Ep 105: Behind the Leader w/Sahar Hashemi – The Importance of Doing Things Badly

Sahar Hashemi

Described as “a change agent” and “a powerful catalyst to drive entrepreneurship within big corporations”, Sahar Hashemi offers a simple, powerful toolkit to unlock start-up culture at big companies. A former lawyer, she started two ground-breaking businesses: the United Kingdom’s first coffee bar chain, Coffee Republic, which she grew to 110 stores and a £50 million market cap, and Skinny Candy, a market segment-defining brand of sugar-free sweets. Her first book, Anyone Can Do It, became a bestseller by demystifying the idea that entrepreneurship is an innate trait. Her latest, Start Up Forever, stems from her experience working with large corporations over the last decade and addresses one of the most pressing questions now facing large organizations: how to be more entrepreneurial. Named by Her Majesty the Queen (UK) as a “Pioneer to the life of the nation” as well as an OBE for services to the UK economy and to charity, her mission is to connect the heart as well as the head in big business and distil the unnecessarily complex subject of innovation and entrepreneurial behavior down into simple, actionable, and human terms.

Paula Faris

CARRY Media™

Paula Faris is an Emmy-Award winning journalist, speaker, best-selling author of Called Out: Why I Traded Two Dream Jobs For A Life Of True Calling, and host of the Paula Faris Faith & Calling podcast, where she talks to inspirational people about what they're called to do and who they're called to be. Faris spent the last nine years at ABC news, during which she was co-anchor of Good Morning America weekend edition and co-host of The View. While at the network she reported on everything from politics, news and entertainment to sports and faith. In 2022, Faris launched CARRY Media™ with the desire to champion, advocate and celebrate working mothers across America.

Lori Hermann

Global Leadership Network

Lori is the Executive Producer at the Global Leadership Network. The GLN is a community committed to learning from each other and using their influence to inspire and equip world-class leadership that ignites transformation. Lori leads a team of content curators and developers, producers and artists as they design and execute the Global Leadership Summit and year-round leadership development events, tools and resources. The GLS reaches more than 400,000 individuals around the globe each year with world-class leadership development. Lori has a passion to create opportunities that help others develop into the best version of themselves and has done that from the beginning of her career in health education at an HMO, the Arthritis Foundation and American Heart Association. She then brought her strategic gifts and event experience to Willow Creek Community Church where she led creative teams to produce weekend services, special events, conferences and church resources. In 2000 she transitioned to the Willow Creek Association (now known as the Global Leadership Network) to lead the Arts Ministry Business Segment and in 2013 became the Executive Producer of the Global Leadership Summit, as well as the year-round resources and events.