Josh Dornbrack

Bob Skinstad’s career offers a useful counterpoint to the dominant narrative of leadership as linear progression. His journey from precocious rugby talent to World Cup winner and later business leader is defined less by uninterrupted success than by scrutiny, recalibration and the ability to perform when the spotlight has moved elsewhere.

When Hair Syrup founder Lucie Macloud first told her parents she planned to start selling hair oils, their response was swift. “They said, ‘you won’t be doing this under our roof’,” she recalls, laughing at it now but recognising just how pivotal that moment was. It wasn’t a cinematic declaration of entrepreneurial destiny, she insists, but more instinctive. “It wasn’t that I had these crazy ambitions to build one of the fastest-growing beauty brands in the UK,” she says.

In a world of scarce attention, the leader who shows up wins. Personal branding expert Amelia Sordell explains how to do it with purpose Personal branding is a topic that often leads to more questions than answers. What does it really mean? Why should it matter to you? How do you know whether yours is any good – and what does “good” even look like? Amelia Sordell is on a mission to demystify it. The first page of her book, The Personal Branding Playbook, sets the tone.