Pete Maiden is the founder and CEO of CHEXS, a Hertfordshire-based charity that’s been making a quiet but powerful impact since 2011.

His career began in the Royal Navy, where he developed the kind of discipline and leadership skills that would later shape his approach to community work. After leaving the military, Pete turned his attention to supporting young people and families, driven by a belief that small, consistent changes can lead to meaningful transformation.

Through CHEXS, he’s helped hundreds of young people each year—particularly those aged 8 to 16—through a unique GROWTH programme that blends coaching, outdoor learning, and personal development. Alongside that, he’s built a robust family support service, offering everything from parenting workshops to one-to-one sessions tailored to each family’s needs.

Pete is more than a charity leader—he’s a recognised champion of social mobility and was awarded the Broxbourne Civic Award for his outstanding service to the community.

The work he does is really inspiring and so is his story, from humble beginnings, his adventures in the Navy, learning how to live with significant dyslexia, to founding and running CHEXS. It is full of twists and turns including some pretty frightening health issues! It made for a fascinating conversation, which I loved and I hope you do too.

To find out more about CHEXS, go to www.chexs.co.uk

Nicolas Trindade is a Senior Portfolio Manager at AXA Investment Managers, responsible for managing global and sterling credit portfolios running into hundreds of millions of pounds.

If you're thinking "this is going to be a dry episode" - think again! It was a very rich (no pun intended) conversation, talking about:

- Nic's immigrant background (his Portuguese parents were immigrants to France and Nic is a Frenchman living in London) and the values that come with that
- his love for acting and improvisation and how those skills have served him in the business world
- how to build trust and long-lasting relationships
- what great leadership looks like
- his role as a father of two young children,
- and so much more!

Nic's story is a wonderful advert for the value of immigration and for good, old-fashioned values. I'm really grateful that Nic came to talk to me despite suffering with back pain and I hope you get as much from the episode as I did!

You can learn more about Nic here - https://www.axa-im.co.uk/research-and-insights/experts/nicolas-trindade

David Brown is a life coach, a former Antarctic research scientist, and a martial arts instructor. David is also founder of the Institute of Sovereign Leadership.

This is one of my favourite conversations to date. I loved David's thoughtful and articulate responses to my questions about his work around sovereign leadership, his journey as a leader, how he's overcome setbacks in life (including the death of his brother), and of course what his 'edge' is and how he's leaning into that.

Watching the episode back and re-living our conversation was an absolute pleasure and I urge you to spend an hour or so in David's company.