Nottingham Business School Business Leaders Nottingham Trent University

Designer Lorna Holder has enjoyed a four-decade career in fashion, film, books, theatre and the arts.

And it started after she became the first black fashion graduate from Nottingham Trent – back in 1975.

Born in Jamaica and brought up in Nottingham, she has a great passion for her African heritage.

In this episode of the Nottingham Business School’s Business Leaders’ Podcast, Lorna tells Honorary Visiting Professor Mike Sassi about the importance for leaders to listen, to deliver and to continually reinvent themselves.

Charlotte Henshaw MBE has represented GB at a remarkable four Paralympic Games.

The Nottinghamshire athlete – who had her legs amputated when she was just 18 months old – has won Paralympic medals at both swimming and canoeing.

And she’ll be going for gold again this summer, in her fifth Games, at Paris 2024.

In Episode 42 of the NBS Business Leaders’ Podcast, Charlotte tells Honorary Visiting Professor Mike Sassi about the highs and the lows of her career so far – and how she sometimes struggles to deal with the anxiety of expectation.

Her passion for her sport – and her love for her home town of Mansfield – shine through. Her thoughtful reflections on her success suggest a future in the highest echelons of sporting administration awaits.

Rob Swann joined Nottingham-based manufacturer Termate as a teenage apprentice, in 1989. Thirty-five years later, he now owns the company. In 2007 Rob lead a management buy-out of the SME, which at the time was owned by his dad. Since then, Termate has been on a big export drive – to the point where international sales of its electrical insulation products now far outweigh domestic business.

In episode number 41 of the Nottingham Business School Business Leaders’ Podcast, Rob tells Honorary Visiting Professor Mike Sassi about the stresses faced by small business owners – and why they really need to look after themselves.

José Luiz Rossi is MD of global financial services company Experian in Britain and Ireland and has enjoyed a stellar business leadership career over four decades. In that time, the Brazilian executive has managed tens of thousands of staff across 20 different countries. In the 40th episode of the Nottingham Business School Business Leaders’ Podcast, he tells Honorary Visiting Professor Mike Sassi about his love of winning… and the importance for leaders to show that they care.

Brendan Donnelly’s slate carving business poses special leadership challenges for its owner. Not least because his Coniston Stonecraft business is based on the side of a mountain. Its remote workshops - in old Victorian railway carriages - look down on stunning Coniston Water, in the Lake District. Brendan tells Honorary Visiting Professor Mike Sassi how his first leadership challenge came only weeks after he bought the business in February 2020… as Britain went into Covid lockdown.

Penny Briscoe OBE has been Director of Sport at the British Paralympic Association for more than 20 years. She has also been involved in no less than eleven summer and winter Paralympic Games.



For the last five Games she has been Paralympics GB’s Chef de Mission – leading the team to an astonishing total of 290 medals.



This summer she will lead the team again, at Paris 2024.



She tells Honorary Visiting Professor Mike Sassi, she is proud that Britain is a world leader on the field of play. But her role is to make sure Britain is a world leader off the field too.