We Are PoWEr Podcast
The We Are PoWEr podcast spotlights voices and perspectives that need to be heard. Our weekly podcast, with listeners in over 60 countries, delivers PoWErful conversations that inspire, challenge, and empower... from personal life stories to business insights and leadership lessons.
We share diverse experiences, bold discussions, and real solutions. Whether you're looking for career advice, topical themes, or stories of resilience and success - this is where voices spark change.
We Are PoWEr Podcast
Building the Space Female Leaders Deserve
In this episode, we sit down with Sam Addy, founder of the Female Advisory Board (FAB), who is reshaping how women leaders support each other’s business growth. After realising that traditional peer advisory boards had almost no female representation, Sam set out to build the UK's first in-person peer board exclusively for women, creating a space where ambition, accountability, and authenticity come together to drive real impact.
Sam shares the story behind FAB’s creation, the power of structured peer support, and why women in business often need both a safe space and a serious space to grow.
She lifts the lid on what happens inside these curated sessions, where women from different sectors challenge each other, reveal blind spots, and turn insight into action, with results ranging from personal breakthroughs to hundreds of thousands in new revenue.
You’ll hear:
➡️ The moment Sam realised women needed their own peer board
➡️ How structured accountability transforms confidence and performance
➡️ The barriers that stop women investing in themselves
➡️ Why vulnerability is a strategic strength for leaders
➡️ The philosophy behind Sam’s mantra: “Change it, rearrange it”
➡️ What it takes to build equitable spaces where women can thrive, collaborate, and lead with power
Find out more about We Are PoWEr here. 💫
Hello, hello and welcome to the we Are Power podcast. If this is your first time here, the we Are Power podcast is the podcast for you, your career and your life. We release an episode every single Monday with listeners in over 60 countries worldwide, where you'll hear personal life stories, top-notch industry advice and key leadership insight from amazing role models. As we Are Power is the umbrella brand to Northern Power Women Awards, which celebrates hundreds of female role models and advocates every year. This is where you can hear stories from all of our awards alumni and stay up to date with everything. Mpw Awards and we Are Power Never imitated, never replicated singularly wonderful, everybody's wonder girl. Well, today I am joined by the fab, sam Addy, who is the founder of the Female Advisory Board's brackets fab.
Speaker 2:Welcome. How are you? Oh, thank you, simone. It's so lovely to be here.
Speaker 1:And I think one of the last times I saw you was at the launch of fab, when you kindly invited me to come over and we had a good old chat on stools, didn't we? Yeah, we put the world right. Oh well, we had dinner at the Dakota the night before, which was rather gorgeous, uh, and then we had a fabulous literally I'm going to overuse that word now, aren't I? Um, you can't overuse it an amazing, amazing room with amazing humans. What's the story since then been? How's it been?
Speaker 2:Well, we're on our probably ninth iteration of the Female Advisory Board. Since I last saw you. It's been one hell of a journey, I can tell you All with the intention of ensuring that women can realise their full potential and get that richness of life. Yeah, it's a powerful thing that I've created with the Female Advisory Board for those that lean into it and see the value in being part of a peer advisory board.
Speaker 1:What have you learnt most along the way? Good or bad, or a?
Speaker 2:bit of both, maybe Patience. I'm a very ambitious person, so I literally thought that this would be a global business by now. Surprise, surprise, it isn't yet. Um, and I've learned that. Well, there's a couple of negative things, I would say, but I see them as opportunities. That women are holding themselves back. That's a broad strokes generalization. But there is a level of intentionally or unintentionally, um, we don't realize our full potential and lean into what that could look like, and that's why, again, fab is there to try and change that.
Speaker 1:It's important we do, and if you had a magic wand unlimited money, budget and unlimited resources, you'd be global now I, if you know, if there's enough women in Peru building brilliant businesses, I would have fab there yesterday and what have you learned most about yourself? Because I think this, I think we have a common thread. There is I think I'm impatient, I know I'm impatient, I think Team are like that, oh my goodness, but I think that's what spurs you on, right?
Speaker 2:Yes, and I think the way for me to look at it is you've got to be patient because you've got to learn and you've got to listen to what your clients and your customers and your team, what they're telling you and be able to pivot and to be able to make it what it needs to be. So what I very green in the early days imagined fab to be looks nothing like what it is today, but it's actually better. So that patience, learning and sometimes you have to slow down to speed up yeah, and that's hot, that's real self-education, isn't it?
Speaker 1:and self-development discipline, how is that for you? Hard full disclosure? Oh no, literally. As I'm asking you the question, I'm thinking god, you know, I don't know how I we have to, don't we sometimes?
Speaker 2:It's probably good that I don't have a big pot of money because it wouldn't be used correctly. You need to put the groundwork in, you need to get the foundations in place and then you go?
Speaker 1:What was your motivation to set this up?
Speaker 2:Well, I had no intention of setting it up, I don't know, it kind of came in my life.
Speaker 1:It wasn't a dinner in the Dakota, was it?
Speaker 2:It came into my life after I'd been consulting For a few years, I was getting a bit frustrated with myself because I didn't know what I was doing long term and I was helping all these brilliant businesses grow fantastic businesses of their own, and I had nothing tangible. But I didn't know what my next step was. I'd already had a business of my own that sadly, I lost to a fire, which is another story. For another time I would work for fantastic entrepreneurs that scaled global businesses. And then I discovered peer advisory boards through a client meeting. I've never heard of them, which I've since gone on to find out that a lot of women don't know what they are, and so I did a lot of research, especially in the global leader of peer advisory, and I spoke to a lot of the members. I spoke to a lot of the chairs of the boards and, honestly, it's such a smart, simple concept. It really, really works.
Speaker 2:But the thing I found about it through my research was these boards are incredible in helping business leaders grow, but you had one or two women sitting around those board tables and the rest of them were men, and that's a problem for me because I mean, two years in now, I've sort of had in-depth conversations with over 200 business leaders in the Yorkshire area alone. We are building incredible businesses, but we don't see enough women doing it, and even for society as a whole never mind from an economical point of view that's a massive problem. So it sounds really cliche, but it was literally a light bulb moment. I can do this, I can create this, and I literally went to bed, got up the next morning and thought I'm going to create my own female advisory board and it's going to be fab. The rest is history.
Speaker 1:And just talk to us. For those who many people watching or listening will know what a peer board is.
Speaker 2:Just explain the headlines of it's funny you say that I've found that people don't really quite get the concept, and even that's probably one of being a big challenge of mine is to try and articulate what it's like. You're asking people to take a huge leap of faith and join a board of people they don't know who are at similar stages of business to them but from a different industry.
Speaker 2:Don't talk to strangers, and it's quite a big leap of faith to do. There is nothing like this in the UK. It's the first one that's in person, that's a monthly sort of meet up. But when women do take that leap of faith and they join their first board session, you can guarantee the response I get is oh, this is even better than I thought it would be.
Speaker 1:Why haven't I done it sooner?
Speaker 2:Why have I not done it sooner? But there's an educational piece that needs to be done.
Speaker 1:And what are the barriers? Is it time, is it? I hate to. I'm not a big fan of always. It's easy to put confidence on everything, sort of self-belief or what can I pass on or gain from it, but we can all give and gain. What did you see, or still see, as those barriers?
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's a lot, if I'm being completely honest, and I would say time is perhaps without wanting to be direct sometimes an excuse. We do hold ourselves back massively and there's a guilt. I've had women that have children that thought I couldn't possibly invest that amount of time and money on myself, which again is a real problem. Where men genuinely see this as part of their business strategy. It's what they have to do to get that competitive edge, and more women need to see that and see it as a necessity in their life, because only good things come from it. But it also comes with looking through the mirror and that's really quite a challenge as well and that.
Speaker 1:So when you talk let's dig into that a little bit so is that kind of something plays back and it's like I'm not sure I like that, or or actually I didn't see that or I didn't want to see it all those things, wow.
Speaker 2:So in peer advisory boards. There there's a certain structure of how these board meetings are held. There's a highly curated agenda that sits behind each and every one, and part of that is something called round the room, and that is where in a you're in probably your most vulnerable state. You share a business challenge or something that's happening in your life around this table with your peers who are walking in the same shoes as you, just in a different industry, and maybe might not be going through exactly the same thing that you're going through, but there will be very much similarities. And then we do this thing where we ask questions back at the person that's sharing their challenge, instead of just offering up a load of solutions. We actually want to dig deeper than that, because often the thing you say you're challenged with there's levels that sit underneath that, and so there's solutions for absolutely everything. I massively believe that, but actually being held accountable to making those tiny steps to change is very hard.
Speaker 1:Accountability is priceless, isn't it? Because sometimes it's uh, and I think that's can be really one of the challenges is asking for that.
Speaker 2:Help it is and saying out loud, but it's such a strength, it's such a leadership strength to be able to show vulnerability. We're not perfect. We can all learn from other people, and the brilliance about fab is that you're sat in a room of collective knowledge of over hundreds years of experience. So why would you not want to take that different perspective, apply that different learning and challenge yourself? Because in today's world, it's never been more competitive, it's never been more difficult, it's probably never been more lonely in the societies that we're living now. Um, so yeah, obviously I could talk about that all day long, but it's it at the end of the day. You've got to take a good look at yourself and the narrative that our minds are our own worst enemy and, in something like a peer advisory board, you're challenged on that narrative, which is sometimes difficult to hear, but it's all done in a really beautiful, constructive way.
Speaker 1:What's a fab example? I'm sticking with the brand on this one, so I'm telling you what's a good example of something that's come out of one of your nine iterations of fat so well, so many things, but you want some specific sort of case studies, without going into too much detail, obviously, because yes, in that room. Stays in the room.
Speaker 2:So we had one member who genuinely believes that she generated a £350,000 increase in revenue just from one session. So if we just think about that for a moment, it was a leadership workshop. It was around the way she was sort of narrating sort of the strategy and the delegation of her business. She took away the learnings from that and she shared it with her team, and it wasn't her that increased the revenue, it was her team. As a direct result of the learning that she applied, I'd say that's quite a good return on investment, my goodness.
Speaker 2:What do we say then? I mean I could go, I could tell you loads, but then we've had people completely change their business model because they never thought of doing it in a certain way and, as such, they've increased the valuation saleable valuation of their business. We've called people out on, in particular, the recruitment of how they went about recruiting employees. Now, that is really really challenging and something that comes up a lot is how you navigate that. But when you're consistently doing it and it's not improving, then that kind of needs to be called out and as a result, she came away and said I feel like I've had a bit of a kick up backside in the fab meeting, but it was what she needed in a really safe space, obviously.
Speaker 1:But you're not paying or joining, or investing your time, effort, energy and business intelligence to not then do anything with it. Otherwise, you may as well just be a passenger on the back of the bus.
Speaker 2:Exactly that. I'd never created FAB to be a light touch. I'm not really that kind of I'm not really a fluffy kind of person.
Speaker 2:I want to roll my sleeves up. I want to look at your cashflow forecast. I want to look at your balance sheet and I want to see where you can improve. We can all improve, but let's do it together. Who holds the mirror up for you? I'd say my husband. He's very honest, but he's been my biggest support. Obviously, I have a team of support around me, but I'm very critical of myself. I like to think I have a growth mindset, so I read a lot. I listen to a lot of podcasts.
Speaker 1:We are power podcasts. Oh, that's so lovely of you, of course we are Power Podcasts oh that's so lovely of you, of course. But when you were 10, you dreamed of being a flautist at the Royal Albert Hall. I did. Do you ever go back and pick your flute up?
Speaker 2:No, I honestly can't remember the last time I even saw it. I don't think I know where it is. I think I might be able to play a couple of notes, but certainly wouldn't be able to read the music and theory, wasn't? I wasn't very good at the theory side of music anyway.
Speaker 1:You've talked about Yorkshire before. This is where you grew up. This is where you you sort of built your business career in Yorkshire. What part is that? No nonsense, straight talking, culture and just groundedness. I'm sure that's a made up word. Put you where you are and made you who you are as a leader.
Speaker 2:I think we also need to include in that, as I was born in Newcastle, so not only do.
Speaker 2:I have three quarters of my life in Yorkshire. It started in the pubs and club scenes of the northeast, which is a very interesting start to life, but I do think that has given me a massive added advantage into what grit looks like not standing still and something you said the word earlier on, and I really believe in flex leadership. You've got to be able to change, you've got to be able to adapt, you've got to be able to move quickly, and I think we talk about that a lot with members at the moment is, you know, change is your best friend, now more than ever. So, yeah, that grit part of me I won't say resilience, because I think there's lots of. I think resilience has become like a bit of a trophy for people to hold up and say I'm really resilient. You know I don't always see that as a positive.
Speaker 1:It, you. It's interesting actually talk about trophy words, and burnout is something I feel like is there at the moment and almost being glorified a little bit like as again the same trophy, I mean burnout is very real, yeah, um, but as is a lot of the words that are out there.
Speaker 2:But I suppose I'm a bit nervous about labels, because and we did this in a, in a sort of leadership behavioral workshop that we did where it was around your behaviors, as opposed to your personalities, and when you start being labeled as something, it becomes static and something that you feel that you can't change, whereas if you think of something behaviorally, for example, behavior can change and so, yeah, I agree with you, we need to be careful to not sort of stay stuck in a I'm this because it's harder to get out of it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, really hard and one of my big, my favorite industries is the, the hospitality industry, because I, you know, I always find it interesting that 92% of people have worked in hospitality at some form, some part of their career. But we don't see it as that up there, amazing kind of place to work um and to grow and get the skills you learn. You went further than that because you ran your own restaurant business, didn't you? What were the key lessons that?
Speaker 2:you took away from that so many. But you've got to remember it's dirty, it's dirty work, it's rough. You know it's not for the faint-hearted hospitality, but it teaches you such lessons in human behaviour. It gives you skills that you can translate into any anything you do in your life. Um gosh again. I learned so much from that and I would say again it's about that, that grit and that flex leadership is what I would say.
Speaker 1:And you talked earlier about when you're talking to your FAB groups, your FAB cohorts, about change being your friend, but you have a phrase that you use don't you yeah, change it, rearrange it.
Speaker 2:It's just, it's been my mantra. I genuinely believe so. Despite whether you're a business owner, whether you're employed, no matter where you are in your walk of life, I've seen so many people stuck, not happy with what they're doing. But they stay stuck and they complain about it and it becomes their narrative again. Something I said earlier on there's always solutions you can change, but that change is really hard and it's not pretty and it takes work and it's sometimes easier to stay comfortable. But even though you're not happy, you know honestly I think it's something that if I have a challenge, what can I change? What do I need to do to make myself happier? How can I change it? How can I rearrange it? It's not the worst mantra to sort of be held by and it's served me well.
Speaker 1:No, and I always think, with change comes pain, but also comes great opportunity.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's very easy to talk about the solutions and what you can do and just little bits here and there to sort of incrementally move you along the way. The actual doing is really really hard and that's why it's really important that you've got the support to make sure that you actually do do the change.
Speaker 1:100 and if you could remove one systemic barrier that is still in play for many um, what would you do? That again, specifically that exists for women in business. Can I have?
Speaker 2:two. Yeah, you can do two, thank you. So there's an external barrier, that is the whole infrastructure of how the world hasn't been built for women and how the care burden that women often carry is so significant and doesn't give us the same privilege as men to be able to live the life that we want to. That is a massive problem and not something that we to be able to live the life that we want to. That is a massive problem and not something that we'll be able to change overnight, but it is a real barrier to our growth. And then, secondly, there's an internal barrier, and I think that is an intergenerational programming of how we're perceived to society, how we're supposed to behave, you know how we're supposed to present ourselves, and this our mind. It just it's incredible how our mind can tell us things that are really, really holding us back. So there's two massive ones there that don't just suddenly sort itself out.
Speaker 1:And do you have something that outside of work, that you have that Sam time, that ritual or something you do every day, that you must do?
Speaker 2:Something that I do every day is I write. I like to get everything out of my head onto paper, find it really effective, and it allows me to decompartmentalize and to reduce the overwhelm. Is that everything? Is that work, life, family? Yeah, 100% flute lessons that won't be being taken up anytime soon, I can tell you.
Speaker 2:But, um, yeah, because I like I'm sure some people can get overwhelmed there's's a lot happening, we're busy and sometimes that can make you feel very stressed.
Speaker 2:So actually and we do some of this actually in the workshopping is we do a lot of what's called alone together time, where in a timed environment you write down all the say, all the challenges that you're facing on a a sticky note, one challenge for sticky note, and then you map it out on a wall and it's really interesting because nine times out of ten those challenges aren't as significant when you can visualize them. Um, that's not to discredit them, obviously, but it's to just get some perspective and then to be able to think strategically okay, what can I do? What? What's the quickest wins I can get to start improving things. And I kind of feel that's just how I am programmed. I suppose I do like to think I have fun as well, but I have to say Fab has pretty much consumed my life and if you had an extra few hours in the world in the week or the day, what would fun look like?
Speaker 2:Fun would look like eating out. I love eating out Food of choice. Oh, that's a hard one. Probably sushi or Italian. Getting myself to the coast, getting on some coastal walks, seeing the, the sea smelling in that sea air. It's nothing, nothing better, um, and actually would like to start traveling again, because that's where you get the creativity going, you get fresh perspectives and see the world and you can channel that back into your life when you come back.
Speaker 1:So those things and before we step into the power jar, which is our new jar of fun, exciting.
Speaker 2:It's exciting.
Speaker 1:We just got a question from one of our previous guests. I'm going to hand that to you. Sam, and just if you were, while you're getting that one out, that question out if you were to invite somebody fictional, real, alive or past to join fab, who would it be?
Speaker 2:probably jacinda ahern. Yeah, oh, honestly, her exit speech made me cry. I think what she did, especially around covid, was very brave and it was the bunny.
Speaker 1:When she talked to the kids about the easter bunny, I always think that was such such a massive moment because it was to the parents to go. It's okay, kids, the Easter Bunny's coming. All the kids, all the adults are like that.
Speaker 2:Oh, my feel a real strength for a powerful position and only wish that more leaders, global leaders say no more.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly, what's the question on the piece of paper?
Speaker 2:The question drumroll please is who has been your biggest silent supporter, Someone who never takes credit but always had your back. Now I think I'm going to caveat you can't say your husband, because you've already name-checked him. Is that? Because that's who I was?
Speaker 1:I just made it tougher, oh crikey that's a hard one, it's tough, it's not mission easy here you know.
Speaker 2:Well, probably I'd have to say my mum, is that a bit of a cliche?
Speaker 1:it's okay. What's mum's name?
Speaker 2:joe, come on joe, and she doesn't really have a clue what I do.
Speaker 1:Just being honest my mum didn't, until she came to the awards for the first time and was like ah, now I get it. Yeah, yeah, there you go.
Speaker 2:That's my daughter, but she doesn't need to know. And so when you think about a silent sporter who always has your back, never takes credit for it, she's always there when it's messy and you're upset, can sense it. It's a spidey sense. Yeah, she does say that I knew something was off, I knew you a call, and so, yeah, I'd have to say my mum. Sorry if that's a bit of a cop-out, but that was a really hard one.
Speaker 1:And on the train home. I'll think of a different answer. Take it away, then take it away and final, final what is the future? You said earlier, you know it's not been the path you wanted to, where you were directly going, but what is next?
Speaker 2:Well, year three is very exciting.
Speaker 1:I can't no-transcript to me right at the start of when I was building, uh, this community and they were like, well, how does it feel? And I went fast is it stable?
Speaker 2:yeah, just strapping yeah, you do have to strap in. I mean, what you've achieved is absolutely incredible, um, but you've got to believe in it. You've really got to believe in it to be able to put to make it worthwhile otherwise why would you?
Speaker 1:why would you do this to ourselves, sam? Why?
Speaker 2:why? But we do. And when you see the impact that it has, it's worth everything and that's has, it's worth everything.
Speaker 1:And that's the difference. It's the magic, it's the swan, isn't it? You can be the swan and see this impact, even sometimes the teeny, tiny things but it's those small, teeny, tiny things. They all add up and, all of a sudden, those individuals whose businesses start to turn, to grow, to shift or just have a reality check, that's because of you. So thank you, sam, for being fab. Thank you, I've not said that enough. This time I love it.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the Fab Podcast, Sam. Thank you so much.
Speaker 1:Thank you for coming over to see us, thank you for being brave in the jar and thank all of you for joining us. If you want to get involved, please check out the show notes and you can find out more about fab and we will see you next week. Subscribe on youtube, apple, amazon music, spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Leave us a review or follow us on socials. We are power underscore net on insta, tiktok and twitter, or we are power on linkedin, facebook and we are underscore power on youtube.
