Episode 11
Ally Owen
FOUNDER OF brixton finishing school
ON THIS EPISODE OF ‘IF I COULD TELL YOU JUST ONE THING ’:
Ally Owen is an inclusion activist, digital leader and founder of the award winning Social Enterprise Brixton Finishing School, an accelerator that finds, trains and places ‘under-represented’ talent into roles within the Media, Creative and Digital Industries.
With 30 years experience in the media and advertising industries; Ally amassed her early experience working with the likes of the Guardian, MailOnline, Yahoo and Unruly.
Brixton Finishing School's award winning family of courses she founded include the flagship ‘Summer School’ in London, ‘ADcademy’, the virtual program, which gives over 2500 students a year across the UK a fairer chance to succeed, ‘ADventure’, the schools programme, which aims to introduce 100k diverse 14-18 year olds to the industry, and ‘Visible Start’ for women over 45.
Ally is on a mission to disrupt the elite media and advertising industry so it includes all voices and gives them the opportunity to thrive. She says talent is distributed equally but opportunities are not.
Ally is a force of nature and force for change and we loved talking to her.
Watch Ally on YouTube or listen to her on Spotify, Apple or Google podcasts
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Hello Ally aged 21 (1994),
You’re living in the Toxteth area of Liverpool while you study at the University of Liverpool. University tuition is free and maintenance grants are available. This means there’s been an element of social mobility meritocracy, and you’re the first in your family to get this far educationally—the generations before left at 16.
You’re living with a group of mates in what would now be classed as a house ‘unfit for habitation’. You’ve got a hole in the kitchen floor that you’ve helpfully placed a traffic cone over so no one falls down it. There are also mini lines of salt across the kitchen floor, like prehistoric earthworks, to keep the slugs out. Like most of your neighbors, no one has a ‘house phone’. There’s a payphone at the end of the street that takes coins.
Absolutely NO ONE has a computer. You’ll handwrite a 16,000-word dissertation on the position of women in 5th-century Greece. No one you know has designer clothes, unless you count a Champion hoodie from the market. You’ve got debt despite seemingly working all the time from 14 while studying. This debt could be closely linked to your love of partying (you love Liverpool’s 90s piano house/rave scene, don’t you!)
It’s your final year, and you have dreams of moving to London to make a career for yourself. You believe anything is possible but don’t have a clue what you’ll do or how you’ll do it. You think you’ll probably be a secretary, as there is a lack of working role models for women, and you aren’t pretty enough to be an air hostess. All you want is stability and a quiet life. You have no concept of class barriers or the need for a network. No one you know has ever risen high enough to be impeded by them. It doesn’t occur to you that being female or a lack of social mobility will hold you back. You're very naive in this regard.
Then, you are going to get married by 27 (because that’s what everyone does) and have a house with a fitted kitchen and a bathroom window that opens.
WELL.
Life is going to be much, much BIGGER than you can fathom. It’s going to be a roller coaster, and you’re fortunate that you’ve been raised for endurance and to stand up for yourself. Things are going to be dark, but there is going to be light—you’re going to survive and eventually rise, and this pain will form the foundation of your purpose.
Nothing is as you think it seems. Society has been designed to ensure certain types of people rise and others are pushed down. Sadly, 1994 is a high point for social mobility. Roll forward to 2024, and social mobility is at its worst in the UK for 50 years. The good news is that you are doing something about this. You take all your experiences and mould them into something that creates opportunities across the marketing and advertising industries for talented people, who get ahead on their potential, rather than being the ‘right type’.
If you knew half the stuff that was going to happen, you would lose your shit. So here are STRONG suggestions.
Keep grafting, hustling, and standing your ground. This is essential. Your early career survival and subsequent success is dependent on your ability to work harder than those around you, and you’re one of the few, not the many. I really admire your resilience and your reliability, despite the chaos of your life outside work. You get stuff done, quickly and to a high standard. You are incredibly curious, love learning, and you always want to deliver your best work. Remember, done is better than perfect—that will save you hours of extra work.
There’s a concept called ‘Self Care’. You don’t have a clue about this or what mental health is. You’ll hammer yourself to keep things going as there is no safety net. This is not sustainable. Eat well, REST, and place yourself on a level. Rest is not laziness—it’s essential. It’s going to take you a while to get around this. Or to be honest, to be able to afford to stop. Rest when you can.
Choose your romantic partner wisely. You’ll discover your blueprint for partnership is completely wrong. ‘Sticking together whatever they do’ means you stay in bad situations much longer than you have to. You can’t thrive if you are giving all your energy to someone else. In your personal life and at work, you discover there are things called ‘boundaries’. They are guidelines to keep you safe, not to change others' behaviour. WALK AWAY when they are broken. You won’t, and honestly, the amount of time it takes you to learn this is a testament to your endurance, which in this case, is not your friend!
You’ll discover a huge amount of healing in building Brixton Finishing School. By rebuilding some of the meritocracy and opportunities that have been lost since you were young, you make peace with some painful experiences. Kintsugi is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with gold in order to highlight and show off the imperfections caused by the breakage. Brixton Finishing School is your Kintsugi.
And you do get a fitted kitchen and a bathroom window that opens (eventually).
Let me end with some advice—just remember it’s not the number of times you’re knocked down that matters. It’s how many times you get up and stand up.
A wise woman once said, ‘fuck this shit’ and she lived happily ever after.
Love, Ally (2024)
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Max: Ally Owen is an inclusion activist, digital leader, and founder of the award-winning social enterprise Brixton Finishing School, an accelerator that finds, trains, and places underrepresented talent into roles within the media, creative, and digital industries.
Mel: With 30 years of experience in the media and advertising industries, Ally had mastered early experience working with the likes of The Guardian, MailOnline, Yahoo, Unruly, Brixton Finishing Schools, an award-winning family, and, of course, the flagship summer school in London, ADcademy, the virtual program. This program gives over 2500 students a year across the UK a fairer chance to succeed. Adventure, a school's program, aims to introduce 100,000 diverse 14- to 18-year-olds to the industry and provide visible status for women over 45.
Max: Ally is on a mission to disrupt the elite media and advertising industry so that it includes all voices and gives them the opportunity to thrive. She said talent is distributed equally, but opportunities are not. Ally is a force of nature and a force for change, and we can't wait to welcome her to the sofa.
Welcome, Ally.
Ally Owen: Thank you so much. Thanks for that incredible buildup as well.
Max: It was quite nice about it. So hey, glancing over was this slight kind of degree and smiles that are coming from you as well as we are kind of doing that.
Ally Owens: Weirdly, despite being in the spotlight, I'm not comfortable with being in front of the stage and much better at orchestrating things from behind the scenes.
Max: Hearing all of that, how does that feel?
Ally Owen: It feels like it's a miracle, if I'm going to be honest. I started this in my kitchen on a credit card and a remortgage about eight years ago. And at that point, I had no experience in education or activism. I was just a very cross woman, basically. And to see that idea that I was going to build this differently. Rebuild a system. I felt we'd lost a system that was more meritocratic. That was about talent rather than type. That was kind of people are Oh, no, it was a bit of a dream. But I was really determined. And to hear you say that sometimes, because I'm still in the same kitchen, I'm still paying off that remortgage, though I haven't got much left. Yeah, it's just a miracle that we've really done it and that there's something that gives people an equal chance.
Max: To those that don't know you, obviously, we've given an introduction. But in your words, I suppose, who you are, what you've accomplished, or what you're doing?
Mel: And a little bit about Brixton Finishing.
Ally Owen: I'm Ally. I'm a single mom. I live on an estate in Dalston, which is part of East London. And I am a classic, socially mobile, ginger person. I added a bit of spice there. I was very lucky. I was the first in my family to go to UNI. And I fell into advertising. I'd never heard of it. But it was tempting. And I temped today at the publishing house. And that's how I discovered this hidden world. And as soon as I discovered it, I thought, I want a bit of that. And I'm a natural-born hustler. So I got in. And after about 25 years of doing advertising, it was quite clear to me that the playing field was not level. And I wanted to do something to make things more equitable. So I set up Brixton Finishing School to build accessible pathways for all types of talent into the industry, to support them when they arrive, and to get really amazing talents up to the top. So we actually have an industry that reflects all the wonderful communities in our country, rather than just some.
Mel: It's incredible. We talked a little bit before coming on air and recording just where some of that sort of hustle, candy, and resilience came from. So tell us a little bit about your early years, and in particular, you mentioned your dad and the influence he played on you.
Ally Owen: Looking back at the time, I thought it was very normal. I thought my upbringing was boring and that it was too average; it turned out that my upbringing was not average at all. My dad, Tony Owen, is the Governor, as he likes to be called. Just he goes and calls people squire, Oh! I squire, stuff like that. He was the central heating apprentice; he left school at 14, was always told he was not very clever, turned out to be dyslexic, and probably will go into this layer, which is very neurodiverse as well. But so he became a central heating apprentice and engineer, did that, and ended up doing engineering stuff. But he had two daughters: me, the oldest, and my sister. And we grew up in the 70s and 80s. And no point did he ever suggest there were girls jobs and boys jobs. I had Lego and engineering kits. He always told me I could be whatever I wanted. He was really keen on education. And it was an absolute shock to me when I entered the workforce and I discovered that in my first, like, big job in media, I was at the Daily Mirror. There was a floor of 60 men and only 3 women, of which I was born the youngest by quite a long time. And I just didn't understand it, and I look back, and he was a feminist, probably not what people would view as a feminist. But he had a much brighter older sister, and she wasn't allowed to go into further education and stuff. She really wanted to, and I think it was his way of maybe healing what he saw growing up to give us the chances he did. I spent a lot of my early career shocked, because it never occurred to me that women and men weren't just the same and that we were just as bright as each other and just as capable.
Mel: What gift your dad gave you is having that confidence, which you need to talk a lot about growing up in Liverpool and being the first to go to university. So what was that like for you and your family, because that's a real milestone?
Ally Owen: I mean, again, when I was really little, so I grew up on the south coast; my mom's a Scouser. But from about three or four, I was told I was going to university. Nobody ever asked me if I wanted; it was just conditioned into me. My mom moved from Liverpool. She was bright when she was 14 down to SX. And she didn't get to do her levels or anything like that because it was a different curriculum. So both my dad and my mom lost educational chances. And I think, with me and my sister, they just wanted us to have a really different experience; they wanted us to think. And I think if it never occurred to me, I would be the first one again, because if somebody tells you that's what you're going to do from day one, if they set that expectation, you think that's what everybody does. And again, it's only when you come out the other side and you reflect back and go, Oh, you're just grooming me for higher education. Oh, my God, you made me believe I could do it. But yeah, so there was that, and there was a lot of other self-reliance. So weirdly, I paid half everyone on my birthday presents from the age of seven.
Max: You paid for half of them?
Ally Owen: Yeah, since seven, I've paid half for every birthday present. And you would make that money either from your christening or your birthday money, or you would do jobs around the house. But you will always be responsible for your finances. So when do we get on to why I was good at hustling? In the first of my seven, I wanted a camera, and back then you had this thing called a Brownie camera. It's like a little roll of film. And yeah, dad went. Well, you want to pay half. So I had to learn how to, obviously, go to the post office, take out half my christening money, and contribute that, but I was learning about that. So I think for me...
Max: Understanding value is important, isn't it?
Ally Owen: Understanding that money needs to be earned. And even though you are female, you earn the money you provide. And again, I realized that's quite unusual. I mean, I have a 19-year-old daughter. She's never paid half for a birthday present. Just to let you know:.
Mel: Most people listening to this say that she never paid half for her birthday present.
Ally Owen: Yeah, but again, it never occurred. Again, we grew up like that. It never occurred to me that you wouldn't contribute. It wouldn't be partly your responsibility to get the things you want. I think, when you look back, it's as if it was some kind of weird science experiment. Maybe they were like those Swedish psychologists are like, Let's take two twins and teach one thing more. But I think they would; they just knew life was going to be hard. And by choosing to do this stuff, they gave me an innate advantage because I never thought that was anything like hard work, grafting, hustling, or making my own way. It was anything but what you did.
Max: Did you and your sister want to go to university then? As you kind of realized it in your teens or early teens into it, or did you feel like wanting to rebel because you've been told you're actually doing it?
Ally Owen: Where we grew up, and really sorry, if anybody knows where I grew up was a bit of a shithole, I'm not allowed to swear.
Mel: You can do what you want.
Ally Owne: Yeah, I could not wait to leave. I realized, as a ginger girl on the south coast, nobody's going to marry me; that was born out. The other exit available was education. So I was gonna go Uni.
Max: But where on the south coast could we just qualify?
Ally Owen: Okay, because I've got to go back there at some point, but it's actually the most private district in Hampshire that I grew up in. This was obviously my experience; things have greatly improved. But it was a kind of place where if you did well in your education, people would be really angry at you. I remember when I was going to go to university.
Max: Is this a new type of thing?
Ally Owen: Yeah, well, people are basically not, you know, what can I say? It was pretty rough. So when I got my place at Uni, people actually said, If you go to Uni, you're saying this place is no good. Like you're disrespecting the place? And you're like, That is insane. But I'm going to go to university. Why? Because of that kind of stuff. Because this is insane what you're saying.
Mel: We're at this level; we need to keep everybody else at this level since...
Ally Owen: Well, it's a kind of Islander mentality. If you are from something you don't have a lot of—that kind of tribal gang mentality—stick together. Don't you go thinking you're better than us? Actually, what it does is reinforce a lack of potential and a lack of opportunity for fulfillment because it's a kind of embattled state of mind. And I understand why you think that you've got nothing; all you've got is what you've got. So, therefore, you defend it. But what it does is stop a lot of people from rising. Or, in my case, I was so allergic to that particular fish tank. I jumped out and decided, You've got to push away from the edge of the swim bars and trust that you can swim to get anywhere.
Mel: How did those early years and early experiences fuel you through university? Because one thing that comes out in your letter a lot is that this sense of resilience can do it. Go and make it. How much of that came to the fore at Uni?
Ally Owen: I found university really easy after those early experiences. People were nice. And it was just a different world. I mean, living in Liverpool, it's got a big Irish population and lots of different types of people. I felt really at home there. Liverpool, at that point, was a really deprived city. And there were areas that the police didn't go into. I lived in Toxteth. I think there was massive unemployment. But, you know, that was poppin. Not obviously fine, but that wasn't in any way, and I felt quite at home. And it also meant that if you are a hustler, you could hustle. So I had a really good time. I learned a lot. I've still got loads of friends now that I went to university 30 years later.
Weirdly, we've all just been diagnosed as being on the neurodiverse spectrum. Birds of a feather flock together, and it's been amazing, like me and one of my best friends, Ben, who is from Muswell Hill and was diagnosed with ADHD within seven days of each other.
Mel: And has that diagnosis changed the way that you think about things, or does it make sense of things? We hear quite a lot in the news at the moment about people who are diagnosed later in life. What impact has that had?
Ally Owen: Yeah, I really needed it. Because I think, especially as a woman, when you go later in life and your hormones change, whatever neurodiversity you have becomes really pronounced. Even if you ban it, it becomes much harder to manage. And not many people talk about that. Also, it makes a lot of sense given the fact that I don't really have a sense of risk. That's partly my background as well, that incredible belief that I can get through anything, which actually is not necessarily some situations; that's great; other situations used to really just leave. You don't have to prove you can survive in it; you can just leave. So, I definitely think it makes sense of some of the challenges I found within some more corporate structures. It makes sense why I'm doing what I'm doing now. Because I do think it takes probably a different wired mind to see a way of doing things that is not there. But I'm sure lots of people have given some thought to thinking of a better way of doing a lot of things that we do at the moment. So, I don't think I'm that special in that sense.
Max: I'm going to challenge that back, though, and say, actually, I think it is quite special. I got diagnosed about three years ago, and I think I'm dyslexic. So add the two together. And yeah, you have some fun. It's good, as I've seen it, that it gives you validation; perhaps the way that you're thinking doesn't stop the frustrations of not working the way that other people do.
But your point there about not doing things perhaps the same way of thinking or seeing things perhaps the same way as others is that it's given you a unique kind of blended viewpoint. And then approach when you then kind of stick on to that to the graph and the resilience, a bit of a kind of superpower in that respect, where actually someone else is going to ask you a little bit about the activism piece, and that resilience and that drive to do something or stand up for what you believe to be right. But I see it very much then: there's actually not many other people who could do what you're doing in the way that you're doing it in the topic and kind of creating the impact that you have
Steve Bartlett did his talk recently; he talks about skill stacks. Ronaldo, as an example, is not the best footballer in terms of pace, in terms of his strength, of this, that, and the other. But it's when he kind of lays out that actually his work ethic, and then actually, he's good at kicking the ball and things like that, and he's quite kind of a footballer.
He then kind of says you're one in 8 million, and then the next one makes it one in 800,000. And the next skill stacked onto it—the kind of dynamism or this unique kind of DNA—makes it one in 800. And you see kind of the most, kind of things, the layers, if you like, make unique. So I challenge you back and say that, actually, it's probably only you that could be doing what you're doing.
Ally Owen: I'm just thinking about how good Ronaldo would be when I did it; we actually played for Arsenal.
The act of writing the letter made me realize that because I am quite, I suppose my dad has got this brilliant phrase, which I think anybody's neurodiverse may recognize; he does be like a fully paid-up member of the awkward squat, which is a good thing. And also, if you're throwing shade, not a good thing, but basically, a fully paid member, the awkward squad will just be bloody awkward. Why? Because I can. And that could be standing up, but actually, definitely, I think some of the stuff we do now around championing other voices and standing up would just be called being awkward in corporate life. 20 or 30 years ago, it wasn't acceptable. So it's kind of grown. Do I think I could do this if I hadn't had the mix of stuff I've had? No. I definitely want to go through it. You have to have a blind focus and belief within it. Otherwise, you're not going to get it done when it's hard.
Max: And creating something like Brixton Finishing School, and I know that you talked about resilience and obviously your dad being that support and things like that. Is there something that happened—a penny-drop moment—when you thought this wasn't good enough? Or, actually, I've been through a career, and looking back, I could have helped others. What's the seed, or was it an incident? Was it a period of time? What kind of creation was it?
Ally Owen: I think it was a gradual unfolding and unfurling of realization. I think, in my personal experience, that light bulb moment is the result of many sparks. Normally, light bulbs do not have sparks, but let's just hang on to that analogy. So throughout my existing career, obviously, when I first got into gender, it was the big thing because there weren't any women. And it was just crap. But I was built for walls, so let's crack on. And then, obviously, that kind of got a little bit better when sets got completely better. But then I went through maternity, etc. Then I realized class and, obviously, the race element as well.
Where I live in Dalston is full of very normal people. But when I go to one of my workspaces, those people aren't represented. And I think I was in survival mode when I was younger, probably not seeing as much of the stuff because you can't really believe you're in these spaces anyway. Because you're like a pioneer from where you're from. But as you come to realize how odd it is that there's only a certain type of person in a space, and that space is supposed to market to everybody, you kind of go a bit odd. And then, you know, stuff went down that pissed me off, not gonna lie.
These are some of my favorite examples. I was at the national newspaper. And I didn't realize it, but I was the total token socially mobile person. I obviously thought that these people weren't that good because I'd had to work a lot harder than them; they'd just been given their jobs. So I had this kind of slightly innate sense of superiority. But to them, I was the token working-class person, and a girl joined the team I was on, and she went to school; she went to King Charles's school, obviously, because we're talking that level of posh. We're not talking about grammar school. We're talking about that level of poshness at these places.
And I remember she didn't speak to me for the first week; she didn't speak to me. And I said to my colleague, We sit on the same team. And I said to my colleague, Why won't X speak to me? Oh, Ally, she's never met anybody like you before? Has she? Oh, nice. It went. And then she had something up the next day, and I obviously stepped in and negotiated with the person above her, and then she was in my pocket.
But in that moment, I realized two things. One, my colleague was not surprised that she wasn't speaking to me, whereas I was. And number two, the colleague just made it my problem. Nobody was saying to her, What you're doing, not speaking to your colleague, was perfectly acceptable because she hadn't met anybody like me before. To not have a conversation when you sat opposite somebody. And I think for me, obviously, I just railroaded through that and carried on, but then you reflect as you look back, and you think, actually, that was really a bit shit, wasn't it? That wasn't very cool. And then the final bit, obviously, is that you pick up these things like these, debris-type things.
Max: Visually seeing you as this bulldozer plowing through this beautiful kind of...
Mel: It's really interesting to me that you have that resilience at such a young age, because, like you say, to be in places like that, you were a pioneer; not many people were from places that you were from. To have that sense of purpose, I'm going to go and do it anyway. And actually, it's all good. And actually, it was only in reflecting back that...
Ally Owen: I wonder if it was my neurodiversity. I think you won’t grow up somewhere really rough, where you're used to just crapping all the time. So, actually, unless somebody's really in your face, that's not dangerous. And somebody's being a bit off to you. I've occasionally somebody will point out to me that somebody's being rude to me, and I won't have noticed.
Give me an analogy. I was at Glastonbury once with the sound engineers, and they were all shouting at each other really loudly. And I thought they had an argument. But no, they're sound engineers. They've gotten deaf, haven't they? So that's just how they shout. That's the level. And I wonder with me, because I'd been so used to war that I just operated at a level that meant it was not. Unless there was a threat to life, I wasn't upset occasionally or frustrated, but definitely those more; unless you touch my face, I'm probably not going to notice.
Max: Would you say, from a second example, that this bulldozer is cruising through and obviously getting things out of the way and looking back, and there's the rubble in the debris that you talked about? Emotionally, was it always or has it been a kind of armor, if you like, although the strength that is kind of bulldozer and actually not going to allow people to upset? You did it upset? It's kind of like you take that quietly away or visibly...
Ally Owen: I think, obviously, you're upset. But the reality is, as a single parent, I hate to say how much you can't be so egotistic to let things piss you off because you've got to provide. I think when you think about the concept of who can make a fuss, some people can make a fuss, and other people just need to hold on to their jobs and pay the mortgage that month. And I think there was an element of that in my early career. And obviously, Brixton is the ultimate example of making quite a big fuss, isn't it? But when I set Brixton up, my daughter had hit 11. And one of the reasons I could do it was because she went to high school and I didn't have to pay my mortgage or child support, which meant one of my biggest financial debts was off the table, which meant I could take a risk. Up to that point, I was in this surviving mode where if I didn't make money that month, everything stopped.
Max: 11 or raise.
Ally Owen: Probably a bit more than that when you think about it before as well. The moment that kind of coagulated Brixton in my mind was when I was at another national newspaper. And they employed Katie Hopkins. If anybody's familiar with her, I think everyone might be. So thank you, Katie, for being employed with us. And I was running a really big revenue line that was contributing quite heavily to that paper. And I just became really aware of how complicit I was in the fact that, in a way, in my head, I was like, I'm kind of paying her salary. And, when I was younger, I was an activist in my teens; I did a lot of light. I did the poll tax riots. I did lots of stuff, like poll tax activism, because they said it was a riot. And maybe it was.
But I did a lot of stuff, and as I got dragged into corporate life, I stopped fighting for my own and other people's rights and kind of went into survival mode. And in that moment of her being employed and me somebody's having that moment of going, well, I'm going to pay somebody to be complicit in my own degradation, because that's kind of what I kind of think if you write horrible things about people, you're trying to degrade them, aren't you? And she does right to know, am I allowed to allegedly, she writes, as we know, she likes suing people. I've heard it said, though it may not be true. Supposedly, she sometimes writes things about people that aren't very nice.
Max: Be safe on that one.
Mel: There'll be some time for the show, just in case.
Ally: Yeah. Can we check with the show?
Max: Those types of people, in part, are purely for attention now. And it's to stir up a...
Mel: But you see how ads become violent.
Max: There are echo chambers, and actually, the wrong people pick them up and use them as fuel.
Ally Owen: We know when somebody creates hate speech about somebody else. That is, as you rightly say, email translated into a physical outcome. Words become deeds. Thoughts become words, which become deeds, and those deeds hurt people. An example of that is perhaps the terrible violence that's happening around the trans population at the moment. That's been stoked by really horrible sentiments and people saying terrible things, and that translates to horrendous outcomes for people.
Mel: So talk to us a bit about being an inclusion activist.
Ally Owen: Oh, why not? Well, funny old job title. So basically, I'm a woman who does stuff rather than talks about it. So I take action, so that makes me an activist. So if anybody listening takes action, you're an activist too; please add in my inclusions. In my little head, I just maybe don't think everybody needs to be included, because it's better for society if we all are.
Certainly, we know that when you include everybody in a business, people are happier. Businesses make a lot more money. I think you've got a management team that's inclusive of diversity; you make 10% more than a company that doesn't have a diverse management team. And like you're more innovative, all the things that say that kind of broadly, the creative industries, marketing, advertising, and commerce need to be good at, like innovation, teamwork, coming up with ideas, and engaging people, are only possible if you actually get everybody in it. But not everybody in it is psychologically safe to say what they think about a brief or a pitch for an idea.
For me, it made sense. Where I live, on the street I live on, it's literally up the road from the studio. I was the only one who had a career on that street. Everybody else had job jobs, childminding, and big cleaning. And people on that street—to the girls, there's only six, seven houses—to the young ladies got first, but they can get jobs. Now, when you look from my street and my street down Kingsland High Street, you can actually see the Shard and the Gherkin, but it's as if I describe it as a sieve. That only lets a certain type of grain of rice through, and the rest of that is held back. It's like a wrong sieve like talents held out. And I just thought that was just an appalling waste of talent, a waste of investment in education, a waste of potential. So, I mean, to get a first job and not get a job, do you think that would be unusual? It is not. It's just not.
Max: How did you turn that drive into awareness that you're seeing this firsthand? You've gone through your own career and some of the highs and lows and talked a bit about the darker side of things, which we might touch on later. But how did you then turn that activism and that belief into action? And what did that action kind of look like in those earliest stages?
Ally Owen: So I started telling people what I was going to do. Now bear in mind that I hadn't really thought it through. So there was no business plan written down.
Max: But is this something you are almost manifesting an element of? Are there enough people hearing about it and getting it? That's a good idea, or you should...
Ally Owen: I started telling people. I said, Right, I'm going to set this thing up. It's going to be a free course. And we're going to find 18- to 25-year-olds given free training in the industry. And then we're going to give them jobs. And then I, like, went on Canva.
Mel: We love Canva.
Ally: Bear in mind that I have zero design skills, and I designed the most crap logo ever. And I discovered that most companies will let you put 4999 pounds on a credit card without a CFO sign-off. So I bought an AZ machine. And I went around people I knew when my crap logo and my manifesto appeared, and I persuaded them to do it without the CFO sign-off. Give me some money. And actually, if people pool in and one person pools in, then I like...
Max: People buying in agencies—that something grand.
Ally Owen: So in the first round, McCann, London, Clear Channel, Vizeum, and PrettyGreen were big names, but it was people who knew me from my career who also had maybe experienced or were allies to what other people experienced. Also, because in my career, I've worked really hard, and I never ripped anybody off in a deal that I know of. Apologies if you think I have, because I'm not perfect. People were willing to take the pump.
But the magical thing I did, which again, I didn't think through; I just said what I thought would work, was that you gave me the money and you helped me fight. But in exchange for that, you had to recruit somebody from the fighter project, and you had to give them a job for a year on a salary in the early 20s; it was way over the London wage at that point. Which then made you completely complicit that person had to be actually quite good, which made you very interested in how he's going to find the people and what he was going to teach them, which then made you part of the kind of crew. So I got everybody who'd ever sold media with me to call up a load of six forms, colleges, and community groups and say we're doing this. I ran a couple of local media outlets and job centers.
And I met with Marc Lewis, who ran the School of Communication Arts, and he said it was a brilliant city to have my space in the summer. And then there's an amazing woman called _____. Murphy said she used to be, I think, at Ravensbourne; she was incredible. She helped with the course. And we kind of patched this course together. That was a third of critical thinking, a third of the dark arts of the office, because that's where you're going to F-up. And a third was the ecosystem, but everything was actually delivered by the employers themselves. And obviously then, so the people that put the money and then how to if they wanted to take an account executive, where you got to teach them how to be an account executive then. So we ended up. We started with 24 young people from the groups we deal with, and I looked at loads of census data. I used to be a strategist.
So I looked at that point in the 2011 census, and then I looked at statistics within the industry and worked out which communities were furthest from work. And that became my outreach blueprint, which we now revise every year. But the first one was 80% Labour majority multicultural with 60% Black Heritage, because that's a real talent shortage. And then 20% of whites are socially mobile in London. So we focused on that. We had 24 young people. Of those, I think 18 wanted to go into work, and 95% of them got a job, and some of them are still in industry and have gone on to win awards.
Max: That sounds good. Apply that, and you track them or keep an eye on them.’
Ally: Yeah, all in the WhatsApp group still. Yeah, most of them. Some of them have done it for a couple of years, and maybe it's not for them. You have to remember that as well. We've got a lot of work to do in industry before we are completely inclusive. Yes, we started with that, and then it kind of scaled dramatically and rapidly, with COVID being probably one of the biggest opportunities I seized. I think two weeks after we locked down, I read a Polly Toynbee article in The Guardian, where she said graduate opportunities are disappearing. And I was like, well, if Polly says that about graduates, what about everybody else? They are going to be truly bugged.
So I phoned up the campaign. Again, I didn't think this through; I did it and thought it would just happen, which welcomes neurodiversity. And I said I'm going to launch a national version of Brixton Finishing School that's going to be virtual, and they said, Okay, Ally, that's fine. You'll probably do it after you've done the first one. We're going to call it, and I was like, Okay, think of it as a really snappy name. What does Lily go to? My daughter went to an academy, so I went to the AD Academy, and when I finished the article, I was like, bugged. It looks like I'm building a national school now. Great, cool.
I know we still have that as the name, and that was really amazing. Because we raised industry crowd funds and people put in their own personal money, like 20 quid or 50 quid, brands like KFC and GSK came on board. And the AD-Cademy opened, so we launched, and I said I'd do it. I think we locked down March 23. Polly's article came in April, and the AD-Cademy is officially virtually open in February 2021. So just under just under year.
Mel: So, just under a year. And I've got so many questions.
Ally: My brain is popping.
Max: While Mel was thinking, when you took that leap, you'd been in graft mode, survival mode. Lily's gone to a bigger school, but she's not talking to my kids. You took a risk, or did you, in terms of having your job and keeping your job, and this was a side hustle or project, or otherwise, did you go all in?
Ally: I couldn't go all in until a bit late, but yeah. So I was actually still doing it. I was working seven days. But mostly I was doing Brixton. But the money for Brixton was going to Brixton, and I was also working. I set up a separate little mini-agency called Hoxton United that I was doing digital marketing through. And that kind of funded me while I got Brixton going, and I think I didn't really take the leap to 100% Brixton until about year three, and only recently, in the last two years after counseling for workaholism, have I managed to get down below a 5-day week? Because I think it used to just be on.
Mel: And that was one of the things in your letter, because I think a lot of people in our industry will resonate with that, especially our generation that has a work hard, play hard, work harder sort of mentality. And you talk a lot about self-care and the need to rest. Resting isn't a break and isn't like selling out.
Ally: Challenging, so hard.
Mel: I wrote a whole book on it, and it is hard. I won't get here, but I'll tell you afterwards, but I think so many people in our industry learned that you're only as good as how many hours you're putting in and that presenteeism, staying late, and pitching. The industry was very much around this sort of always-on mentality for a long time. And it does feel like it's changing. But I think a lot of it is changing because people like you and others are speaking up and going; just because we earn our stripes in that way doesn't necessarily mean the next generation should.
Ally Owen: I tell my team that when you're working, you're not allowed to do any work past 5:30. And if you work a bit after 5:30, you get that time back; there's no unpaid overtime. And for me, it's like, I will. I know I still have some bad habits, but I'll send a WhatsApp, and I will say, Do not reply. Just because I can't get over this doesn't mean you shouldn't. Because I don't. Yeah, it can make you ill, and I definitely think, from my background, that if you graft because there is no safety net, then you get into a career where that's a positive, so you're conditioned. And it took me a long time to get over a lot of anxiety about working less to be able to pull back. I wouldn't say that on the resting bit, a Sunday from an early age, I was told productivity with safety, which is essentially what I was programmed into. If you're working, if you're doing, if you're providing, you're going to be safe because there's a huge intergenerational fear in that conditioning. I wouldn't say I've gotten there yet. But I'm getting better.
Max: No, I mean, I'm exactly that, and then these recipes are the guilt factor that you get with them. And then, when you're running your own business or businesses, there is always stuff to do. So if you're not doing it, then you are ignoring or not giving something the attention it needs or deserves.
Ally Owen: It's your name above the door. I think it says your name above the door.
Max: And I think it grows at the rate that you're willing to encourage it or make it happen.
Ally Owen: I think what I've got to do now is, like, we have a really strong team at Brixton Finishing School. Now that I'm a really strong partner, I've got a really strong advisory board and trustees. There's definitely a village. And what's been really good is that I've really just been focusing on future proofing it. So if I disappear tomorrow, I'm not saying I'm planning to, but nobody knows what's going to happen in life. It could still continue. And I think that's the key thing. So I think some entrepreneurs are like,I've got to keep it. And I'm like, Well, you've got to build it, so it can survive without you. And I think that in 50 years I definitely won't be here, unless I'm cryogenically frozen or something. It was still going. Because, let's face it, I don't think we've sorted everything out in 50 years; we haven't looked back, and that would be amazing. I'd be really chuffed with that Nicole de Sac named after me. Tony Blair's got close in Highbury. And every time I go back, I'd really love a Nicole de Sac.
Max: What is the hardest moment or the hardest thing about setting this up?
Ally Owen: I mean, there's been so much hard stuff. I think at the very beginning it was financial insecurity. I did this without any capital. I did this with a credit card and a re-mortgage as a single parent. So there were moments where I woke up at 4 a.m. just having a panic attack. And then I think I just compartmentalized any doubt that I had, because if you're doing that, you're not going to be affected the next day.
So I think I kind of pressed every emotion down for a couple of years. And I think what's been quite nice in the last couple of years has been a bit safer, as I've had to kind of feel the feelings and all that stuff that you shove down. It doesn't go anywhere. It's going to come out. Yeah, so I've done a lot of work around. Feeling all the feelings dealing with that. And I think now that my life has been a whole series of events, if I changed one of those events, maybe I wouldn't be where I am today. And I'm alright with where I am today.
Max: I like that. You mentioned in your letter that it was beautiful. I'm not going to try and say, You're going to try and say, Let's try and say that.
Ally Owen: So, Kintsugi, I'd like to apologize to the Japanese nation, any Japanese speakers out, or friends because I'm trying my best to say Kintsugi, which is, and I love this because this is, I'm really into this stuff, and if you break something in Japan and you love that thing, you can put it back together and make it more beautiful if you break a plate by mending it with gold. So I just love that you can kind of melt down gold and use that as the glue to glue back up...
Mel: And you celebrate the imperfections.
Ally: And make it more valuable. Celebrate the fact that it has been broken and healed.
Max: And still here and being used.
Ally: And honored.
Ally Owen: I think, in a way, of building Brixton; I didn't think of this at the time. It's only now that I, as a wise woman, am eight years old and looking back. Yeah, it's been an incredibly healing process. I think what's great about Brixton is a lot of the people, the partners we have, and the trustees, advisors, mentors, and supporters. They're giving back to the next generation because they want to just give them a better experience than they had. So they're either healing something in themselves or they're healing something that they saw happen to their colleagues. I just think that's really nice. Because if you can't, by taking action to mend something that happened, that in itself is a step forward; you're no longer stuck in it.
Max: So do you see then those that aren't being complicit in the ongoing challenges and issues that we have?
Ally Owen: Some people don't give a crap. I would say I do. And why should they? It's not affecting them. They're benefiting from the current structure. I always say the industry is split into thirds. There is a third; I describe it as the solar system. A third of the planets are teeming with life. They're amazing places. They’re in this. They're all about inclusion. They want to do it. They're on the journey. A third are kind of like, Oh, I really would like to do something; I'm going to try; I'm just a bit nervous, but they want to go. And a third of the solar system is just lifeless, white-dead planets that have no interest in this because the system works the way it does for them.
Now, we know that some people don't buy into it because there is no financial reason why this is not a thing you would do. When we look at some of that, people are going, Oh, my God, there's a slump? Well, if we know that, if you have a diverse management team that produces 10% more earnings before interest in tax than a non-diverse management team, I press that lever. I probably wouldn't stop having biscuits at meetings, whatever cutbacks you're going to make. Yeah, I do the big one plus 10%. If I knew, like Deloitte says, that my team is 83% more innovative, if I'm inclusive, if people feel psychologically safe, and if I knew that I was in a creative business where ideas and engagement mattered, I would have pressed that button. The reason those buttons aren't being pressed is because some people like the structures as they are because you can type over talent.
Max: They might get found or equally; it's that...
Ally Owen: There's always going to be brands like that.
Max: And people are scared of change as well.
Ally Owen: But you've got amazing brands like Diageo; there's lots of brands that are embracing. At the end of the day, the people who are going to change this industry are the ones setting the budgets. If I am a brand, if I'm a top 100 brand, I get to decide who spends my money and takes a cut of my gravy, or whatever you want to call it. So I can decide the rules of engagement for that. I can say, What's your gender pay gap? I can say, What's your ethnicity pay gap? I can say, What's your social mobility pay gap? For example, marketing week did a thing for brand marketing teams; the social mobility pay gap is 15.9%, and ethnicity is 8.4%, I think.
But all these things, if you set your brand and you're deciding who you're going to engage with, why engage with people that aren't doing the work that needs to be done? Obviously, you need to do it yourself as well. We can't just sit in a greenhouse and throw stones at other people. But if we wanted to sort this out, if I, as a single mom with no money, can do what I've done, imagine what could be done if somebody had a billion pounds or even a million.
Max: So well said, isn't it? I mean, we've got a couple of questions left before we wrap up and hear the big one. You're obviously engaged in huge amounts of talent, and there's that 100,000 number that was read out earlier. What is success? What is the marker of a job well done for you and the team? Where's that now? And where's that in the future?
Ally Owen: Do you know what I used to think it was? But actually, in the last year, we've become a lot more thoughtful. And it is about changing that top tier. So for me, the kind of school level is every young person, every child, knowing that these careers exist. If you're not aware, you can't aim for that North Star.
Then, every child believes that they can attain that career if they've got the capability. Neither of those things are true at the moment. Then is the access piece, that nepotism where all of us get to be nepotistic, where we get everybody in, and then for me, it's about once you're in, who are the VCs? Who are the shareholders of these companies? Who is the CEO? Now it's not just about CEOs, because we know that at the end of the day, if you're owned by a load of venture capitalists and they say, Do you know what? Not liking the look of your return? Can you just take the DNI budget out? Because that's going to give shareholders a little bit of a return. That is what will happen. And that is what happened last year.
So for me, it's like, who holds the power? How do we change it? Or, if you're a brand, stop giving your money to unsavory people. Give your money to people who are doing the work, and if ever an unsavoury person, you're still going to want a bit of pie. So you're going to start doing the work and get to do it performatively, but I don't really care how you do it; as long as you do it, whether you want to do it or not, as long as it's done, that's it. That's a bit of a rant, wasn't it?
Mel: So tell us what would be great before we sort of come to the questions. Obviously, eight years in, we've talked a little bit about some of the struggles. And obviously, the people around you now and having that board, are there key people on your journey that have played a role and helped mentor because, from the sounds of things, you knew the industry, you knew the space, but setting up an education platform and all of the things, who were the people that you turned to that?
Ally: Do you know what? There are so many, and I would feel a bit aggrieved if I didn't name all of them, so I'm going. I mean, there's so many at different stages people have lent in, and the best thing about what we do is that even if you've only got a bit of time one year, you're always going to be part of the family. Lachlan Williams, anomaly when he was on furlough—do you remember those good old days? So when I set the AD-Cademy up, the whole furlough thing meant people could work for me because they were being paid by other people but not allowed to work for them. So he actually created the whole of the AD-Cademy curriculum around employment.
Then I've got my trustees and my empty barbershop. I've got generals that never matter. I've got Caroline Forbes from Clear Channel and Ben Major from Uncommon, and they, along with lots of other wonderful people, are really useful when I feel a bit low and vulnerable, which, believe it or not, does happen because I am a human being, not a human doing all the time.
Now, there's so many people, like all of our partners, that put stuff in the pot, whether that's inventory to reach people or whether that says, Oh, we get pro bono PR, we get proponent law. Well, we live at _____ HQ, and they let us stay there for free. So this is very much a cast of incredible advocates and allies that is on a scale of hundreds, all putting in. And that makes things much easier, because I just have to focus on paying staff rather than anything else.
Mel: But also, that gives a real sense of momentum. Because, like we said, you know, coming into the industry years ago as one of three women on the floor, let's not even talk about all the other metrics of diversity, which I'm sure are absolutely horrendous. But to see so much of the industry show up and participate in different ways and support that gives me hope, I guess, about where we're going.
Ally: Do you know where I'd go with this phrase? It's like being bathed at home. My team will be like, Oh, God, that partner may not renew, and I will be like, It's a miracle. We're even here. Which is probably not the kind of thing somebody's driving should say.
But I think it's a really hopeful thing. The fact that we're here and that we're doing well. The fact that other people in the same space are doing well. The fact that this is something we're talking about and that it's part of what people do is really good. Yes, 2023 will see a sort of big defunding of a lot of DNI projects. But lots of people didn't defend them. And I think that's a really good thing. Stick with the people who've got your back. You don't need to win over the whole world. You just need to win over enough people to stay alive.
Mel: Are some of your biggest highlights, I guess, in those eight years?
Ally: seeing some of the talent be promoted. We've got people who've won awards, second jobs, and first jobs. I'll talk about Chris now. So Chris was a nail tech round here. She doesn't want it; you need it, but yeah. And she bumped into somebody who had done Brixton. And she said, Well, you should do it. So she gave it a go. And she ended up winning a marketing internship at KFC for a year. And I stole her back to be community manager for two years. And she even upskilled, and now she's doing brand marketing at the BBC.
She came over from Bulgaria when she was 12, no English speaking, in a classic family. Her mom, I think, is a cleaner, and her dad's a security guard. She is first person to go to Uni. She did well at Uni; she worked really hard to cut all that debt, obviously, when she left, working three jobs—nail tech, whatever. No connection is that a classic, socially mobile person does well and falls off a cliff.
And I think with Brixton Finishing School, finishing school is supposed to be a bridge between two worlds. That's what it was when ladies used to wander around with books on their heads. It was a bridge between academia and marriage. Whereas with us, it's the bridge between what happens when you finish your education and this weird bit that happens before you can get a job if you don't have a network, so that's amazing. We had our fifth birthday party, and that was incredible. I mean, even today I sat here like talking to you. That's a miracle, isn't it? Who would have thought that?
Max: There are a lot of fanboys and girls in the community of what you're doing, and honestly, people have been following you for ages, and we know there's massive fans and believers and those that are passionate, and I think that the passion piece just sits here with smiles on our faces, things like that, because while a bit off the wall at a bit now to some of the comments and otherwise, it's bloody brilliant. And that passion, that energy, and this kind of thirst for life are infectious. And I think there's no denying that, actually, when you're putting your mind to it as a grafter, as someone with a bit of chatter, things like that, what you've done is no surprise. I think it's incredible, and I'm really proud of it. I think it's amazing.
Ally: I also think we should normalize being slightly eccentric because everybody is. It's just that most people think they have to tone down their inner light to fit in. Actually, if you're unapologetically yourself and hold that line, most people just go... Oh God, all right, and then
Max: All the people around you are the right ones, because those that don't want to be around will bugger off.
Ally: Well, this is it. I always say with my sort of light the people on those icy white planets, when I walk into a room if people walk away I'm like, Ah, well that's lifeless planets.
Max: So with that then being said, we'll lose the Pluto's, and things will keep the lively planets here for anyone that's listening to this or that might know someone or other Chris’s in the world and things like that, and obviously it's anonymous. Is that why we do just that one thing? What's the one piece of advice that's so good or bad that if you did get to have that chat with your younger self, what would that be? Or if you met anyone else, actually, for that matter?
Ally Owen: I think definitely; just keep on going. It doesn't matter how many times it goes wrong, as long as you get up and carry on. There will come a point where, as long as you keep getting up, you'll be up. I think that's it, but be really kind to yourself. I got this card. That's my friend, actually genuine, whom the trustees gave me, which is a wise woman who once said, Fuck this shit. And she lived happily ever after. But just keep on going and be kind to yourself.
Max: Brilliant.
Mel: Thank you so much.
Ally Owen: No, thank you.
Max Fellow: I really appreciate it. It's been great having you.
Mel: I'm going to have to read your book now.
Ally Owen: Yeah, we should plug your book. I love to read it.
Max: So how did you think that was?
Mel: Just another mind-blowing guest, really, who just had energy and passion. And yes, she talks about her neurodiversity, but just that drive, like when she called herself a hustler. But I don't know if I'd necessarily use the same words. And we haven't seen that bit of her, but just that energy to get up and go and to challenge and to fight and to see something that you think is not quite right and going and making a difference.
Max: Being brave about it, right?
Mel: But also, and we were talking a little bit about this saying goodbye to Ally, but just the tenacity and the belief that one person can make a difference and going out there and doing whatever that difference is, whatever that bit is, she didn't start Brixton Finishing School with the idea of hundreds of thousands of people, but she started it with a, I want to change this and I want to make a difference, and just look where that has taken her, and in eight years, it's remarkable.
Max: Yeah. 24 people, I think, was the first one, and then on to over 100,000 people in the coming year—two years, things like that. It's incredible. And I think when you have someone like that who has this kind of blind drive—and I say blind—she calls it her own naivety, and there's been an effect in the sense that she has been taught the fact that she had to pay for half of her birthday presents to drive that work ethic. You mentioned there the role of a parent, influencer, or mentor in some regard. That actually it's that then that teaches you these fundamentals at an early age and what's right, what's wrong, first things come first in her later years once she's had her career to an effect, not over by any means, but once that she has helped her child, that dependency piece has gone, freeing up this opportunity for her to go and do something and make a difference, and she's got the moral ethics, this activism piece that she says to go and do something about it. If someone is challenging you, what are you doing about it? She's a pretty impressive little powerhouse, and when she called herself that little kind of powerhouse, I think it was just the authenticity around her and this passion and drive. It's incredible. Her story is incredible. That conversation was incredible.
Mel: Yeah, I think a couple of things will really stay with me from Ally's conversation: one, just the importance and power of the stories that are in your head and those early influences; her dad's being a feminist and telling her that she can; and she had never thought about anything other than that, just the importance of that. And I think the second piece is that it doesn't matter where you start or your lot in life. And I think you and I would both resonate; we came from not too dissimilar backgrounds to Ally as well, and some of that graft is in fear that there is no safety net, as Ally said, and where that takes you and just seeing the kind of impact you can have and the changes you can make, and I think for me, those are two of the really big takeaways from this.
Max: I've got loads, but fundamentally, there is no other way other than forward, whatever's going on, but it is, that resilience and all those other things to it, but I agree, lovely conversation and a brilliant new tequila drinking partner to hear more of those stories.
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