, and invested their money. Her first book, Are We Rich Yet? Told the story of how the worlds of business and finance became part of our day-to-day culture. It looked at things like the business press, financial advice columns, investment based boardgames, and the popularity of the filofax in the 1980s. But more recently she has been carrying out a research project that looks at the lives of self-employed women from the 1950s to the 2000s.

Professor James Taylor

James is a Professor in Modern British History at Lancaster University. His work explores business history from social and cultural perspectives. He has written on subjects including the history of company law, white-collar crime, financial advice, popular investment, and advertising. He has authored or co-authored five books. His most recent, Sexism in the City: Women Stockbrokers in Modern Britain, was published in March 2025 by Oxford University Press, and he’ll be telling us more about it in today’s episode.

James Taylor’s book, Sexism in the City: Women Stockbrokers in Modern Britain, was published by Oxford University Press in 2025: https://global.oup.com/academic/product/sexism-in-the-city-9780198879817

See this and other episodes in the series at https://womensbusiness.club/s/voice

In this deeply reflective episode of Women's Business Voice, we speak with Eglė Aleknavičiūtė—Wealth, Business & Purpose Strategist—whose journey from a small town in Lithuania to a high-flying finance career in the Netherlands took an unexpected and transformative turn. After years in corporate finance, Eglė realised that something crucial was missing—not just in her career, but in the way many women approach wealth. Her personal evolution through motherhood, subconscious healing, and purpose work led her to redefine success—not as numbers on a spreadsheet, but as self-worth, energy, and alignment. Today, she helps heart-led women across the world break free from limiting beliefs, rewrite their money stories, and build wealth rooted in authenticity and empowerment. Join us for a powerful conversation on feminine wealth, purpose, and the kind of healing that changes everything—not just for one woman, but for generations to come.

See this and other episodes in the series at https://womensbusiness.club/s/voice or connect with Eglė at https://www.egle-aleknaviciute.com

From Side Hustles to Empires - Histories of Women’s Working Lives, featuring a series of conversations between Dr Amy Edwards and a range of expert historians.

This episode will take a closer look at the sex advice industry and Mary Stopes: an Edwardian advice columnist and queen of self-promotion. Dr Sarah Jones will talk us through some of the women who made their careers selling sex tips and toys.

Dr Amy Edwards

Amy is a senior lecturer in Modern British History at the University of Bristol, where she has worked for the past 10 years. Her research focuses on how ‘ordinary people’ experience large economic changes and how people in the past worked, saved, spent, and invested their money. Her first book, Are We Rich Yet? Told the story of how the worlds of business and finance became part of our day-to-day culture. It looked at things like the business press, financial advice columns, investment based boardgames, and the popularity of the filofax in the 1980s. But more recently she has been carrying out a research project that looks at the lives of self-employed women from the 1950s to the 2000s.

Dr Sarah Jones

Sarah Jones works at the University of Bristol, where she researches and teaches histories of gender and sexuality. Her research has covered topics from Victorian 'free love' movements and transatlantic sex radicalism, to the role of science in shaping modern sex advice. She’s working on an upcoming article about sex advice quizzes in women’s magazines, and she also recently contributed to an exhibition on gender, identity and culture at Bristol Museum. When she’s not busy doing all of that, she researches how to make university-level teaching more inclusive, impactful, and engaging. So we’re really pleased to have her with us today to talk about the history of the sex advice industry and some of the women who worked in it.

See this and other episodes in the series at https://womensbusiness.club/s/voice