Just As Well, The Women's Health Podcast - Alison Lomax: Leading YouTube, Letting Go of Perfection & Backing Yourself

Episode Date: February 24, 2026

What happens when you stop waiting to feel “ready”?  . Alison Lomax, Managing Director of YouTube UK & Ireland, joins Just As Well to talk about leadership, imposter syndrome and the confidence gap women face at work.  . Hosted by Claire Sanderson and Gemma Atkinson, this episode explores Alison’s journey through politics, digital media and tech, why she believes thriving in ambiguity is essential, and how taking a career break helped her step into her biggest role yet.  . Thoughtful, empowering and deeply relatable, this conversation will resonate with anyone navigating ambition, motherhood and modern leadership.  . Hosts:  https://www.instagram.com/glouiseatkinson/  https://www.instagram.com/clairesanderson/  Director of photography : https://www.instagram.com/edmundcurtiscine/   Wellness video producer: https://www.instagram.com/chelia.batkin/  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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from rolling countryside to cobblestone streets. Begin your next chapter. Book your seat at westjet.com or call your travel agent. WestJet, where your story takes off. Hi, I'm Gemma Atkinson. And I'm Claire Sanderson and welcome to another episode of Just as well. We have just interviewed Alison Lomack. She is the managing director of YouTube in the UK and Ireland.

She is a tech leader, pioneering female leader. and as a female leader myself, was an absolutely thrilled to have her on the podcast today. What I loved about her is when I knew she was coming in, I did expect the kind of devil wears Prada, high heels through the hallway. Everyone knows she's coming because she, like you say, the big, big boss of YouTube.

It's a big responsibility. But she was so human in terms of how she treats her staff, how she approaches people. Warm, I would describe that. Very warm individual. I feel like if I was working for her, I could take anything to her and speak to her about it, which I think is a good balance to have with your boss.

And she said that she thrives to have that relationship with people in the workplace. If you are a woman in the workplace and you want some tips on how to advance your career to become a better leader, if you suffer from imposter syndrome, how to overcome that, how to manage staff. If you already do have people that work for you, it's an episode packed with violence. little information. So yeah, please enjoy this chat with myself, Claire and Alison. And if you like and subscribe, it can be shared far and wide and we can get even more amazing guests. Alison, thank you for coming in to see us at Jester's well today at House of Hurst. Thank you for having me. It's fantastic to be here. I'm a big fan. Well, we're a big fan of yours because you

are a female leader in tech. You are the managing director of YouTube, UK and Ireland. Huge job, huge responsibility, huge influence as well, a platform that is growing exponentially. Take us back to the start of your career and how did you get to where you are today? So I was quite an unusual teenager in that one of my favourite programmes was yes, Prime Minister. And so I became obsessed in politics. I did a policy degree and actually I started my career working for the civil service. And I worked in the digital media department. Now this is in the 1990s. So cast your mind back. It was then dial-up internet, intranet. You know, it was that kind of clunky sound, intranet, CD-ROMs.

I mean, it was a very different world of digital, and Google and YouTube didn't even exist then. And so I realized quite quickly that I went to commercial experience, went to work in digital advertising agencies. It was the time of the dot-com boom and then bust, and then I went from there to working for other advertising agencies, and then onto Google and YouTube. And I think just a sort of reflection on that time was on my career,

was that I often looked for jobs where it was at the cusp of change. And it was really only on reflection, I sort of realized that. But I was very sort of driven by what was going to happen as opposed to established roles and established companies. It's like your path into this industry was intentional then. You kind of, or is it somebody you look back in hindsight and think, oh, it was. Yeah, it's a great question. I think it's more I look back and see that they were the ingredients of worlds that

were about to change, industries that were about to change. But at the time, what appealed to me was that they were all new and different. And I think I've always loved jobs that there isn't a playbook. You know, they haven't necessarily been done before. So I have the opportunity to create my own roles and really impact change in industries. Because if ever there's an industry where there isn't a playbook, it's tech. You know, the emergence of AI in the last, I would say 12 months two years. Obviously, you're in the trenches and you've been aware of it for much longer, but for the rest of us, it seems to have taken over in the last 12 months and who know what's going to happen in the next 12 months. How do you strategise in such a changing world?

So I think what's interesting about Google and so I, just in terms of my role at YouTube, I've been in this role for three years and before that I was at Google for 11 years. And obviously they're still their same, part of the same company alpha. bet so there's a lot of similarities. And what Google hires for, like one of the attributes, is thriving in ambiguity. So people who can, you know, who really enjoy not having the rulebook of how it's done, who don't need the step-by-step instructions, you can find their own path. And I've always been attracted to, you know, those big problems that need very lateral thinking and galvanising people in different ways. Is it true that the Google images was,

created because of Jennifer Lopez in that green Versace dress. I genuinely think it was somewhere. I was reading. Oh, really? That's news to me. Yeah, I'm sure it was. I'll genuinely look up. It was saying it was created because so many people wanted to know where that dress was from,

what it was, how it was made, how it was fitted. So Google images then... Oh, do you mean the reverse image search? Yeah, it was the Versacea dress. The Catwalk. She came on stage in it, didn't she? It's still a famous dress now. Do you think with your line of work, it seems to be like a certain skill set required.

I mean, I would love to say I'm tech savvy. I struggle even with my phone. Is it something you look for in terms of if you were employing people or do they have to know, is it a skill set? So I'm not a tech person. I'm not an engineer. You know, my entire career has been in digital, in different shapes and different forms of digital, but I'm not a technical person. And so my success has definitely been in terms of business, commercial leadership, as opposed to being a techie.

You know, I know enough to be able to, you know, inspire and lead teams, but I don't need to get into the detail. You know, I don't code. I don't, you know. Yeah, exactly. So it's a commercial and business skill set as opposed to a technical skill set. Oh, that's good. Yeah. Because I just do on and off again.

If it's broken, turn it on and off again, then up for the best. If we take you back to your extensive varied career, what challenges did you face early on that you overcome to push forward? Yeah. So when I look back on my 20s, I worked in advertising agencies which were very male dominant and there were very few female role models. And so all my lines of bosses were men.

And so I didn't have women around me to sort of encourage me, you know, promote me, give me that confidence. And so I definitely looked back and had imposter syndrome and didn't push myself. I remember I actually once turned down a promotion because I felt like I didn't have 100% of the skills. And they were the days before Cheryl Sandberg's lean in and you know, all of, there's actually been a huge amount around female leadership in the last 20 years, but that didn't exist there. So I didn't know. And I held my, I held myself back. And so, So yeah, so they were very different days then. And it was interesting when I got to Google,

I remember my second week there was an email that came around about imposter syndrome, saying that 83% of Googlers had experienced imposter syndrome at some stage in their career. I could imagine. And I thought, well, that's amazing. That is something that a lot of people feel in different ways. And that's actually quite normalised it. Why do you think it's women that tend to volunteer the fact that they've experienced imposter syndrome as opposed to men?

actually it wasn't. It was an anonymous survey, but it was men and women. So it was, but just generally accepted that women say. Yeah, it's a, it's a, it's a good point. And I think, you know, women are, can be, and look, this is generalisation, but, you know, can be a bit more self-deprecating. Yeah. And can be a bit more honest about their limitations as opposed to what their strengths are and what they're brilliant at. And so, you know, for me, it's really important as a mother, as a leader, you know, to make women understand that actually doesn't matter if you've got 70%, that's brilliant, go for it. Because actually that next job or whatever it is that you want to do, it's like the 30% is your stretch and that's your growth. And you're only growing

when you feel a little bit of, you know, a bit uncomfortable, a bit of, you know, that sort of feeling in your tummy when you're like, you know, can sometimes feel a little bit, you know, sick. But that sort of growth comes from feeling uncomfortable and you need that stretch. You need that 30%. And so, and I feel like in my career, going to Google was when it gave me permission. I had amazing managers, amazing mentors, who pushed me and believed in me. And so that's why I feel so passionately about, you know, doing the same for women. I think it's because, as well, a lot of women, especially, you know, my mum, she's retired now, but she used to have a good job in an office.

And my dad was one of the managers there. And I remember she said to me, your dad and all these friends were always very skilled. They've got that job because they're so skilled, she said, I was apparently very lucky. Yes, it's very interesting. me and the other women. Yeah. You're so lucky to be doing this. And she said, I'd be like,

I'm qualified as well. I'm not lucky. Yeah, I've worked. And she had my sister and she had time off with my sister. And then she went back and then she had me and had time off with me.

And she still went back and worked her way up. You know, she didn't just waltz back in and say, oh, my husband works here. She worked. But she said, I was just told, you've done well, you aren't you,

aren't you lucky? You're like, no. And she was, you know, she was exhausted. She was working, coming home, I'm doing the kids. And it's only now I look back and think, wow, that I think, I don't know if it's still the same now.

I think maybe to some extent, but it's always been that men have worked really hard. Women are really lucky. And I think it has changed a lot. When I reflect back on my childhood and it was, you know, I had a very traditional family structure and I look at my parents and their friends and men were the breadwinners. You know, there are a lot of super, really smart, really charismatic, amazing women. But the men were the breadwinners. and that has changed a lot

and certainly for my generation and my friends a lot of my friends do work and we have carved out a sort of a new way of balancing work and motherhood and that's not always straightforward I'm sure we're going to talk about that but it's different times but I think language is important

so you use the word lucky so often like in my childhood I was referred to as bossy or you know which is actually you know, if I was a boy, it may be you're demonstrating strong leadership skills, you know, whereas a girl is bossy, a bit annoying, you know, a bit bossy. And also like in the workplace, quite often I'll call people up on women up on the language they use. I was interviewing someone the other day and said, this might be a silly thing to say and I stopped her. Don't ever say that. You've completely undermined what you're saying. It's not silly, actually. She went on to say,

it was brilliant. So language is really important and being aware of it yourself. but also calling it out and coaching people on how to reframe what they're saying to come across as more assertive. One of my bugbeys, and I try to tell my team or encourage my team not to, is apologising at the start of an email. Oh gosh. And it just demeans your message immediately. And I catch myself doing it and I can, I'm way enough to stop doing it. But the more union members of staff still do it. And it's a female trait to that soon.

I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry, but. Yeah. So in, so I work, Floresy. flexibly in my career for about 15 years when my kids were younger. And I remember, so I worked four days and I used to not work on a Wednesday. And I remember when I worked for an advertising agency and my out of office said, I'm so sorry that I don't work on a Wednesday.

I'm sorry for the inconvenience of course. You know, it was just sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry. And it was a client of mine at the time who the next day said, rewrite you're out of office. What are you apologising for? You'll pay to work four days a week. And so that's what you're doing. And so, yeah, that's just what you're doing.

example of many where women apologize and you've got to stop apologising. So you have two children. They're slightly older now. One is at university or they both they both. I've got two daughters. One's 19 and one's 15. My eldest has just gone to university and my youngest is doing her GCSEs, which is fun. I love that you've got two girls as well like to have a role model like yourself. Oh, amazing, amazing girls. Amazing, you know. And keep me honest as well. They're absolutely fantastic. But navigating a career like yours while having children, it's tricky. I have two children.

I have a 14-year-old boys, almost 14 and a 10-year-old. And I've worked almost exclusively full-time, apart from a very short period. And it really is tough. The juggle is tough, isn't it? Yeah, it is tough. And do you know what? The thing that I find most frustrating is when executive and leaders make out that it's really straightforward. And when you have the whole, like, and I meditate at 5 in the morning,

and then I go for a run. and then I, you know, it's unhelpful. It's really unhelpful. Because the reality is it can be, it can be hard. And you have times where you don't quite get the balance right. And, you know, you're constantly making sure that you are doing what's right for, you know, for your family. And obviously your career as well, if, you know, if that's important. But I mean, I'm, I've got an incredible husband who is incredibly, really hands on and amazing.

He's a film producer. And so he works, sometimes he's on location and he can be. out for a while but then he's around a lot and he is he's a better cook than me he's more creative he's amazing let's just describe goka that's genuinely my partner really so he's a dancer so he's fantastic and he's home with our kids now while i'm here but we kind of like now he's off he's not doing his tour now till march so from january till march now i can come and do this i've got my radio show he's at home manning the children and then when strictly starts or his tour starts, it'll be I'll have to say no to more things. But it's not for a reason of I'm being

ungrateful or I'm being lazy. I physically, I'm going to be with my children. And it's things like when I had my little lads too now, but I remember I took a year off maternity leave with my first and with my second, I remember being asked, are you going to take the full year or are you going to do like six months or so? And I thought, oh my gosh, what, I felt like uneasy. So in the end, I met them in the middle. I said, I'll do nine months. And I went back in after nine months, I don't want another three months at home And I still to this day get angry at myself That I didn't have

The full year Yeah when I was in a position today I know not everyone can But I thought That's one year of his life going And I'm back here You know And it's that mental juggle

I think that Like you say women struggle with Am I doing the right thing I'm trying to thrive in my career But my kids aren't with me Or I'm at home with my kids And they need me But also in that aspect

I'm losing out on work It's a really difficult balance It's difficult, exactly. And it's, I think the most important thing is you're constantly assessing it. Like, you know, what's working, what isn't working? You know, and what can you change? You know, sometimes financially, you can't change things. You know, but there are times when you've got choices and you can make different choices.

And for me, actually, I was fortunate in being able to take a sabbatical. So my daughters both had really critical years at school. My eldest was doing GCSEs and my youngest was doing, had her first year at secondary school. And my husband was filming in Thailand. for eight months and it was COVID-ish. It was at the end of COVID, so you couldn't come back. So I decided that I wanted to have that time at home with the girls, looking after them and being able to support, you know, that kind of important education year.

And I was lucky financially. I'm using the word lucky because I was in this situation. Financially, I was able to take that time off as well. And I remember telling my team that I was going to have this year out of work. And they said, so what are you going to do? Are you going to learn another language? sure are you going to write a book? I said, no, I'm not learning Mandarin. I'm not doing anything. I'm just being at home. And I loved it. I really enjoyed it. And I also realized that I can do

that. I can take time out of work. I feel like my dog did slightly receive the sort of the drive that I had. And part of that was because my husband is the master. The dog loves my husband. And when my husband went away, the dog had no respect for me at all. And so we did some dog training and I got into it. And then I did agility training. And then it was sniffing. for dog training and then one of my friends said, I think you might need to just stop the dog training. Yeah. Yeah. It's like filling your time with other things. Did you, did you at any point feel, because I'm thinking that would be a brilliant thing to do, was you at any points where you thought, he felt guilty for not being at work? No, I didn't. No, I really didn't. What was interesting was

before I went away, a few of my network, and it was actually men commented on the fact that by me taking time out of the workplace, I was demonstrating that I wasn't ambitious. And, And that jarred a bit, but at the same time, I was very confident on my beliefs. And actually at Google, you're encouraged to, I was at Google at the time, encouraged to write a personal development plan. So earlier on when you asked about being intentional, I wasn't intentional earlier on in my career. But in the latter part of my career, I've been very intentional. And so I had three jobs that I wanted to do. And my first one was YouTube MD.

And it was actually the last month of my sematical that the, incumbent decided that he was moving on to a different role and that job became available. And so I came back into the workplace, really fresh, loads of energy, really intentional and knowing that that was the job that I really wanted and then went through, you know, extensive interviewing and got the role. So there are times when taking risks do pay off if you are able to, you know, make those choices. It takes a remarkable amount of confidence though to take a year out of your career and be convinced you'll stay on the same trajectory. I'm not sure I have that in a steel that you have.

I'm sure you do. I'm sure you do. Yeah. Yeah. Because even when we talked about maternity leave, I didn't take the full time off with either of my children because I felt I had to come back to the office

to stay on the hamster wheel, which is a shame. And I wish I had more of you. Well, I'm sure you do. So let's talk about it afterwards. I find as well, I'm getting better at it. But when I say I'm not working,

I'm sometimes still I'm working on my phone. in the evening I'm replying to emails and finalising things because I've been busy in the day and then I've been at work in the afternoons. Do you have your own switch-off point where you think I'm not in the office, I'm not responding it. I mean, I know you email are all kinds of different. You're always...

I know, but that's not, I'm not supposed to be, so... No, no, but I'm saying you don't stop. I don't switch off, no, I'm terrible. Do you think it's important that we do? It's really hard, isn't it? So I'm a, we, there are segregators and integrators, so people who, naturally actually don't mind integrating work into home life, which that might be you. I think that probably is me.

That probably don't mind it. I'm a segregator where I need to switch off. But I find it increasingly hard with, you know, to move into that integration because there's more stuff coming, you know, in the evenings or particularly if you work in global organisations. But to me, weekends are really precious. Like weekends are work because I need to recharge. I really need to recharge. And I know that it's a better version of myself when I've recharged. Yeah.

If I work seven days a week, I won't be very good at my job. And so it's kind of staying in that segregated mode is really important to me. But it can be challenging. I totally hear you. And I think sometimes the hard thing is also it's the headspace, isn't it? Yeah. You come back at home and your head's still a bit full. And so it's like making sure that you try to decompress and get out of that work mode.

And so you're really present. You know, you're really present at home. You're really present, you know, with your kids. Because you're a leader, you're a senior leader, you're a female leader, and that is emotionally draining, intellectually exhausting. What is your leadership style today and has it evolved over the years? Yeah, so my role model is Serena Vigman. In terms of leadership style, what I love about her is that she's high performance, but she's human connection. You know, that's, and that, that to me is a sweet spot where she does both really, really well.

And that's what I've always strived to be. Actually, probably one of the highlights of my year last year was amazing feedback I got from someone in my team who said that I coupled fierce ambition with genuine compassion. And to me, that was literally like the nicest thing that anyone has said because that's what I want to do. And you never know how well you're achieving it. So that is my goal to be like that.

How it's changed, it's definitely evolved over the years. I think my biggest challenge in leadership was when I jumped up from running a team of people where I knew them well and was very involved in the day to day to running a team of teams. So you've got managers who then got their own teams. And the first time I got a role like that, which was my big step up onto the UK management team at a UK leadership team at Google, wasn't very good at it. And I got some feedback from my team that, you know, I was all over the place, very busy. I also talked a lot about being busy, which wasn't very inspiring. Yeah. And I, I favoured extroverts rather than introverts. So my leadership, so was very quick, very quick in meetings, decisions, decisions. Whereas that, and so that feedback was hard. It hit me quite hard. But it really made me reassess how I showed up as a leader. And simply things like, you know, for meetings, setting agendas, sending pre-reads beforehand. So ensuring introverts had time to absorb the information and come prepared with what they wanted to say. much deeper, much deeper thinking. And I set clear revisions. And so my leadership style was much

about galvanising and motivating teams as opposed to feeling like I had to be in the detail of it too. And so that, I'd say those two years, I really adapted my leadership style. And you said you need time to recover like reset at the weekends. When it comes to health and wellness, do you have like daily habits that you swear by to keep yourself mentally and physically? Because again, a lot of women listening will be at the point in the career where they are just about to, you know, be at the pinnacle, but they might have parents who are elderly in nursing homes, teenagers. So you're managing that a lot of the times, perimenopause, menopause. Yeah.

Is the daily habits that you swear by to keep yourself physically fit? Yeah, so I do yoga and stretching for 15 minutes every morning. Right. And I do it every morning. And I love it. And it just mentally gets me into the right zone. and it's obviously really good for general movement and mobility. So that is my, I do that every day.

And then I do quite regular fitness. And so PT, so I go to the gym, reform of Pilates. And I'm trying to get back into tennis as well. So there are things that I do. I actually wish that I'd done more in my 40s. So I'm now 52. Find it hard. I keep thinking I'm 50, but I think I'm going to stick at 50.

Yeah. And there's women who are men who just love out of their age. That will always be 50. And I wish I'd done more of it in my 40s. So that is something I look back on and wish that I had prioritised a bit more fitness in my 40s. And one thing which I know we'd probably come on to talking about it, but it seems like a good time to talk about it now. But when I hit 50, it's my fabulous 50 year.

I was diagnosed of breast cancer. And so completely out of the blue, found a lump, you know, in the shower. and this was, yeah, nearly two years ago, which obviously turned my world upside down and that has really reset my wellness, my nutrition, my fitness and everything else. How did you give yourself permission being as busy as you are to heal and recover from breast cancer

because we've interviewed people on this podcast actually who have had breast cancer that have said they've been tackling emails while having chemo, etc. Did you give yourself space to properly, emotionally and physically recover from that? Yeah, it's a great question. So I made the decision that I, so in terms of my diagnosis, just for context, is it was caught very early, but I had a higher than average chance of it recurring. And so that's why they decided that to give me chemotherapy.

And so I had six months of chemotherapy and then I had radiotherapy. and I made the decision that I wanted to carry on working if I could work. So I would say probably the hardest thing that I've ever done as a leader, probably as a person, is sending that email to my team to say, I've got breast cancer and this is the plan. I want to carry on working, but let's see how it goes. Instead of showing that vulnerability as a leader, I've always tried to be vulnerable, but this was another level of vulnerability.

And every cancer journey is really unique. And what I didn't want my team to think was that if they ever had a health crisis or experienced cancer, that they had to work. You know, I didn't want to be a bad role model. But at the same time, I recognised for myself that that's what I wanted to do. And so I actually wrote a one pager which had like frequently asked questions. So the first question was, why are you working? Second question was, will you lose your hair? And so I answered all of the questions that I thought that they had that they would find difficult to ask me.

and then I updated that throughout. And I had some brilliant advice from someone that I knew. And I've got friends who've had breast cancer who some work, some didn't work, it was whatever was best for them. But I had a friend of one who did continue working which said I've got two pieces of advice. One is have counselling every two weeks. And the second is have a manicure every two weeks. Oh, yeah.

And so I did. I went to my local nail, put my mask on and had my manicure. And, you know, that just helped me feel a bit better, you know, physically a bit better. And so I carried in working. I just worked internal. I worked from home. I couldn't do any of the external, you know, all the amazing things I can do like being on a podcast like this or, you know, all the events that I normally go to. And I did my internal role.

And that worked for me. And I tried to, you know, ensure that I carved out the time, whether it was doing yoga or it was counseling or whatever to make sure that I was strong mentally and also physically. And then in terms of after. afterwards, I've really reset. I've really reset. You know, I thought I was healthy. I was quite healthy. But it turned out there was a lot that I could change. So like nutrition. My kids now call me almond mum, which they're really disappointed that our snack jaw has been depleted. And now, you know, much healthy. I did this amazing nutritional workshop at a charity called Future Dreams, which is a house in Kings Cross and sort of reset my diet. And then I really

focused on strength. So that's when I started doing more of the strength. Yeah, it's strength work. And I wish I'd done that a bit earlier. And then just really upped all of my sort of fitness and well-being. So take you back to your nutrition. You've changed your nutrition or you've gone to a whole food diet by the sound of it then. Have you cut out sugar more or less? Yes, I've cut out. I mean, I do have, I do have all bits of sugar, but I've cut out a lot of sugar and much less alcohol, so minimal alcohol and, you know, lots of protein and fibre and, you know, everything else and that's, you know, it's really positive. That's really positive. So how was it rejoining the workplace after going through such an emotional challenging time? It was great. It was just

great. I enjoyed being with people again, you know, just being able to do the job that I love. and one of the areas that I love about my, you know, that I love most about my job is spending time with YouTube creators. And I have to say that when I was, you know, when I was going through my breast cancer journey, and when I say was actually I still am, because it doesn't end, does it? You know, I'm still being monitored and I still have medication that I take.

But there were a lot of YouTube creatives who were incredibly supportive and had incredible advice as well. There's an amazing woman called Dr. Lizar Rieden, who's a breast cancer surgeon, who's had breast cancer as well. I did my Pilates with Lily Sabri who I think you know the fabulous Lily and so like YouTube was all YouTube and YouTube creator was constant when I was when I was going through challenge you know those challenging months but being back in the workplace and being able to spend time with them and I guess so I'm so inspired by their stories you know they're they're

entrepreneurs they're building businesses they're carving out new paths they're you know doing things differently and so so I've just loved being back you know in the workplace Because it must be such an exciting place to work YouTube. Lily Sabry, who you mentioned. I interviewed her at Web Summit as we discussed and listening to her talking about her building her business and create her economy and how anyone can set themselves up on YouTube and make a living out of it

and all these inspiring, exciting people and you get to work with them on a daily basis. Yeah, exactly. And that's what YouTube's mission is. Give everyone a voice and show them in the world. And people like Lily, you know, she's been able to do that through her Pilate. content, but actually off the back of that, she's built an app. You know, she's created products.

She's, you know, these are businesses that start off being content led, but actually is so much more than that. And what we're seeing now is, you know, so many are building their own production studios. And so, you know, we talk about them as next-gen production companies. You know, they really, they really are. They're now big business and diversifying. And and there are brilliant, brilliant strength for the UK creative industries as a whole as well. So, yeah, it's fascinating and incredibly inspiring. It's a great platform for everything, really. If you want to learn an instrument, you can do it on YouTube,

if you want to entertain the kids. You know, it's the amount of times where I've kind of, I mean, not long ago, I had to sew a button on me as Cardigan, so I watched a demo on YouTube of how to do it because I've never sold before. What advice, well, not even advice, for you, if I was to ask you, your next 10-year plan for yourself, for the business, for the industry.

Where do you see yourself in the next 10 years? Have you got more things you want to do? So I, I mean, I love my job. I feel very privileged that I've got, you know, one of the best jobs. If you're not the best job in the UK at the moment. You know, YouTube really is at the cutting edge of everything that's going on in media and entertainment and music and it's incredible.

And I really see the role of the creator economy just getting bigger. You know, we're seeing now a lot of interest, media interest, in acquisitions and buying YouTube creators and their businesses. We're seeing a lot of more traditional talent, you know, people like Anton Dek or Pierce Morgan, you know, moving on to YouTube. So there's so much more growth of YouTube. And then in terms of what's next, I, you know, I'd love to continue working in this space. You know, maybe at some stage to take on a non-exec director role, which is maybe outside of my core role. But I certainly see there's plenty to keep me, you know, inspired and busy, you know, over the next five to ten years. And do your daughter share the same passion, or are they the one who's gone to uni? Are they doing something completely different? Well, I mean, it's interesting you mentioned about music. So she's studying music and she taught herself to play the piano on YouTube.

She played the guitar. She did a lot of things. And so we said she couldn't have piano lessons. And so she taught herself how to play Bohemian Rhapsody on YouTube, played it to the school. And the headmaster said maybe she should get her piano lessons. And actually she's gone on to study music at university. So, yeah. And my youngest daughter, she's very creative.

She's, you know, I can see her working in the creative industries in some shape or form, whether it's creative economy or full or a similar path to my husband in, you know, in film. But they love it, you know, they love the fact that it's, you know, they see the role that I have and they can't believe that I've met Angry Ginge or Molly May or whoever else. You know, they're blown away by that. That's my job. You have a super cool mum, yeah. Yeah.

I don't think I'm ever, I don't think your mum's ever cool, but, you know. Oh, you know. Secretly are. I think they are. I think we're all cool moms. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Yeah.

You are. We always see us in a high rocks. Yeah. And they'll be like, no. My kids always say, like, whenever they ever hear me working from home, they always say, I've got a work voice. Oh, you've got the work voice. Oh, you've got the phone voice. Yeah.

She had a phone voice. She'd pick up the phone. Hello, hello, general vacuum equipment. And she'd go, oh, I, Jen. And then suddenly go back to Northern Broad when she knew it was me. That's hilarious. But if it was a potential client, she was very, yeah. I've created a bit of a monster with my daughter.

She's 10 and we are appearing in some commercial content for Hearst. And she said, well, Mummy, well, I get glam, which is hair and makeup. And I said, what do you need glam for? She went, well, my, mommy, I must have glam to be camera ready. And I was like, you have spent far too much time. She'd be on set too much, haven't she? That's hilarious. So, yeah, she's picked up some of my vernacular.

That's brilliant. What advice would you give an aspiring female leader of the future that maybe does have a bit of imposter syndrome or maybe feels a bit too exhausted and not sure how she can embrace it into our already very full life? Yeah. So I would say ask for help. Like ask for, I think quite often as women, we don't, we don't ask enough for help. We don't stop and think who can help me? And I think that I've certainly learnt that. So I have something called a personal boardroom where I've got a list of people who I use for different roles.

like I've got my motivator, I've got my agitator, I've got someone I go to if I want a different point of view. So you think about your network, think about who's in your network, and ask for support and help, whether it's about, you know, giving you a bit of confidence or whether it's given you a different perspective. I think it's really important. And I think quite often also women don't have sponsors or use their sponsors. So there's, so, you know, mentoring and sponsoring is obviously very important in business. Mentoring, it's, you know, mentoring is. is investing time, you know, I put in time and I have five mentoring sessions with you, sponsoring is investing in you. And so they are the behind-the-scenes conversations that people

are advocating for you, you know, saying that you're the next person who should get that role or take on that project. And I think quite often women don't understand the role of sponsorship within business. And if they have sponsors or if they use their sponsors. And so that's really important. Because asking for help is not a weakness. We can't all possibly know everything, but I think that's a fear that a lot of women have, that if I ask for help, is showing that I don't know something,

which makes me lesser. Exactly. And actually probably quite a pivotal time for me when in my career was when I was at Google, and I had an amazing manager who recognized that I didn't really like public speaking. And he saw that I had potential, but he saw that actually this was something

that could hold me back. And so he said to me, right, at the sales conference in Las Vegas, I want you to host a session. I mean that filled me with absolute dread and I thought about it overnight I rang a friend of mine who's a coach and she's the person that I go to

for that sort of motivational advice and she said to me how would you feel if you were in the audience and it wasn't you on stage and it was such a brilliant question because I thought I'd be really annoyed to myself and so I did it but I said to my manager

I need some help I need someone to help me run the session structure it give me a bit of a boost before I do it and I did it and I loved it I came off stage I felt like I played at the OTA too. I was literally like, woo-hoo! And I realised that there are things that can be a massive block, but if you break it down and you ask for help at the right time, actually you can

overcome them and that can be really liberating. Yeah. And with the asking for help, one of my old producers, he used to say at the end of every meeting and at the end of every email, any questions, queries or comments. And it was a little session he'd do for anyone with a question, a query or a comment. And it was known for anyone could go in. And he'd say, was it question, query or comment? Come on in. Brilliant. And it was, you just made, it was just a known thing.

And at the end of every email, as ever, questions, queries or comments, always welcome. And the amount of people it brought to him. And like he said, sometimes the queries was, I'm splitting up, I'm having a divorce, I need this, this and this, in which case he brings someone else in. But he said, had he not opened that up, he would never know that person's personal struggle at home whilst coming into work. Now he's been made aware of it. You can work with it.

I love that. Actually, I have something which I call it. It's like office hours. But it's just, I mean, it's not very popular because I think everyone's like, ooh. Whereas actually something like wording it like that is much more inviting, isn't it? Question, query or comment. Excellent. I'm going to take that.

Take it. And it's good for kids as well. He said he used it on his kids as well. He'd be like, how's your day been at school? You've got any questions, queries or comments for me? And he said his kids would open up to him. And it could be something silly like I wanted the red pen and Harriet got it. He said, oh, it could be something like such a body said something and it really hurt my feelings.

And it's much better than saying, how's your day? Yeah, it's a little game, isn't it? It's big and it's too open and where'd you start, whereas that is... It's a little game in a way. So I've... Brilliant. Love that. Love that.

Yeah, take it. Well, before we wrap up, we always finish on some quickfire questions. Oh, goodness. Fun ones. Right, so Gemma and I have invited ourselves to yours for dinner because I hear there's some after eight games that might go on there as well you were telling me earlier, what are you going to make us?

So my husband is a much better cook than me. So if you came to our house, you would have the luxury of my husband cooking Asian fusion. Oh, nice. So he, and what he, I mean, we do laugh because he loves chopping. He'd spend a day chopping.

He'd spend a lot of time, you know, making sure the fusion of the right ingredients and creating something absolutely, you delicious. And I'd be responsible for dessert, which, you know, as we talked about earlier on the after-eight game, go back to a 1970s parlour game. Explain the after-I, I hadn't even heard the after-aid. It got any face. Yeah, I'd never... Exactly. We had a dinner party last weekend and a friend and a friend brought after-rates. You put it on your forehead and then without using your hands, you have to eat the after-oids. Navigate it to your mouth. But it was so

fun. And I hadn't had after-rates for years. I mean, like 20 years. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. So. It's a little to be that at a dinner these days, isn't it? Yeah, absolutely. The next question is you have one object to take only on a desert island. You're there for a year and you can only take one thing. What will it be? Oh, what a brilliant question. A record player.

That's a good one. We've not had that, have we? Just an actual vinyl record player. Yeah, so my eldest daughter bought a record player recently, and it's been amazing getting back into vinyl again. I mean, I'd obviously need to take the records as well. But it's just a lovely way of listening to music because listening to albums again,

as opposed to listening to a playlist. And you sort of have a deeper immersion into an artist. There's a certain smell of a vinyl as well. I remember my dad had a cupboard and it was just all vinyl records, yeah, and you used to open it. It was a bit like when you go to a library book. And you can smell. It's like a nice musty smell.

It's something about. That's so true. And just like digging into the archives of vinyl. And also the covers, like the, you know, the amazing designs of, you know, the actual covers. Well, here's a question. It's not one of our quick fires, but can you remember the first vinyl record you bought? I think I can. Yeah.

What was your first one? The one that sticks out for me is pills and thrillers and belly aches happy Mondays. I remember, yeah, that was, I remember having that in 12-inch. I think mine was Stevie Wonder. songs in the key of life. Yeah, nice. I remember buying that later on. Lovely.

Yeah. You're going to laugh at mine now. Mine was Do the Bartman. And it was, um, it was Bart Simpson. It was a little purple one. And it's Michael Jackson, but he did, it's Do the Bartman and it was a Bart Simpson theme tune. Yeah, that's just quite a cool track. It'd be good on YouTube now, actually.

And have you still got vinyl? Have you kept your, your records? No, but fun fact about me is I used to have decks, 1210s. Yeah. For you a DJ? Yeah. And they're all still in my parents' attic, all these records, these 12 inches,

like all old house records. That's amazing. That's amazing. And you still DJ? Well, no, because it's in my appearance attic. Do you should get them out? I should get them out. I was a bit of a clever in my days in my wild days.

But I mean, you know, there's a shortage of female DJs. Yeah. I know. Just pack that into my already busy. Exactly. Sorry, I don't want to add to your load. Bring them to the party. We'll have music.

And then the after eight game. Right. Just, yeah, and Asian fusion. Exactly. It sounds like a good night. But the next question on our list is coffee or wine? Oh, great question. I'd say the old Alison would have said wine.

The new Alison would say coffee. Yeah, we like coffee, don't we? Yeah. What was the last thing that made you belly laugh? I would say New Year's Eve. We were at a party. It was six university friends and all their family. and kids

and just seeing all the kids, you know, just dancing, dancing with us. You know, we were all dancing. And, you know, the fact that we were dancing to like stuff that, you know, music I love like the killers and, you know, and they love that too. And we just, we laughed all night.

Oh, that's nice. That's a nice form. And the final question, what's one thing somebody listening or watching can do today to make themselves feel a little bit better? Just be kind to yourself. You know, I think, you know, we can give. We can be so hard on ourselves.

It's just take that time to be kind to yourself and be grateful for, you know, what you're doing. You've got one precious life. Enjoy it. And there are so many more things that we can do to enhance that and to improve that. I saw a quote the other day and it said, people say you only live once. And they said it's wrong.

You live every day. I love that. You only die once. You live every day. So you've got to choose what you do. Yeah. day. Exactly.

And it's being conscious and being, you know, intentional about it. And enjoying it. Enjoy life. Certainly something that I've learned in the last couple of years. You know, having had the perspective of health challenges, it's just to enjoy it. You know, make the most of every opportunity. And as you say, like every day. Well, that was fantastic.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. It's been lovely to meet you. Excellent. Really. Yeah.

I really enjoyed it.