ImpactExpertsQT: Nicola Grant

Nicola Grant is a leader with a heartfelt mission: creating equitable opportunities and empowering individuals to navigate life’s complexities with confidence. From designing leadership programs that prioritize emotional intelligence for both men and women to her innovative SHe2 initiative focused on building financial resilience for women experiencing challenging relationship breakdowns, Nicola’s work embodies compassion and practicality.

Join us as Nicola reflects on her journey, from her entrepreneurial highs and lows to her proudest achievements, including the inspiring Wonder Women book series. Through candid stories, key lessons, and her unwavering belief in the power of community, Nicola invites us to rethink the ways we approach leadership, equity, and meaningful impact.

What is the biggest thing you have done to create or improve social impact?

To date, create programmes for leadership that focus on feelings and emotions delivered to men and women together to create equity of opportunity in the workplace. Ask me in a year and I am hopeful I will answer with our new plans for SHe2 which I am really excited about and will centre on improving financial resilience of women navigating complex relationship breakdowns.

If you were the Prime Minister, what would you do to improve the UK for everyone?

I would ensure that every child receives relevant and consistent financial education throughout secondary and tertiary schooling, with building blocks that teach saving, budgeting, investing, and how these skills impact both daily life and long-term plans. This would make taking control of their financial future an intuitive approach for future generations.

For adults, and women in particular, it is an easy to access online learning and information hub of independent,relatable and accessible advice for everything finance related from protecting credit rating to mortgages, insurance, pensions, investments, tax.

Women need to understand the long term implications of not being knowledgeable and in charge of their own financial future. Widespread research shows that they experience significant financial risk at particular points in their lives compared to men. Societal bias, time out for child caring, domestic burden, pay gap, lack of professional advancement opportunity all contribute.

The difference Financial Resilience can make to the direction, quality and happiness of lives as individuals and society, removing some of the burden from the state makes huge economic sense.

What is your biggest work lesson? And why?

Having worked in many work environments from large corporate to start up; happy and fun to toxic and draining; I have personally seen the following as important differentiators no matter the size or sector:

By getting to know and understand our colleagues and peers’ personal stories and the context of their life starting point and challenges, we can feel truly connected and care about the people we work with. By focusing on connecting employees emotionally, we create a loyal work community of kindness, trust and empathy that will have a long term impact on culture that has positive benefits for company and individuals; everyone thrives.

It is often the quiet, thoughtful members of the team that create the most meaningful contributions to a project. Visibility is important, but not for its own sake. Truly and actively listening leads to thoughtful and credible input that is powerful and has incrementally more impact long term and can create more engaged, collaborative teams who really enjoy working together and hence positive culture.

Can you share some key milestones or proudest moments in your career?

I am an all things bakery and cake obsessive. When I was based in Yorkshire, I was lucky enough to build a small business, Little Barn,  supplying cakes and desserts to hospitality businesses. We grew from 1-10 pastry chefs and I was living my dream, talking to chefs, designing menus and elbowing my way to chief taster role. I was very fortunate to have outbuildings at home which allowed me to grow and run the business whilst my daughters were small. We also stocked ready-made chilled mixes to bake at home and got listings in some pretty fancy London food halls as well as a range of farm shops and a national restaurant chain (If you ever need a large pallet stacking and wrapping, just shout). We won a number of regional and national awards and ended up providing the desserts for a regional state banquet for the Queens Diamond Jubilee celebrations.

Sadly the business hit financial difficulties and I had to close. Letting my team go and leaving behind all that I built was one the hardest decisions I have ever made. The guilt and shame of failing took a long time to fade (this was before we had started positively looking at failing in any way) and it was a very long time before I ate cake again… I often think about what I would do differently now and a new iteration of Little Barn still sits on my work bucket list.

In terms of impact related achievements and absolutely proudest achievement, it is without doubt, SHe2’s Wonder Woman book series. It started as a one off  “handbook” for our SHe2 community, but we are now planning our third and fourth editions.

The idea for the first book came from the many inspiring conversations I was and am fortunate to take part in as part of my job. The positive benefit I feel each time from hearing women’s story behind the story of their careers, irrespective of the starting point in life, never fails to inspire me. They are all diverse, unique… and yet at the same time connected. A source of inspiration for other future leaders which highlights, amongst other things, that rarely anyone has their life plans nailed at eighteen and we continue every day to juggle, figure things out, fail to cope and make small incremental changes when we can. It has been amazing to witness the empowering effect it has also had on those contributors who have finally taken the time to realise how far they have come and all the amazing wins- big and small, work and home- they have achieved along the way. To be involved with such an amazing and uplifting project fills me with gratitude and I cannot wait to expand our Wonder Women plans.

What is your most embarrassing moment at work?

Setting aside the early work years litany of “honesty through alcohol” moments, one or two wardrobe malfunctions and choking on a proffered cigarette in a bid to be part of the popular work hard/pay hard sales team; Oh the joys of nineties work culture.

It was during a corporate weekend away from my fast growing employer which brought together teams from all over Europe, many of whom barely knew each other, never mind their further afield colleagues. The focus was very much about creating bonds through various sporting and social activities, with a small element of healthy competitiveness – we were a sales company after all. As someone who spent every PE lesson hiding where possible and was invariably left standing when the teams were picked, this was my worst nightmare. No happy endings there as my lack of sporting prowess played out in technicolour for all to see. My hope to restore my confidence and standing with my peers was further crushed that evening with the announcement of  enforced karaoke in randomly allocated cross office pairs with song choice decided in advance.

I was partnered with a shy, albeit enthusiastic, German colleague who spoke little English, our song was Grease, you’re the one that I want and leather jackets were produced from the ether to complete the most unlikely Danny and Sandy you have witnessed.  The only thing worse than my lack of natural sporting talent is my lack of ability to sing a note along with hatred of being in the limelight.

Let’s just say the outcome was entirely as expected, humiliating for me, hilarious for the rest of the company and one that provides an infinite source of amusement for my colleagues, most Fridays at the pub and at all future cross company gatherings. I would advise other routes to gaining visibility in the workplace…

What is the thing that brings you the most #workkjoy?

Spending time with a room full of engaging people from all backgrounds and experiences and listening to their stories and automatically thinking of people and companies to connect them with, whether it is someone who will help them on their personal or professional journey or simply bring some joy and connection.

I am a huge “dot connector” of people and a great believer in the power of leveraging everyone’s talents and expertise to go further faster and create a far more impactful long term outcome. I believe in the power of community to make a difference and  am ever so slightly addicted to making meaningful introductions as it brings me a great sense of joy and fulfillment.

What is one of your pet hates? Why?

People that justify every lack of negative or unhelpful workplace behaviour with an attitude, expressed or otherwise of “That is just me”. As someone who is passionate about , and works within, the areas  of diversity and authenticity in the workplace, this can be problematic. I have always been curious and committed to a life long learning approach from a personal growth as well as knowledge perspective. Hence I am constantly trying to ensure that how I behave towards and treat other people is balanced by what feels authentic and true to myself. The reality of  creating a psychologically safe and thriving culture that works for everyone, is that consideration and compromise for everyone must be a central tenet. Those that have a fixed mindset approach and are comfortable with bringing their whole selves to work without any boundaries or environment awareness, can cause huge negative impact on those around them.

Who or what inspires you to continue pushing the boundaries of ethical and impact driven business practices?

Who are the women and men I meet every day, doing the quiet, unseen work required to really make a difference in and throughout  their work and other areas of  their life. Mostly without announcement or acknowledgment. 

What are the continued fundamental inequities that women face at home, work, culturally and societally. I feel a sense of frustration, anger and drive that we are faced with the overwhelming research that women are still struggling in many practical and emotional  areas of their life where  access to equal opportunity to fulfill their potential should be an automatic right. There are still overwhelming too many foundational areas such as education, work, home, finances where our society is simply not fit for purpose. Yes I am looking at you United Kingdom; quite incredible this is the case in 2024 and we should ALL be ashamed and galvanised to do more.



What is your favourite quote?

Be Kind, creative, ambitious, brave, thoughtful, honest and true. Be passionate, authentic and try your absolute best in all that you do. Be forever grateful for the old and the new and always remember that there’s nobody like you.

I am constantly inspired by quotes and kind comments by ordinary people every day. It is hard to pick one that speaks to me no matter whatever my mood and what I am focused on. However I have a print that sits on the wall in front of me and is not only beautifully designed and written by a lovely young artist called Stacey at Darwin and Gray, but is one of the most consistently motivating collecting of words I refer to, Even if I achieve one element a day I feel I am making a small step forward in working towards a life of meaning for me and, hopefully, others.

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