In this episode, Danielle and Lauren talk to Kathryn about what it actually feels like to lead through uncertainty when there isn't a right answer, just a judgment call you have to be ready to defend. She's honest about the advice she was once given to be louder and more alpha male to get ahead, and why she turned it down, the reward she refused to accept after leading a difficult restructure, and the two periods in her career and life that nearly broke her.

It's a conversation about leading with a moral compass instead of a script, why breadth can matter as much as depth, and what changes when you stop trying to do everything yourself and start helping other people do it better.

Topics covered:

• A career built on saying yes to whatever came along
• Why breadth across different professions can matter as much as depth in one
• The car conversation with her boss six months into her first job, and thirty years of "guessing" her answers since
• Leading a major site closure after the Japanese tsunami
• Straight-talking bosses, and getting your own way without having to shout to get it
• Career as "snakes and ladders": sliding down, climbing back up, and not getting too grumpy at the bottom
• What leadership changed in her: from doing the task well herself to helping her team do it better
• Great Auntie Bertha, the no-nonsense schoolteacher who lived to 102 and never let anyone tell her what to do

"Don't ever believe that people get more grown up and more sensible as they get more senior. Sometimes they get worse."

If you've ever been told to be louder to get taken seriously, this one's for you.

Emma-Jayne arrived in Cumbria eighteen years ago with two children under four, everything she owned in a Ford Fiesta with one working door, and two weeks of somewhere to stay. Inside those two weeks she had a job and a house. She went on to build a permanent recruitment division from nothing, set up a nuclear division for a second firm, founded her own senior appointments business, and then took a senior role inside the nuclear organisation she had spent years publicly holding to account, ending up as the person its chief executive turned to for a second opinion. She now works in strategy and growth, and runs her own purpose and culture consultancy alongside it.

In this episode, Danielle and Lauren talk to Emma-Jayne about what it takes to keep performing at work when your life outside it has come apart. She's honest about the message she read on her husband's phone one Father's Day, the choice she made between full-time work and benefits and why her own childhood made that decision for her, and the years she spent being judged for the way she speaks: first for not being posh enough, then for being too posh.

It's a conversation about purpose as something you work out, about what changed the day she told a man to his face that his tone wasn't acceptable, and about the period when she was holding a senior role together while her youngest child was in crisis and the services meant to help weren't helping. She and her child turned that experience into a campaign, and, five years on, into crisis packs that now sit in hospitals and GP surgeries.

Topics covered:

• The message on a phone on Father's Day, and the drive north with two small children and everything that fit in the car
• Two weeks on her parents' floor to find work and a home, and the nan who lent her the deposit
• Growing up as one of the council house kids, and why that settled the choice between full-time work and benefits
• Being judged for how she speaks, first for not being posh enough and then for being too posh
• The joke about a hired dress that got her investigated by HR
• The blog that made her known across an entire supply chain, and the section her readers actually turned up for
• Walking into her first board meeting and feeling like she'd wandered into the staff room at school
• Being told she was only good for pouring the tea, and the change in how she spoke in meetings that ended it
• The man who got in her face after a presentation, and the sentence she says changed her life
• Rebuilding the culture of a large organisation from the bottom up, with a strapline she wasn't allowed to print
• Her child's mental health crisis, the video she posted from a hospital waiting room, and the campaign that came out of it
• What purpose looks like when you apply it to your own life rather than someone else's

"You're never alone, even when you think you are."

If you've ever sat in a meeting knowing your phone could ring any minute and you'd have to drop everything, this one's for you.

Support

If anything in this episode is close to home, help is available.

Crisis packs These are the packs Emma-Jayne describes, produced by Every Life Matters. Free to download wherever you live.

Parent and carer: https://www.every-life-matters.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/ELM063-Suicide-Crisis-Pack-PARENT-CARER.pdf

Young person: https://www.every-life-matters.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/ELM063-Suicide-Crisis-Pack-Young-Person.pdf

Adult: https://www.every-life-matters.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/ELM062-Suicide-Crisis-Pack-ADULT.pdf

If you need to talk now

Samaritans, free day or night on 116 123: https://www.samaritans.org/

Shout, free 24/7 text support, text SHOUT to 85258: https://giveusashout.org/

Papyrus, for anyone under 35 or worried about a young person: https://www.papyrus-uk.org/

Further support

Mind, contacts for suicidal thoughts: https://www.mind.org.uk/information-support/suicidal-thoughts-and-suicide-prevention/useful-contacts/

The Mix, support for under 25s: https://www.themix.org.uk/ Suicide Prevention UK: https://spuk.org.uk/

In Cumbria

Every Life Matters: https://www.every-life-matters.org.uk/ Always Another Way: https://alwaysanotherway.org.uk/

In this episode, Danielle and Lauren talk to Emma about where her confidence actually came from, and what happens when that confidence lands you in trouble. She's honest about speaking her mind to someone several levels above her, the letter she eventually wrote to resign and the reply that came back: brutal, and in her own words, an absolute class act.

It's a conversation about the gap between confidence and authority, why being right doesn't always mean being safe, and the very deliberate habits, boundaries, reflection, knowing when to walk away from a conversation, that let her keep going anyway.

Topics covered:

• A career built on saying yes to whatever came next, not on a five-year plan
• Growing up with a mother who modelled confidence long before Emma needed her own
• Calling out bad behaviour early in her career, and where that instinct came from
• Speaking her mind to someone far more senior, and what it actually cost her
• The resignation letter she eventually wrote, and the reply that came back
• Recognising when you can't have a conversation yet, and choosing to walk away instead
• The internal audit accusation that knocked her confidence, even though she'd done nothing wrong
• The moment she knew she'd made it: choosing the office next to the CEO's, and watching a coat rack appear the second she asked for one
• Why visibility and asking questions build more credibility than talking about yourself ever will
• What leadership has changed in her, for the good and the bad

"You always have to embrace the opportunity you're given."

If you've ever said the right thing at the wrong moment and spent years living with it, this one's for you.

In this episode, Debs talks with Lauren and Danielle about what actually changes when you step into senior leadership, and how little of it matches what you'd expect. She talks about the year it took her to stop trying to fix the code herself, why she had to give up planning for every eventuality once the pace outran it, and the moment an HR director warned an exec to "watch out for her, she's ambitious" like it was a bad thing.

It's a conversation about letting go of being the best doer in the room, learning to trust your own judgement when there's no time to prepare for everything, and working out who you become once people start turning to you for the answers.

Topics covered:

• Following passion over a plan, and building a genuinely squiggly career
• The moment leadership finds you, and why there's no finish line to cross
• Letting go of being the doer, and the sporting analogy that reframes it completely
• Why overpreparing stopped working once the pace outran it
• Managing up, and what changes when your senior leadership actually has your back
• Growing into confidence as a naturally shy, reserved person
• The HR director who called her ambition a warning sign, and what that taught her
• Finding her people through a non-exec board role, and why an outside network matters
• Becoming a parent, and learning to be kinder to herself
• What changed in her that nobody warned her about

"I've always been quite ambitious, not for power or fame, just to do cool stuff."

If you've ever had your ambition handed back to you as something to watch out for, this one's for you.

Although they come from very different backgrounds, neither of them planned a career in risk management. They talk about the unexpected turns that led them there, the people who backed them along the way, and the lessons they've learned through the highs, the setbacks and everything in between.

This episode is honest, unfiltered and, at times, a little chaotic — which is exactly what Her Ascent is all about. No polished career stories or pretending to have all the answers. Just real conversations about work, ambition, confidence and figuring things out as you go.

Whether you're just starting out, stepping into leadership, or wondering what comes next, we hope you'll find something here that resonates.

In this episode:

Lauren's journey from Wythenshawe to Associate Director

Danielle's path from boarding school to Saudi Arabia

How the two met on a National Highways project — and never stopped talking

Why they created Her Ascent, and what's coming in Season 1.

We'd love to hear from you.

Follow the conversation on LinkedIn at Her Ascent and on Instagram @_her_ascent.

Got a story to share, a guest to recommend, or a topic you'd like us to cover? We'd love to hear from you.

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