Today’s guest is dialing in from London and she doesn’t build small.

Entrepreneur and ambitious operator, Gail is the founder and CEO of H&G Recruitment, a business she scaled from zero to £43M in annual revenue. She also launched NTS, Network Transport Solutions just a year ago, and it’s already turning over £2M annually.

She leads a team of 50+, has built authority and credibility in historically male-heavy industries, crediting her success to sharp strategy, disciplined execution, and zero appetite for excuses.

“Authentic leadership” gets thrown around a lot.

But when it’s inconvenient? When it risks power or when it costs you comfort? Do you still choose it?

In this episode Amy and Erin sit down with Jacob Little, a leader who has shaped careers, built psychological safety at scale, and led with conviction even when it wasn’t the easy path.

This isn’t a conversation about being likable.

It’s about congruence between who you are and how you decide, the difference between vulnerability and leading vulnerably, the real risk of showing up fully. Especially in senior roles. Why authenticity requires discipline, not just openness, and how AI is increasing the premium on distinctly human leadership.

We unpack the hard edges: when authenticity feels risky, the tension between transparency and oversharing, the pressure to “play the role,” what high performers must unlearn when they step into leadership, and why values don’t earn you credit, they hold you accountable.

Honest. Reflective. Practical. No leadership theater. Just the real work.

Most companies treat values like marketing copy. Polished, framed, and quietly ignored when decisions get inconvenient. We didn’t build STRATIVIS that way.

Values were the infrastructure first. Everything else came after.

People First, Always isn’t a tagline we added to sound good. It’s the standard we operate against, moment to moment, decision to decision. It shows up in the teams we’ve built, the leaders we’ve challenged and the calls we’ve made when it would have been easier not to.

In this episode, we break down what values are actually supposed to do: hold weight under pressure, guide decisions when there isn’t a clear playbook, and shape the kind of company you become, whether you planned for it or not.

Because values aren’t what you publish. They’re what you prove.