Amelia Miller: Co-founder of ivee

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1:04People are talking too much. We debate about food, deep dish, tavern style, who's got the best beef. We yell across rooms, across blocks, across generations. Yes, nice earrings, Grammy. And now we're doing it on our phones, too. Video calls from the L train, group chats that never shut up. Neighbors texting you the score before your TV catches up. Come on! Get a load of this guy. Ketchup on a dog. Yeah, we've got thoughts. Too loud? In Chicago, you're gonna hear it. Because nothing here gets built without conversation. Nothing moves without connection. So if you think you know AT &T, it might be time to rethink that.

1:42Because their network has improved, like, a lot. So Chicago can keep speaking its mind with AT &T Wireless and AT &T Fiber. Chicago won't stop talking. Our improved network backs it up. AT &T, connecting changes everything. AT &T Fibre, limited availability in select areas. Welcome to the Jazz Shapers podcast from Mishkondorea. What you're about to hear was originally broadcast on Jazz FM. However, the music has been cut due to rights issues. The world's greatest jazz, soul and blues. From the world's greatest artists. This is Jazz FM. jazz shapers with elliot moss in partnership with mishkondorea it's business but it's personal welcome to jazz shapers with me elliot moss bringing the shapers of the business world together with the musician shaping jazz soul and blues my guest today is amelia miller co-founder of ivy an ai upskilling and talent network having seen their mum's struggle to regain her old position on the career ladder after leaving work to raise three children sisters amelia and lydia realized the job market, as they said, was not set up for people outside the workforce.

2:52Launching Ivy in 2023, with the initial focus of helping women re-enter the workplace after career breaks, offering webinars, boot camps, assistance with building CVs and more, it was their appearance on Dragon's Den, you may have heard of it, in 2025 that brought them thousands of new members and job candidates and boosted employer interest. But shrinking diversity, equity and inclusion budgets, as well as the overwhelming impact of the small thing called AI in the workplace, drove Amelia and Lelia to expand their offer into AI upskilling. They now support individuals to learn and improve their AI skills through practical lessons built around real tasks.

3:29And companies can use Ivy to upskill their teams, increase AI adoption, or hire from Ivy's AI fluent network. How neat is that? It's great, great to have you here. Tell me in your own words, how you, the psychology graduate got into this thing called your own business and then why the business that you created in the first place? Great question. It's been a journey, that's for sure. I didn't know anything about the world of startups or entrepreneurism when I was, to be honest, at school or even at uni at Cambridge and I fell into a job in banking, sales and training at Goldman Sachs when I graduated.

4:09Small company. Tiny little company, yeah. I haven't really heard of that one. No, no, neither. And was there for three years and realized too late, to be honest, that it wasn't the environment for me. It's one of those things, you know, when you're at university, everyone falls into these big companies. You're either going to, you know, big consulting, big bank, and you sort of think that's the path that you should be on. And yeah, it did take me a few years to realize, oh, wait a sec. Like, I don't think this is the path for me. I then... Quite early on, though, actually, three years is not. I mean, you say you're hard on yourself when you go, you know, it took me a while to realize that isn't that long.

4:46And it is, I mean, a first job, big company, you're going to learn some stuff. For sure. I've watched industry through the years. I'm sure industry is a massive exaggeration, but, and Amelia was smiling here, because if you haven't seen industry, go watch it. It's kind of powerful and it's a bit shocking. and it's obviously an exaggerated version of what life is like working in a banking environment. But I imagine if you know it's not for you, but you're getting paid well, that isn't an easy equation immediately. Exactly, exactly. And I think that's why I say, you know, I was there for too long because I agree, you know, three years in a career isn't massive, but I knew after year one and it was that internal battle with, but this is the career everyone wants.

5:29I'm being paid well. I have a bonus. this is it. This is what many people see as the pinnacle. I can't leave this for nothing. What was missing? For me, it was a sense of impact on the world. It was a sense of ownership, you know, at very big companies. For me personally, I did feel like a small cog in a big wheel. And I feel like I needed more ownership and I wanted to have that entrepreneurial input into like the workings of the company and I'm very driven by seeing like the immediate fruits of my work and trying new things I like to think of myself as a jack of all trades in banking you know it's very focused on one particular thing like you know I'm sales and trading in currencies it's niche you're living on one software on Bloomberg whereas what I do now is so varied and that's what brings me joy and that's what I think was missing but you so there was a short moment when you were involved in another business uh is that right Zuki Zuki Zuki it's good name that's startup but then you quickly go you know what I'm going to do my own thing and at that point were you and Lydia both aligned on we're going to do it together so the stars did align it wasn't necessarily anything massively preempted we always knew we were going to start a business we have always had that entrepreneurial streak I think it comes from our granddad who was he's a he's great he's like a classic east london market trader he's done what hasn't he done he's just sold anything and everything at all the london markets he was back when covent garden was a flower market he had a stall.

7:09He sold crystals outside like Dalston Kingsland station for a few years. And so, yeah, in our childhood, we'd always do, you know, what every kid does, wash cars, shovel snow. But as we got older, we started to have more serious conversations about what are the problems in the world that we can solve. At that point, I was working at Zuki, which is a startup. So I was feeling so motivated by the world of startups. I was learning so many new skills. And Lydia was in VC she was at Deloitte Ventures and both of those skill sets were very aligned at that time when we were both ready to do our own thing she had the VC experience I had the operational experience and the problem was right at that time as well and we're going to pause there and find out what the problem is in just a moment because actually it's a very important moment though understanding just how the two of you came together serendipitous on the one hand and kind of very practical and strategic on the other.

8:05We could argue it both ways. Stay with me for much more from my business shaper. It's Amelia Miller. She's the co-founder of Ivy and they are in the talent and AI business. This is Just Shapers with Elliot Moss in partnership with Mishkondorea. It's business, but it's personal. Amelia Miller is my business shaper. She's the co-founder of Ivy and we were just at the point, and I'm going to let you in your own words say, the problem to solve was, and then you're going to write in the exam paper. The problem solved was, Elliot, here she goes. Key word is was because, to your point, our original business is not the business we have today and we've been on a journey of pivoting and expanding.

8:46Our original mission was to help women get back into the workforce after career breaks. Lydia and I are sisters and we watched our mum experience this exact problem whereby she was an accountant, had risen very quickly to director level, left the workforce in her case it was to raise three daughters we've actually got another sister an older sister oh she's getting a mention she's getting a mention let's give her a shout out shout out Hayley well done Hayley so hold on the age gaps are what between each of you about two years between Hayley's older I'm middle Lydia's youngest we're with the middle childhood middle child that explains a lot that's why I'm so cool well you learnt enough but you've still got someone nipping at you so you're ready to go at any given time looking both ways.

9:31I love being the middle child. Do you? Some middle children have a bad experience. I've only got good things to say. What do you love about it? I just feel like I've had a great life. Have you wiggled through? Yeah, I've managed to somehow just sort of fall into things that have worked well, and that must be, you know. I mean, people will well know the theory around middle children. Lots of very, very successful people are middle children. I'm thinking of one at the moment, Tony Blair, who was prime minister, I think was a middle child, but so many, and I forget the examples, but I think it's that people talk about resourcefulness.

10:05Yeah. And they talk about not quite being the centre of attention and having to vie and say, hello, I'm here, which is probably part of, did you lead the charge? As we get to the Ivy thing, were you pushing Lydia to do this? Well, actually, no. And we have the original voice note, which was on, I think, the 24th of April, 2024. You think, I love that. Some people are bad at dates, you're not bad at dates. That's a very specific memory. I completely know. I'm just being humble. And coming back to the why, we watched our mum leave the workforce and struggle to get back in. It was so hard for her to find work because she had a break in employment.

10:46I remember once we were in the kitchen, she was on speakerphone to a recruiter and she mentioned the length of her career break and they literally hung up the phone on her. And we thought, as if a candidate of this caliber with this experience is being treated like this in the labor market, in the job market, there must be a bigger problem here. And then we started researching, we started having conversations. And that's when Lydia sent me the voice note and essentially said, you know, I think there's a business here. And this was in 2023, and it wasn't until 2024 that we left our jobs to actually turn that idea into a working MVP of the platform and launch it to the market.

11:27And at that time, the tailwinds were really there. You know, DEI was very top of mind. AI hadn't totally led to a collapse of vacancies. and we took off quite quickly and we had clearly hit a problem that is faced by pretty much every single person that's trying to get back into the workforce after a career break. Can you remember mum's emotional state at that time? Because you can tell the story and you go, it makes perfect sense and I'm underpinning the strategic reason why there was a gap in the market is to address that. But for mum as a human and your mum, what did you observe? It was horrible to watch, to be honest, because she was at a time in her life where her children were leaving home, so empty nester syndrome, and she was ready to get back in.

12:15You know, mentally, she wanted to work. She was ready. She didn't have, you know, caregiving responsibilities anymore. And she was all in for working for an employer and being loyal to that employer. And it was just rejection. And she wasn't even getting far along to be like, oh, you know, I missed out. I was one of the final two. It was upfront rejection. And so it was this melting pot of, I frankly have lost my purpose as a mother and now nobody wants to hire me. And so it was just a really emotional time for her, not to necessarily put words in her mouth, but that's how she was feeling. So you have the financial stress, the emotional stress, wanting to work but not being given that opportunity and feeling quite invisible.

13:02Massive impetus then for her children, two of her daughters. And Hayley, I'm sure you were thinking about it, but Lydia and Amelia Miller, who is my business agent today, went off and actually did it. We're going to be hearing much more from her very shortly. Right now, though, we're going to hear a taster from the Mishcon Innovation Series, which you can find on all the major podcast platforms. Lydia Kellett invites business founders to share their practical advice and industry insights for those of you thinking about starting your very own thing. In this clip, we hear from Ethan Frankel, co-founder and CEO of Prograd, a UK fintech platform aiming to empower Gen Z to earn side income and improve their financial future.

13:35The Mishcon Innovation Series. Inspiration from founders of cutting-edge businesses. In association with Jazz Shapers with Mishcon Derea. And what advice would you give to anybody about to embark on an accelerator program? So I'd say be sure that's a good accelerator program because there's a lot of them out there. A lot of them, they can just end up giving a lot of equity out and get very little in return or a lot of promises. And that's very dangerous because you don't understand a lot about your business initially and you end up giving 5, 10, 15, 20 % equity, 50 % equity for someone or a company that will promise some sort of help.

14:15So be sure that it's a good accelerator. What I mean by this, look at previous companies that have gone through this accelerator program. How many unicorns? How many companies have raced? How many companies have raced within which speed of leaving the accelerator? Speak to some of these companies that have gone through accelerator, not just the companies that the accelerator will put you in front, but try to LinkedIn them. Try to reach out some of the founders. Speak to 5, 10, 20 of these companies. Make your own due diligence before deciding whether this is really worth it. and don't just get excited by the hype of, oh, I'm going through an accelerator.

14:48I've got accepted. I need to do it and I need to give up equity. There's a lot of other resources out there that will allow you to retain a bigger chunk of your business. The Mishcon Innovation Series in association with Jazz Shapers with Mishcon Derea. This is Jazz Shapers with Elliot Moss in partnership with Mishcon Derea. It's business, but it's personal. You can enjoy all our former Business Shapers, lucky you, on the Jazz Shapers podcast, and you can hear this very program again if you pop Jazz Shapers into your favorite podcast platform. My guest today is Amelia Miller, co-founder of Ivy, an AI upskilling and talent network.

15:26And we were hearing about the initial impetus, which is mum and women into work. How long, getting women back into work, how long did that focus last? We talked about the, you mentioned DEI, the diversity, equity and inclusion agenda changing. started with the US headwinds into the UK and basically saying, yeah, we're kind of gender, not as interesting as it was. I mean, for the good companies, I hasten to add, they carry on focusing on brilliant people, brilliant women coming back into the workplace after having children. But for you, at what point was there a, hold on a minute, we need to pivot this business?

16:00We launched our MVP, Minimum Viable Product, the first version of the platform. Looking back, makes my skin shudder how bad the tech was. but we launched that in April of 2024. And I would say about six months later, we really started to see these market dynamics come into effect. Trump got elected, DEI budgets went out the window, DEI teams were getting slashed, and hiring was freezing. But that was due to a much larger tailwind, which was what AI was doing to the labor market. When I was at Cambridge, I did a lot of research into skills prediction. I'm currently a fellow there now looking at skills prediction in the labor market.

16:42And what's interesting, not necessarily anything new to listeners, but AI is completely reshaping the workforce. We are living through the largest reallocation of labor since the Industrial Revolution. Not to get doomsday, but it's happening. AI is here to stay. And what we were noticing with what we were teaching our candidates at that time was all of our AI upskilling content was just absolutely fine. We're talking 400, 500 percent, you know, amplification in any learning content we would put out. And for us, that's a clear market indicator that people want to consume this. And what we also knew was this was going to make our candidates more employable.

17:28and the best way to serve this cohort is to ensure they're AI fluent so that they can get jobs and so for us it was a very natural evolution and expansion into the upskilling game because the market was crying out for it and we were just seeing that so blatantly in in all of our data as well we were also getting thousands of dms from people that weren't quite eligible and I put that in air quotes because you know it was from either men saying hey can I sign up or people that were employed saying hey I'm not on a career break but I'd love to learn about AI I know you guys educate. So suddenly the market changes there's a different shape to it but are there still is there still a huge percentage of women that are involved in your vision and also in the practicalities of who's using the platform?

18:18Yeah Ivy is a platform for anybody anyone whether you're employed whether you're out of work and you want to learn about AI if you're feeling overwhelmed by all of the new tools coming out because they are coming out hard and fast, that's for sure. But because of our original mission, we are actually skewed female, which is really rare in AI and in AI learning today because women are about between 30 % and 40 % less likely to be utilizing these tools. And that for me personally is a massive win because I'm very passionate about gender equality in AI outside of all things Ivy. And so it's great to see the initial cohort that we set out to serve remaining very engaged.

18:57And what's been even better is also seeing them stay with us through this expansion. They need it. I mean, everyone needs it. But if you're still serving women, that's absolutely critical. But I just wondered, just a brief question, is this at every level? You talk about the changing job market. Are you seeing it more at the entry level or is this literally going right the way through the thing? It's a great question. We have a knowledge graph. If we analyze market trends, we analyze every single job description that's ever written, like millions and millions of job descriptions a day. We analyze previous periods of tech change and what that meant for the labor market.

19:34And to answer your question, right now we're seeing it in easily automatable roles at first, but the domino is falling. Anthropic actually just released a really interesting report looking at which types of roles are going to be automated and already are. And it's what you would expect right now. You know, it's repetitive, computer-based, things like executive assistant roles or admin-based roles, customer service roles, but it's creeping into every single role. And what we're seeing in job descriptions is even a role you think might not be touched by AI, I don't know, like a social media manager, everybody is asking for some level of AI fluency in those roles.

20:15I think that's the phrase, isn't it? You need to be able to work with these tools. AI fluency. Amelia Millett is my AI fluency guest here. She's the co-founder of Ivy, serving everybody in a way who's looking to get into the workplace. And it happens to be that a big percentage of those are still women, which is a brilliant thing. In researching you and the business, something struck me which was dissonant with my view of life. And it's around this notion that reaching out cold to people can produce results. And what I understand from you is in terms of going hello we're here do you want to invest in us and we've got something interesting you did just that whether it was balderton dragon's den will come on to some some of you will know that amelia was on you and liddy were both on dragon's den i think last year the textiles accelerator you involved in the agent investors a lot of these things came from you just saying hello we're here that's unusual to me how did you pull it off great question and my real answer is I got no clue.

21:17But we weren't necessarily blessed to have loads of industry connections. Especially the fundraising landscape is still very who you know. And tougher for women. Again, I've had many people, whether it's Debbie Wasco, and I always mention Debbie because she's on the task force. She is a legend. The 2 % number, I mean, it's ridiculous. I've had Sahar Hashemi on the programme, the women behind Buy Women Built. we talk all about the lack of female founder investment. It's insane. But you sort of bash through that. I would, yes and no. You know, I would be lying if I said it's been easy. Many a tear shed, many a tear shed in our fundraising journey.

22:03Whether that's due to our gender is kind of a question I don't know the answer to. Fundraising is hard for any founder. It's the worst part of the job. Nobody likes to do it, especially when you don't have a business. But we did so much cold. Pretty much every investor we have has come through cold outreach. And it's... Literally emails? So often? Usually LinkedIn DMs. Okay. LinkedIn is our best friend. LinkedIn is such a powerful social network if you use it to its best of its abilities. So let's pretend I've got 100 million in the bank, which I hasten to, I do not have. And you want to get money from me.

22:37What would you have said to me a year and a half ago? what's the three-liner that falls inside my direct messages box? Well, what the best thing to do is actually I wouldn't have gone to you. I would have found someone that knows you, that has high social status, and I would have sent them a forwardable blurb that makes me sound like I'm really hard to get. Like I'm not begging you, but you want to speak to me. If that doesn't work and I go straight to you, it's crafting a message that could not be read by anyone else and sound the same. So I'm not just replacing that first name. I'm making it a very highly personal message.

23:09I'm seeing what your interests are. I'm seeing what maybe you've recently posted about or reposted. Are you in the news? And I'm leading with that in that very short 300-character LinkedIn DM, and I'm hoping for the best. But that's what you did. Yeah, that's what we did. So it's possible. So if you're pitching me right now here on Jazz Shapers, how would you express why Ivy is different and why it's going to be successful and why I should invest? we're building the the missing layer to unlock ai productivity there's so many tools out there the problem is adoption and nobody is fixing that problem right now we've we've built a brand and we've built equity within the space which means we are the people to solve it and the market opportunity is is massive because this is the new software final chat coming up with my guest today who just pitched it's amelia miller and i did put her on the spot but that's okay she seems to have coped admirably and we've got some Esperanza sporting coming up for you too that's in just a moment don't go anywhere this is Jazz Shapers with Elliot Moss in partnership with Mishkondorea it's business but it's personal Amelia Millett is my business shaper and she's the co-founder of Ivy and we've heard the pitch and I hope you're convinced um one of the things that interested me when I was finding out more about you a lacrosse player 2015-2018 at Team England so you've played sports at a very high level and obviously it was a good few years ago is there a sense of resilience and discipline that you think is important to you amelia being effective in what you do a hundred percent i think playing team sport is one of the best decisions i ever made in hindsight as a founder the skills you build communication leadership operating at a high level under pressure discipline it's insane you know leading a team i'm so thankful for all of the sport i played i still play lacrosse actually do you got a game this sunday very much not at that level anymore but it's a great outlet yeah it takes mine off business do you manage yourself well do you think psychologically because you are you are that kind of person that you've you've sort of trained your brain and your body to to keep going and to be fit and to be ready.

25:28Do you think it's a big part of who you are? Yeah, I really do. And I still do a lot of sport. I played rugby at university as well. And there's something about just getting absolutely the wind knocked out of you when you're being tackled and being humbled, for lack of a better phrase, builds up resilience and being a founder, you're being humbled every day, every hour of every day, you're getting rejected by on sales calls by investors, you're getting knocked. So it's basically a psychological tackle every single day. And so having that experience of what that actually feels like, you know, we won a medal every World Cup, at least that I played in, but we lost out on the silver medal, for example.

26:07And it really is that mindset of you are so gutted, but you have to pick yourself back up. You have to keep going and you've got to get it the next time. And that genuinely is the life of a founder. And in terms of looking at the people that then use the platform, I mean, a lot of those people are going through that journey themselves. Do you, at this stage, because there's 80 ,000 people, I think, who are connected to the platformer, you can correct me if that number's wrong. About over 100 ,000. Over 100 ,000, wow, I love these things. It just goes up. That was only this morning, a couple of hours ago.

26:35Do you personally get involved or is it much more like they're behind the screen? Oh no, we absolutely are so involved. I was with all of our users last night at an event. We do a mixture. So we have live learnings and this is from anyone that's a beginner and just starting their journey with AI to individuals that maybe use ChatGPT or Copilot a little bit, but don't know how to prompt, all the way through to people that are advanced and are building out their own agent workflows. And we're a very founder-led business. The reason Lydia's not on the show today is she is leading and running one of our live sessions on Claude Cowork.

27:11And we have a very high standard with how we deliver our content to users. Our secret source at Ivy is we break down what can be seen as a very technical and complex and overwhelming industry into something interesting and something fun and something that actually makes you want to sit behind a screen and learn it. And to your point, we try and do as many in-person events as we can to actually get everyone in a room together because the energy you feel actually meeting your users is unmatched. And if your grandpa was sitting here now and the guy who was doing the market stalls and was sending his crystals in front of a Dalston and all that, what do you think he'd say he'd be pocketing some equipment on the side and selling it later nice equipment in there he's he's so proud of us when he when he watched us on dragon's den we did a big watch party in uh in brixton and he came and he was just so proud yeah he he absolutely loves it we can watch the clip back on youtube i'm sure yes it's been great chatting to you we could have talked for much longer but um i'm having to say thank you for joining me today and ask you what your song choice is and why have you chosen it my song choice is etta james sunday kind of love why i chose it and i was i was i was umming and ahhing between s james and i do love andre day i know she's a bit more r &b soul but it's a very it's very slow and i find it quite a meditative song and i think in the life of a founder where you're so busy and your brain just feels like it's got a million thoughts going around at once it's nice to have music that can relax you slow you down and and that's why i like listening to it i listen to it my sundays etta james a sunday kind of love the song choice of my business shaper today amelia miller she talked about wanting impact and that's why she left the corporate world and set up this business with her sister she talked about facing the psychological tackles and dealing with them every day and that is the reality of being a founder and finally successful cold calls can happen if you craft and tailor with great precision and thought with regard to who you're talking to when you're trying to raise money.

29:16It is possible. You can do it. That's it from me and Jazz Shapers. Have a lovely weekend. Jazz Shapers on Jazz FM. In partnership with Mishkondorea. It's business, but it's personal. We hope you enjoy that edition of Jazz Shapers. You'll find hundreds more guests available for you to listen to in our archive. To find out more, just search Jazz Shapers on iTunes or your favourite podcast platform or head over to mishcon.com forward slash jazzshapers. Chicago talks a lot. Hold on, let me step over here. People are talking too much. We debate about food, deep dish, tavern style, who's got the best beef.

29:52We yell across rooms, across blocks, across generations. Yes, nice earrings, Grammy. And now we're doing it on our phones too. Video calls from the L train, group chats that never shut up. Neighbors texting you the score before your TV catches up. Come on. Get a load of this guy. Ketchup on a dog. Yeah, we've got thoughts. Too loud? In Chicago, you're gonna hear it. Because nothing here gets built without conversation. Nothing moves without connection. So if you think you know AT &T, it might be time to rethink that. Because their network has improved, like, a lot. So Chicago can keep speaking its mind with AT &T Wireless and AT &T Fiber.

30:31Chicago won't stop talking. Our improved network backs it up. AT &T. Connecting changes everything. AT &T Fiber. Limited availability in select areas.