Episode 1

I'm Adrian Blair and this is the Meet The Masters podcast series brought to you by The Up Group, Europe’s leading digital executive search, networking, and advisory firm. Every year Up recognises the best digital leaders in Europe with the prestigious Digital Masters Awards. In this series, I'll be talking in-depth to the 2021 winners - inspiring executives from transformational businesses like Uber, Wise and GoCardless, and they'll be sharing the secrets of their success.

Episode 2

Excellence in General Management award winner Pierre-Dimitri Gore-Coty oversees Uber's Delivery business and joins Adrian to talk about Pierre's incredible journey with Uber over the last 10 years driving the company's rapid expansion, motivating teams and managing them through change, as well as rethinking diversity & inclusion.

Episode 3

Services to the Industry award winner Robin Klein is a prominent British investor and entrepreneur. He joins Adrian to share the wealth of his 30-year entrepreneurial experience, including gems like selecting founders to invest in, the importance of purpose behind a business, and the state of the VC landscape. Robin is a general partner and co-founder of LocalGlobe, a VC firm, which has seeded businesses like Citymapper, Improbable, Lovefilm, Moo, Transferwise, and Zoopla.

Episode 4

Excellence in Technology award winner Vicky Wills is the CTO at Zego, an innovative insurance tech company. Vicky shares her fascinating journey from coding at Beamly to leading high growth tech teams at Depop, OpenDesk, and Zego. Adrian probes into the toughest questions every tech company faces: what it means to be a product-led organisation, how to manage commercial vs. engineering priorities, how to organise tech & data teams at scaleups.

Episode 5

Excellence in Commercial award winner Shimona Mehta is the Managing Director of EMEA for Shopify, a leading e-commerce platform for independent businesses. Shimona and Adrian unpick the craft of leadership and some of the toughest challenges leaders of high-growth businesses face: expanding internationally, keeping up with growth, prioritising markets, and building high-performance teams in a remote context.

Episode 6

Excellence in Finance award winner Fabian Wesemann is the Co-founder and Group CFO of Europe's top insurtech unicorn wefox. Fabian shares his philosophy on motivating and setting goals for teams as well as diving deep into why employees should be compensated with stock, how to balance profitability with growth, and what to consider when fundraising.

Episode 7

Excellence in Product award winner Nilan Peiris shares his incredible journey and growth hacks as the Chief Product Officer at Europe's fastest growing fintech Wise. Turning a no name product into a consumer staple, role of marketing in early stage startups, designing a product team for growth, and hiring top talent are amongst many insights Adrian and Nilan explore in this episode.