Naked Founder podcast Archives - �Ͼ�Ʒ��Cloud

Holly Moore: Rubbing shoulders with the stars to living with OCD

Chris Maguire — Tue, 21 Apr 2026 05:32:27 +0000

In the world of events, Holly Moore is almost as big a name as the stars she rubs shoulders with.

She’s the founder and CEO of Make Events, which she has grown into a multi-million-pound turnover business since launching it in 2012.

During the last 14 years she’s worked with the likes of Robert De Niro, McFly, Gary Barlow and her personal hero Kylie Minogue.

What makes her success all the more remarkable is she’s had to wrestle with crippling OCD, especially between 2005-2011.

At one point Moore even asked the Priory to be admitted.

Moore has battled back from the depths of despair to find professional success and personal happiness with her new husband Joel Bennett.

Explaining her battle with OCD to , she said: “As with any mental illness there is a massive spectrum from A-Z in terms of what it is – but in the main obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) is an obsession with a thought.

“It’s an intrusive thought that’s in complete opposition with the person’s personality.

“Let’s say a normal person, with a normally functioning brain, would have a split-second thought like ‘my mum and dad have gone out in the car. What if they have a car accident and die?’

“It might be a thought that wouldn’t literally register but for someone with OCD it will then get stuck.”

Her condition deteriorated to the point on New Year’s Eve in 2010 when she found herself next to the radiator rocking.

“The terror that you feel with it,” she said. “I was literally in a cold sweat. I felt like I couldn’t go on anymore. I remember ringing my friend and saying ‘I don’t know what to do’.

“Later that day, New Year’s Day, I phoned the Priory and said ‘I think you need to admit me because I can’t carry on like this’.”

Other than a couple of small relapses, Moore’s OCD is in a much better place – although it hasn’t gone away completely.

“I still see my psychologist now because if I ever have any major events coming up or any decisions to make, that would be when OCD can find a window,” she said.

“It will either look for when you’re really happy and try and ruin it or it will look for when you’re really stressed and that’s when it try and creep in because you’re not doing best practice.”

Fred Done

Moore launched Make Events in 2012 from her kitchen table after spending four years at AstraZeneca. One of her first clients was billionaire Fred Done, who entrusted her to organise his 70^th birthday party, featuring Alfie Boe.

“He gave me a chance,” she recalled. “I literally remember it as clear as day. He said ‘I’m going to give you a chance, don’t f*ck it up, keep it secret’.”

I should be so lucky: Holly Moore with her hero Kylie Minogue

Moore’s discretion is guaranteed although she did reveal legendary actor De Niro likes two Chamomile tea bags in each cup!

Make Events has also worked with some of the UK’s biggest companies, including Castore, Matillion, Co-op and Represent.

The company’s success is all the more remarkable because it’s been completely bootstrapped.

In April 2026 she married her long-term partner Joel Bennett after a fairytale romance when he came to work for Make Events.

Just married: Joel Bennett and Holly Moore

Bennett is a former part-time model and she recalled their first meeting.

“There was an instant connection,” she admitted. “We both didn’t think about it because of course I’m not going to get with somebody who works here.”

Last year the couple acquired London-based The PA Club – the pioneering network for senior PAs and EAs.

You can listen the episode

The episode is sponsored by Financielle – The Home of Money for Women.

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‘I’ll build a £100m company my way and without alcohol’

Chris Maguire — Tue, 14 Apr 2026 10:53:15 +0000

As he walked down the stairs on Christmas Day 2009, James Cole had one thing on his mind, whisky.

At the time he was fighting to keep his startup Cruise118 afloat as the business approached the crucial January trading period.

“I started Cruise118 back in 2008 with Mal Barritt and we sold our first cruise 10 weeks before Lehman Brothers went under,” recalled Cole.

“We’d raised £1m in investment from various sources, including putting our own redundancy cheques in. We were right up against it.

“Houses could be repossessed, all of that sort of stuff if the business went under. Within six months, we were literally faced with the prospect of running out of money. It was a very, very tough environment, as you can imagine.

“I think it was the second Christmas. I had two young kids at the time. January is the peak trading period in travel, the ‘wave season’, as we call it in the cruise industry.

“Everything happens around January. If you can step up then hopefully the year is going to be pretty good for you.

“We had to step up into the year for the business to survive. I was just so anxious and I had so much pressure on me.

“I just felt absolutely terrified about what was or what wasn’t going to come. It (drinking) seemed like the only option at the time, to be honest.”

Those days are firmly behind him. Cole stopped drinking alcohol on New Year’s Eve in 2018 and hasn’t looked back.

Today he’s at the helm of Chorley-based Panache Cruises, which he founded in 2020 and has already hit £50m in annual turnover.

The company has a team of over 100, with a presence in the UK, US and now Australia.

Reflecting on life as a first-time founder, he told : “It’s really hard. I think you go into it a little bit blasé. When I founded my first business, I was 32 years old and probably thought I knew everything.

“It turned out working for a corporate business for 10 years, I knew virtually nothing about running my own business.

“It was a steep, steep learning curve. I’m certainly glad I didn’t know how hard it was going to be.”

After a tough start, Cruise118 grew into a £100m turnover business and Cole said he experienced a number of adverse challenges.

He said: “We were having to find six-figure amounts literally overnight, thinking that we were going to go bust in the next couple of weeks multiple times over the first few years.”

“It was all surviving, working long hours, trying to do it all ourselves. I was drinking to cope with it. It’s completely the opposite of the way we’re doing it at Panache Cruises.

“I’m not the type of person that can just go out for a Sunday roast and have one glass of wine a week. I’m either in it or I’m not in it.

“And it was the same with drinking for me. I was either drinking each night, you know, or I wasn’t drinking at all. That was it. I could do dry January. But apart from that, I was drinking most days.

“I didn’t know what was needed to be an entrepreneur. Whereas moving into Panache, I had that experience of what skills you need. I had the bad experience of the business nearly going under several times.

“I could see quite clearly what was needed at Panache, which was building a business that focused on its colleagues, that focused on its customers, and focused on its long-term relationships with cruise lines.

“Our mission is straightforward. Colleagues, customers, cruise lines, nothing is too much trouble. And that was the foundation of the business right in the early days.”

Cole said being a two-time founder had changed his philosophy.

Deep in thought: James Cole, CEO of Panache Cruises, with Sir Richard Branson

“Let’s think about the entrepreneur’s playbook,” he said. “When you start a new business, what does it say? It says you have to work 25 hours a day. It says you have to work eight days a week. It says you can’t go on holiday for the first three to five years. It’s all bollocks.

“How should you start? You should start by drinking two or three litres of water a day. You should start by making sure you get eight hours of sleep a day, eating reasonably healthy and making sure you go to the gym three or four times a week. That’s how you should start. Build your business on great personal foundations.

“The number one foundation for me is looking after yourself because then you can look after other people.”

Cole loves a challenge. He launched Cruise118 a few weeks before the collapse of Lehman Brothers and launched Panache during Covid.

“I do seem to thrive in those situations and I probably do get the best out of me,” he said.

At Panache Cruises, customers are allocated their own cruise connoisseur.

The move has created loyalty, evidenced by the fact that the company’s top 40 UK customers have booked more than 500 cruises and spent more than £8m with them.

Cole also took the decision to partner with husband-and-wife influencers Richard and Helen Chalu, who have contributed more than £2m of sales for Panache Cruises.

He also gives his own contact details to his customers.

“If a customer’s got an issue, why can’t they have my mobile phone number and just give me a call or send me a message or send me an email?” he said.

“It opens up our business as being more personable and more approachable.”

When he launched Panache Cruises, Cole also resolved it wouldn’t be at the expense of his wife Heather, their daughter Lilli and the rest of his family.

A team from Panache Cruises climbed Mount Kilimanjaro for Reuben’s Retreat

“I’m not a big fan of the phrase ‘work-life balance’,” he said. “I’m a fan of ‘life balance’ and just trying to get your life as balanced as you possibly can.

“I don’t think you ever get it right. What I try and do is if I’m in the UK, I’m focused on work during the week and then I focus on family at weekends.

“I’m just trying to balance my life as best I possibly can. Am I perfect? Heather will tell you I’m not. But will she tell you that I try my hardest? Yes, most of the time I absolutely do.”

Last year Panache secured a £2.75m refinance deal with HSBC UK to fuel the firm’s international expansion plan.

After opening a US office in 2024, Panache now has a presence in Australia, with plans to expand into Canada.

Last year, Cole also spent a week in the company of his hero Sir Richard Branson on Necker Island.

“Somebody said to me before I went that you shouldn’t meet your heroes,” he said. “Well, that turns out to be another load of bollocks. The guy is just a remarkable individual.”

You can listen to the latest episode of The Naked Founder podcast

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I had it all and then I got divorced

Chris Maguire — Tue, 07 Apr 2026 06:26:57 +0000

Hayley Roberts had it all. And then she didn’t.

Professionally, she founded specialist IT cybersecurity distributor Distology in 2015, growing turnover to £63m, with 50 staff and offices in the UK, Netherlands and Germany.

Numerous awards followed and the proud mother of three grown-up children forged a reputation as one of the most respected voices in the industry.

Then she got divorced, and everything changed.

Roberts is one of a growing number of female founders to get divorced and has opened up about her experiences in the latest episode of

She said: “I’ve changed a huge amount through my 20s, 30s, 40s that I think you start on a road of wanting to achieve something and be with somebody forever.

“But forever is actually a really long time nowadays. I think that what happens is we change the path in which we take, we change the desires we have, we change the goals that we have.

“I think you either evolve together or you evolve apart. And it’s a bit like somebody explained it to me once. It was like one degree of separation so you’re on a railway track.

“You don’t notice a change of one degree straight away but as you go further down the track, that one degree gets wider and wider. I think you suddenly just look and go, ‘I don’t know whether I want this anymore’. It’s a horrible thing to go through.”

“I don’t think the realisation just suddenly hit me one day. I think it was a gradual creeping up of I didn’t want to share my journey and my successes with the person I was married to.

Burnt chop syndrome

“As a woman and a mother, you always put yourself last. I think it’s called the ‘burnt chop syndrome’. It’s always you who takes the burnt food.

“You’ll give the kids and your husband the nicer stuff you’ve prepared and you’ll take the scraps.

“You’ll take the one that’s a bit shit. You’ll take the last omelette that was a bit crappy around the edges.

“I did that for years. It wasn’t like a major martyrdom or sacrifice. It’s just being a mum. You want the best for your kids. You want to give the best. You want to do the best. I loved being a mum.”

Facing up: Hayley Roberts answers the questions from Chris Maguire on The Naked Founder podcast

The mother-of-three said she was at ‘conflict’ with herself after having her third child.

“I knew I was never going to be mum of the year,” she said. “I love my kids. I wanted to do the best for them, but I wanted to find something for me as well. And I think that was the burning thing that got bigger and bigger and bigger.

“I wanted to achieve more for me and I don’t think you can get that from just seeing your children flourish because it’s still not you.

Can you have everything?

“Can you have everything? Can you have a successful marriage, a great relationship with your children, a great home life, a successful business and be happy yourself?

“I want to say ‘yes’, but you’ve got to understand that everything’s a gauge. It’s not 100 per cent. You can’t have 100 per cent at everything. Something has to give. Like, you know, my marriage had to give to a certain extent.”

Roberts said her divorce had a ‘massive’ impact on her, both financially and practically.

From arch-enemies to best friends – the CONDUCTR story

“It was a bitter moment,” she recalled. “It was horrible because it’s like your child. It was my child Distology. Your fourth child. My fourth child that I was developing and growing and nurturing and seeing people love it.

“It took me a long time to get over that. So yes, that came after the divorce, but the impact emotionally was massive.

“I tried really hard to mask how I was feeling, but I wasn’t in the office as much as perhaps I would have been. I wasn’t as buoyant. I mean, bearing in mind when you build a business, a lot of it is your personality.”

With her divorce firmly behind her, Roberts said she wishes her ex-husband nothing but happiness and told The Naked Founder podcast that life is good.

“I spent probably 10 years saying we’re just getting started, but I really mean it this time,” she said.

“We are at this great point in our business where not only are we a really good solid ship, so we were a good ship with calm seas. I want to say it’s like a destroyer because we can cope with the choppiest of seas now.

“We’ve got a great team, great leadership, great vendor spread, great customer base, really brilliant culture that’s constantly improving and developing. And we are on that nice trajectory upwards now.

“There’;s nothing that I’m fearful of that would really blow a hole in the hull. So I’m not worried about anything on that score. I just want to make sure we now capitalise on that. So that’s where we’re at as a business.”

Looking back, Roberts told that founding a business was the easy part, the hardest bit was evolving it.

As a child, she wanted to be an actress and follow in the footsteps of her hero Sir Laurence Olivier, but she entered the world of business.

Her first job was in a toiletry business but she admitted she was ‘unemployable’ before becoming a first-time founder when launching Distology.

She gave up a six-figure salary to launch Distology and didn’t take much money out of the business in the early days.

After six years, in 2021, Distology raised investment from NorthEdge private equity.

“I loved the process,” she said. “I had a great advisor and trusted them as well implicitly. And it was great. I met some brilliant people along the way.”

Asked what advice she’d give to would-be founders, she said: “Celebrate the little wins. Tiny wins. It’s a bit like making sure the tiny muscles around your big muscle groups are really well supported and you’re stretching and you’re doing all the right stuff because it’s those that will be the ones that will support you when you get older and everything starts to fail.’

Roberts said if she could write a letter to her younger self, she’d tell herself not to worry.

“Worry is just not productive,” she explained. “Don’t worry. Just don’t worry. Just make sure that the things that you can control, you action.

“If you can’t action them, then you just try and action other things. But worry is just not productive.”

You can listen to and watch The Naked Founder podcast . It’s available on YouTube, Apple, Spotify and all good podcast platforms. It is sponsored by Financielle, The Home of Money for Women.

• If you’d like to sponsor The Naked Founder podcast or nominate future guests, email Chris.Maguire@�Ͼ�Ʒ��Cloud.co.uk

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The Naked Founder enters Apple’s podcast charts – inside two days

Chris Maguire — Thu, 02 Apr 2026 08:01:54 +0000

�Ͼ�Ʒ��Cloud’s new Naked Founder podcast has already entered the UK’s top Apple podcast charts within two days of being launched.

The Naked Founder podcast is the business podcast where nothing is hidden and has entered the entrepreneurship category at No 54.

In the first episode, Peter Cliff and Jos van der Steen reveal how they went from arch-enemies to best friends and eventually co-founders of CONDUCTR.

�Ͼ�Ʒ��Cloud’s executive editor Chris Maguire said: “WOW! We only launched The Naked Founder podcast on Tuesday so to reach No 54 already is absolutely stunning.

“We’ve had some amazing feedback and we’ll be dropping a new episode of The Naked Founder podcast every Tuesday.

“Thank you to everyone who has listened, watched, subscribed and left a five-star review.

“We’ve been working on this for months but you’re never sure of the response until it goes live.”

CONDUCTR creates world-class, ‘kick-ass attractions’ from its Manchester HQ and, in four years, the startup has grown turnover to £26m and staff numbers to 100, with studios in the UK, US and Middle East.

Former actor Cliff, who once appeared alongside Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe, urged founders to ‘enjoy the journey’.

He said: “Sometimes you can get so drawn into winning that next big project but the real joy (is in) the day-to-day and having this complete freedom.

“The people we work with are such a privilege. Sometimes just take a moment to sit back and enjoy rather than waiting for that end piece.”

You can watch the full episode on YouTube

Read the listen to the podcast

The Naked Founder podcast is sponsored by Financielle – The Home of Money for Women. The producer is Dan Brown.

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From arch-enemies to best friends – the CONDUCTR story

Chris Maguire — Tue, 31 Mar 2026 06:03:43 +0000

As befits a company specialising in storytelling, Peter Cliff and Jos van der Steen have a remarkable story of their own.

They’re the co-founders of CONDUCTR, which creates world-class, ‘kick-ass attractions’ from its Manchester HQ.

In barely four years, the startup has grown turnover to £26m and staff numbers to 100, with studios in the UK, US and Middle East.

The two are best friends inside and outside work, and Cliff was one of the best men at van der Steen’s recent wedding.

However, when they first met, the only fireworks they created were the kind that had colleagues running for cover.

“There was quite a lot of friction when we first started,” Cliff told about their early encounters at Holovis, which designs and builds immersive experiences for theme parks, attractions and visitor destinations.

“We just wanted to own the voice in the room and be the direction of it.

“There was quite a lot of bickering in the room and side conversations had to be had as people were mediating our opinions.”

For his part, van der Steen recalled: “We saw each other as threats – both ambitious with strong personalities.”

However, their enmity quickly turned to respect and a firm friendship, which often saw Cliff sleep on van der Steen’s couch during visits to Manchester.

Today, the only couch they share is in the offices at their Trafford HQ, where they run one of the UK’s most highly regarded immersive technology businesses.

Alongside CONDUCTR, they’ve also launched product-based venture Game Volt, which creates interactive, tech-enabled games for real-world venues.

Founder 250: Search begins for UK’s best founder businesses

Their latest venture – Originals – will see them enter the D2C space with the launch of Gameface at Manchester’s iconic Printworks.

Cliff described Gameface as having a ‘house party feel’, with ‘oversized party games with a digital element’, and it is due to open in April 2026.

The 37-year-old is a big personality – and not just because he is 6ft 6ins tall.

A trained actor, one of his early claims to fame was starring alongside a very young Daniel Radcliffe, before he became a global star through Harry Potter.

Cliff’s own acting career never hit those heights and, in his early 20s, his agent gave him an ultimatum: attend an audition or continue working at Alton Towers.

He chose the latter and, although that signalled the end of his acting career, he never looked back.

CONDUCTR co-founders Peter Cliff and Jos van der Steen are the first guests on the Naked Founder podcast with host Chris Maguire

Merlin Entertainments, which owns and operates several visitor attractions including Alton Towers, recognised his creative talent and offered him a management role.

Over the next decade, he rose through the ranks to become global creative director for live shows, entertainment and events before leaving for Holovis.

It was there that he met an equally ambitious creative, Jos van der Steen.

The son of a Dutch father and an English mother, he spent much of his childhood in California before joining IBM and later Holovis.

After an inauspicious start, Cliff and van der Steen became best friends and took a ‘leap of faith’ in 2022 by launching CONDUCTR despite having no confirmed work.

Van der Steen told : “We were friends first and founders second. Arguably I see him more than my wife, so we have to be relatively close.

“All our businesses focus on one core message, which is ‘heads up, not heads down experiences that join people in a socially enjoyable way’.”

However, the early days of CONDUCTR were fraught with challenges.

“There were times when we thought we’d win projects and we lost them,” Cliff told which I sponsored by Financielle.

“We had contracts that we were working on that were cancelled halfway through. We were concerned at one point that we had a trademark dispute over the name CONDUCTR.”

Sliding doors moment

Their sliding doors moment came when they secured a £1.6m contract from Merlin Entertainments to create an immersive dark ride at Alton Towers theme park called The Curse at Alton Manor.

The owners of Alton Towers wanted to retell the story of one of their classic rides – The Haunted House – and entrusted the Manchester startup to deliver it.

After receiving the brief – known as the theme book – Cliff started to have second thoughts, as CONDUCTR had only eight staff and their sixth-floor offices in MediaCity didn’t even have a service lift.

“The first time I saw it I thought, ‘I don’t think there’s any possibility of delivering the ambition of the concept for the money they had,’ but we thought there’s a real opportunity for us to make a name for ourselves,” recalled Cliff.

“We had the talent but we absolutely did not have the space, nor the tools, nor the facility to deal with the package.”

CONDUCTR has also launched product-based venture Game Volt, which creates interactive, tech-enabled games for real-world venues

After securing some short-term space, CONDUCTR successfully delivered The Curse at Alton Manor – and never looked back.

The company has grown to £26m in revenue and 100 staff without raising any investment.

Cliff admitted it has been a ‘relentless’ journey, with plenty of ‘bumps in the road’ and pivots, but said his relationship with his co-founder has been key to their success.

“I’m so thankful that Jos is my business partner and we’re able to share some of this,” he said. “I can’t imagine how sole founders deal with these pivots.”

An estimated 90 per cent of their work now comes from outside the UK, and they launched Game Volt after spotting a ‘gap in the market’.

Nobody tells founders about growing pains

Cliff offered this advice to other founders: “Take the time to enjoy the journey.”

You can listen and watch to The Naked Founder podcast . It’s available on YouTube, Apple, Spotify and all good podcast platforms. It is sponsored by Financielle – The Home of Money for Women.

If you’d like to sponsor The Naked Founder podcast or nominate future guests, email Chris.Maguire@�Ͼ�Ʒ��Cloud.co.uk

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