Never Settle Podcast

Social Good Connect Ep. 4 #NeverSettle Season 4

Caroline McKenna is the founder of Social Good Connect, an organisation helping charities and social enterprises to develop, grow and prosper. They're on a mission to build connected communities through an online platform that connects employees with charities to positively impact the communities in which we live and work. In response to the Coronavirus crisis and the demand for volunteering across Scotland, Social Good Connect accelerated their digital platform to launch during the Coronavi...

La Fabrica Girona Ep. 3 #NeverSettle Season 4

La Fabrica is a cycle cafe in the heart of Girona, merging the passions of its founders, husband and wife Christian and Amber, their vision and heart. Amber and Christian moved to Spain over 12 years ago when the promising career of a professional cyclist was offered to Christian in Girona. Starting as a Stagiaire, he was able to work his way to the top tier of the peloton, riding in races he had only dreamed of as a child. World Championships, The Classics in Europe to the National Champion...

Goose's Quizzes Ep. 2 #NeverSettle Season 4

Goose's Quizzes are an Edinburgh based pub quiz company, taking a design-led approach to the world of pub quizzes. Since the Coronavirus lockdown, founder Goose has moved Goose's Quizzes entirely online, hosting pub quizzes every night on Twitch. In the space of just a few weeks, Goose’s Quizzes gained thousands of new followers, built a growing online community and created an entirely new revenue stream overnight, all driven by their purpose of bringing joy to viewers every single day. Join...

Goose's Quizzes Ep. 2 #NeverSettle Season 4

Goose's Quizzes are an Edinburgh based pub quiz company, taking a design-led approach to the world of pub quizzes. Since the Coronavirus lockdown, founder Goose has moved Goose's Quizzes entirely online, hosting pub quizzes every night on Twitch. In the space of just a few weeks, Goose’s Quizzes gained thousands of new followers, built a growing online community and created an entirely new revenue stream overnight, all driven by their purpose of bringing joy to viewers every single day. Join...

Vero Recruitment Ep. 1 #NeverSettle Season 4

Vero are an Aberdeen-based recruitment agency disrupting their industry with an approach that's transparent, trusted and, most of all, human. Vero are unashamedly selective in their recruitment process and are amazing at what they do, taking a content-led approach to finding the right people for organistions. In this episode, you’ll hear co-founder Andrew Ferguson’s story, his forward-thinking approach to recruitment and his insights on finding the right people for your organisation. You can...

Johanna Basford Ep. 6 #NeverSettle Season 3

To round off Season 3, we’re chatting with Illustrator and Ink Evangelist Johanna Basford OBE. Johanna’s illustrations are hand-drawn, predominantly in black and white. She has designed colouring books, wallpaper, beer labels, tattoos and even drawn on cars! But Johanna is perhaps best known for pioneering the adult colouring book trend. After studying at DJCAD, she was quickly noticed for her distinctive style, and since then has worked with global brands the likes of Starbucks, Penguin and...

Doqaru Ep. 5 #NeverSettle Season 3

Sarah Downs and Yekemi Otaru are cofounders and directors of Doqaru, a business management consultant based in Aberdeen. In their first eight months, they’ve hit the ground running. They’re now a team of 5 with award nominations, including a nomination for Scottish Startup Entrepreneurs of the Year in The Great British Entrepreneur Awards. Based in Aberdeen, the oil capital of Europe, Sarah and Yekemi talk about their experiences of running their separate businesses during the oil downturn a...

Deirdre Robertson Ep. 4 #NeverSettle Season 3

In this episode, we’re in conversation with the fabulous Deirdre Robertson, CEO of Dundee Heritage Trust. Dundee Heritage Trust runs 2 globally renowned 5 star visitor attractions in Dundee, both recently awarded a Certificate of Excellence in Trip Advisor’s Hall of Fame. Deirde and our podcast host Alasdair first met back in the 80s at Ernst & Young in Dundee, when the city was a very different place. We dig into the gradual regeneration of the city over those years, how Deirdre has seen th...

FreeAgent Ep. 3 #NeverSettle Season 3

In this episode, we chat with Ed Molyneux, Founder and CEO of FreeAgent. FreeAgent is an award-winning accounting platform that puts businesses in charge of their finances, with over 200 employees and more than 60,000 users worldwide. You’ll hear how Ed cofounded FreeAgent back in 2007 without any background in accountancy, and how the power of ignorance played a central role in the early days of the FreeAgent journey. It was a pivotal time for a lot of new businesses coming to market, and a...

Float Ep. 2 #NeverSettle Season 3

Colin Hewitt is cofounder and CEO of Float in Edinburgh, cash flow forecasting and financial management software for businesses. He’s disrupting the tech ecosystem on a mission to help people with the numbers so they can drive the right decisions for their business. In this episode, we delve into the early days of Colin’s first business, a web design agency If Looks Could Kill, and dig into the Float journey. You’ll hear how Float went from a solution for paying off Colin’s student debt to a...

Ashton McGill Ep. 1 #NeverSettle Season 3

In this special episode, you’ll hear from Ashton McGill, the faces behind the Never Settle podcast. We’re a team of accountants and designers who help people build better businesses, and in this episode, we explore the theme of bridging gaps between education and industry, and between accountants and business owners. Based on our accountant Alicia’s dissertation project, we also discuss the core skills an accountant should have in the 21st Century: communication, empathy, and curiosity, and ...

#NeverSettle Season 3 Trailer

Rebecca Reid introduces Season 3 of the Never Settle Podcast and hints at some of our upcoming guests. Never Settle is brought to you by Ashton McGill, a team of accountants and designers who help people build better businesses. Follow us here: •Twitter: https://twitter.com/AshtonMcGillUK •Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ashtonmcgill/ •Website: https://www.ashtonmcgill.com/

Vanilla Ink Ep.5 #NeverSettle Season 2

Vanilla Ink is Scotland’s unique Jewellery School and Studios. Established in Dundee in 2009, Vanilla Ink moved to Glasgow in 2014 and set up in their current home of The Hidden Lane in 2017. An environment that focuses on educating, inspiring and empowering the jewellery industry. Built on transparency and honesty, Vanilla Ink responds to the needs of the trade, giving makers the best opportunity to learn to be a jeweller/silversmith in today’s landscape. We chat to the Vanilla Ink team abou...

Rod Mountain Ep.4 #NeverSettle Season 2

Rod Mountain is a specialist ear, nose and throat surgeon who operates and teaches at Ninewells Hospital in Dundee. He is also championing the role that design, and the creative industries, can play in improving all aspects of care. “I consider myself as a mature ‘student of design’,” he says, looking to design and other areas of creativity for “helping society completely rethink, reinvent and redesign what is meant by health and social care”. If you want to hear more from Rod, then check out...

Kallum Russell Ep.3 #NeverSettle Season 2

Not many people know Kallum Russell as Kallum Russell. To most, he’s Kallum with a K! That’s how you’ll find him on twitter, it’s also how he introduces himself, and how others introduce him. Kallum is Chief Enterprise Officer and co-founder at Acorn Enterprises, the now Dundee-based business accelerator programme. He’s won awards for his work from all sorts of people and was recently included on the Times Maserati 100 list. He didn’t get a free car though. We discuss Kallum’s journey, the...

Kallum Russell Ep.3 #NeverSettle Season 2

Not many people know Kallum Russell as Kallum Russell. To most, he’s Kallum with a K! That’s how you’ll find him on twitter, it’s also how he introduces himself, and how others introduce him. Kallum is Chief Enterprise Officer and co-founder at Acorn Enterprises, the now Dundee-based business accelerator programme. He’s won awards for his work from all sorts of people and was recently included on the Times Maserati 100 list. He didn’t get a free car though. We discuss Kallum’s journey, the...

Karen Reyburn Ep.2 #NeverSettle Season 2

Karen Reyburn is the founder of The Profitable Firm, a creative agency that works exclusively with accounting firms. She’s also an accountant. Not many people know that. She moved to Scotland in 2001, supposedly for 3 years, and never left! After joining an accounting firm, she moved into a Business Development role. This led to more creative roles within the accounting industry, before taking the plunge into entrepreneurship. Over the past few years she’s built PF into a specialist creat...

Julie Christie Ep.1 #NeverSettle Season 2

Julie Christie is the owner of online membership site Togs in Business, where she helps professional photographers run better businesses. Julie’s is an interesting story. Originally from the west coast of Scotland, where she trained and worked as a school teacher, Julie and her family moved across the country to the east after her husband got a job in Aberdeen. After deciding that she didn’t want to go back to teaching, Julie decided to see if she could make some money as a photographer. Th...

Julie Christie Ep.1 #NeverSettle Season 2

Julie Christie is the owner of online membership site Togs in Business, where she helps professional photographers run better businesses. Julie’s is an interesting story. Originally from the west coast of Scotland, where she trained and worked as a school teacher, Julie and her family moved across the country to the east after her husband got a job in Aberdeen. After deciding that she didn’t want to go back to teaching, Julie decided to see if she could make some money as a photographer. Th...

Never Settle Podcast Episode 11 - DJCAD

DJCAD is rightly lauded as one of the top art & design schools in the UK. On today’s episode we speak to 4 final year Design students - Julie Cumming, Cameron Malcolm, Cameron Watt & Finlay Clark. All four are studying Product Design as part of DJCAD’s Social Digital programme. We discuss what brought them to Dundee, what they’ve learned during their time in the City, some of the exciting opportunities and projects they’ve been involved in, and where they look for inspiration. You’ll also b...

Never Settle Podcast Episode 10 - Gary Turner

Gary Turner is co-founder and managing director at Xero UK and is responsible for Xero's business operations across Europe, Middle East & Africa. Xero is the multi-award-winning global leader in online accounting software with more than 1.2 million paying subscribers around the world. Under Gary's leadership, Xero UK has scaled from a three-person startup with annual revenues of £50k to what will surpass £30m during 2018. A native of Glasgow, Gary previously held executive roles at Microsof...

Never Settle Podcast Episode 9 - 29 Studios

Kev & Gillian O’Neill are the co-founders of video marketing agency 29 Studios. I’ve been lucky enough to work with them several times over the past dozen years or so. In this episode we explore their journey as video pioneers and hear about their experiences working in Silicon valley with brands like YouTube and Google. They share their passions for travel, for exploring the world, for pushing the boundaries, and we talk about creating culture within a business. You can connect with them ...

Never Settle Podcast Episode 8 - Ryan McLeod

Ryan McLeod is a Dundee-based Designer. He’s also the host of the popular Creative Chit Chat Podcast. After graduating from DJCAD, Ryan did a Masters in Design before spending time in Canada. After returning to Scotland, he did a stint working in one of the country’s biggest agencies before moving back to Dundee and setting up his own design studio, Slurpp. In 2017 Ryan launched the Creative Chit Chat podcast, which tells the stories of Dundee’s thriving creative sector. In this episode w...

Never Settle Podcast Episode 7 - Kirsty Thomson

Kirsty Thomson is a social entrepreneur and the founder & CEO of both ACK & The Circle. She setup her first business 6 years ago after returning to her hometown of Dundee and being unable to find a job in academia. As a psychologist & researcher, Kirsty applied those skills to creating firstly ACK & then The Circle - both organisations that are focused on solving problems for their target audience. In this episode we discuss Kirsty’s journey, how she got started in business, where that jou...

Never Settle Podcast Episode 6 - John Alexander

At 29 years of age, Councillor John Alexander is the youngest leader of any Council within Scotland. John took over the Council leadership in May 2017 having originally been elected in 2012 at the age of 23 and serves the community where he still lives. We talk about the changing political landscape, the move to a more collaborative style of politics (of which John is a champion) and delve into what motivates him to live his life serving the community. 2018 is an exciting time for Dundee, w...

Never Settle Podcast Episode 5 - Chris Marr

Chris Marr is the Founder of the Content Marketing Academy. Chris is a ‘no bullshit’ kind of guy and through CMA he wants to help you to understand how the dramatic shift in consumer behaviour impacts how you communicate, get new customers and grow a profitable business. In this episode we explore Chris’ early working life inside a large University and why he vowed never to work for anyone again; Chris talks about the importance of learning everyday; we dig into the rebrand of CMA in the summ...

Never Settle Podcast Episode 4 - Gillian Easson

Gillian Easson is Director of Creative Dundee, an organisation that supports creative talent to base, grow and sustain their practice in and around Dundee, by connecting and amplifying the city’s creativity. In this episode we discuss the beginnings of Creative Dundee, which Gillian started as a blog in 2008 with co-founder Lyall Bruce. We explore the changes that have taken place in the City’s creative community since then and discuss the new Creative Industries Strategy that Gillian’s team ...

Never Settle Podcast Episode 3 - Simon Fraser & Brian McNicoll

The Dundee Centre of Entrepreneurship opened on 24th September 2017. A partnership between Elevator, who run the successful Aberdeen Accelerator, and the University of Dundee, this is the first Accelerator program to run in Dundee. In this episode we speak to Simon Fraser from Elevator & Brian McNicoll from the University of Dundee. You’ll hear about both organisations aims for the Centre, as well as their views on the growing entrepreneurial ecosystem in the City. Brian also gives us a gli...

Never Settle Podcast Episode 2 - Gavin Bell

Gavin Bell is an Edinburgh-based Entrepreneur, speaker & YouTuber. He’s also originally from Shetland, where his parents still live, and many of Gavin’s YouTube videos share the beauty and remoteness of the Island. In this episode we get into the detail of how to succeed with Facebook Ads (Gav’s a world-leader in this stuff), we talk about Facebook Watch, the App giant’s new video platform and drill into Gavin’s life as a YouTube creator. You’ll learn Gavin’s process for creating videos, h...

Never Settle Podcast Episode 1 - Professor Niamh Nic Daéid & Professor Dame Sue Black

Never Settle Podcast Episode 0 - An Introduction by Alasdair McGill

Alasdair McGill introduces the Never Settle podcast - he gives the lowdown on what the podcast is about as well as a clue on our first guests.