Hustle Awards 2025 Special: Viviene Bish-Bedeau, Winner of Inspirational Woman of the Industry

0:00Welcome back to The Serial Entrepreneur, I'm your host Anna Wood. On today's episode, I'm joined by Vaveen Bish-Badu, the founder and director of Construction and Engineering Opportunities, also known as CEO. We discuss the diversity of the construction industry, the issues of classifying industries as either practical or academic, and winning the Inspirational Women of the Industry Award at the Hustle Awards 2025. Let's dig in. Today, how are you? Hi Anna, I am fine, I'm hot, I'm in Jamaica and I'm having a good time. That sounds lovely compared to the UK weather where it's actually currently looking like it's going to rain today, even though it's summer.

0:45Oh gosh. I'm not sad, I'm not sad though. Yeah, I can imagine. So we begin every podcast episode with the same icebreaker question, which is what's your favourite breakfast cereal and why? Okay, so I don't really have favourites of anything, I think. I'm not very good at favourites. I'm a seasonal person. And so the season, at the moment, I think when I was coming out here, I decided to buy a box of Frosties. Not my regular cereal, I'll have it now and then, but I felt maybe it's already got the sugar coating. I don't have to think about how much sugar to add. It's also lovely when it's cold in the milk because it retains its crunch throughout.

1:29And I think it's not just a breakfast cereal because even without milk, if you want a bit of a munch, you could just grab some of it out of the box. So I think it's very flexible, a reflection of who I am. Yeah, I love that. And I also love just snacking on dry cereal. I think it's such a good, like, crunchy thing. So would you be able to introduce yourself and tell me a bit about your background and your journey? Sure. So as I said, I'm Devine Bishop-Edou and I am the founder and director of CEO. CEO stands for Construction and Engineering Opportunities. I really want my brand, though, to be known as CEO because the background of it is about no one giving you a status.

2:14you take in it. So where did my journey start? Well, initially there was nothing. I'm CEO of Seas Constructural Engineering, but it comes from me becoming a plumbing and heating engineer over nearly 40 years ago now. And it wasn't something that was ever planned. Like many teenagers at the time, I was a more adult teenager at the time, but like many, you don't really know what you want to do in life. You've got all these ideas. I was sort of fixed on working. I didn't want to be a secretary, knew that, you know, the traditional roles that they wanted to give to women. I wanted something where I felt it was creative.

2:54I could use my mind and learn things. And I loved chemistry. And so I was going down the pharmaceutical role. And back in my days, there used to be polytechnics as well as universities. And I was thinking to apply to one of those in the same period that the job center sent me a letter basically saying if you do not sign off you'll lose your benefits and as they do the government they had a program at the time an initiative called the community program i joined that myself in i was 12 in total i was the only female are all there for the same reason didn't want to lose our benefits my idea was i'll do this they'll run short of funds it's a government within six months and i'll get back onto my training course however i was right they ran short of funds so the program came to the end a lot quicker however I was already bitten by that idea of being practical and I actually do not like DIY didn't like DIY but went to learning plumbing something about it very logical thinking process and I really enjoyed it and I felt it unlocked a creative part of my brain that I didn't use and so that's what introduced me to plumbing and long story short I I studied that after my dad laughed his head off when I told him.

4:10My mum, she's in Jamaica at the time, saying, no, no, don't do that, Vivi. Stick to your course. She wanted me to stick on the, what they would say, the academic. I say that in quotations because I'm sort of against this terminology, so practical and academic. But I did one thing that I knew I always do. I followed my heart and I studied plumbing and there was a lot of study. And that's why I say academia is, according, subjective to view. I studied that and then I went on to a BTEC in HEC, Building Services Engineering. Ended up working as a sole trader for approximately 20 years. I transitioned in the 17th year into teaching and so I was doing a bit of both.

4:52Burning a candle at both ends led to a car accident, which, thankfully, I was the only one involved. I fell asleep literally going from one job to another in the middle of the night. and so I decided you know what I just moved into teaching in FE I'm going to follow that because it gave me the same it gave me the same enjoyment as being working on the tools because what it was I could see I could see what was happening I could see like when you work on the tools you put in a bathroom that's your job you see it when you teach someone and you can see that they've learned and they've achieved that that gave me you know such a oh I can't think of the word but it made me feel so good, you know.

5:32And so I thought, yeah, I could go along this road. And so I stuck in, I became a lecturer in the major FE colleges. I moved up to become a curriculum coordinator, advanced practitioner, then curriculum coordinator. When I moved on from that college, I became a senior curriculum manager at a major college for construction and engineering department. And during COVID, I left that last job with the idea I was going to come to Jamaica and spend time. COVID happened at the same time. No job. Ended up working for another local college doing their IQA. And then eventually I was headhunted by a company that wanted someone to manage their training center.

6:15This was in Essex. I went there and became the operations director in the end. And yeah, it's after working with them, working for Chelsea is a bit different, bit of a story there. But working for them, it sort of consolidated in my mind the young people that I wanted to work with. These were young people that were underrepresented, excluded, youth justice, you know. And I, working in apologies, turned many of them away, if I'm truthful, because they did not meet the criteria. And I think quite rightly turned them away because it wasn't the place for them to be. And you just know who's going to stay on the years course from who can't.

6:56But I always understood, I heard the term neat, knew what it meant, not in education, employment or training. I always understood that the government, I believe that the government took care of them. And it wasn't until I worked for a charity that I realized the government didn't fund and that they had to apply for funding. And I thought that was a tragedy, that the ones that mean it the most is the ones that are least looked after by the government. and so that gave me a different passion towards I've always loved teaching regardless of the age group but it drew me into more wanting to support those young people because I felt if we don't give them the second third and sometimes fourth chances that they will require who else is going to help them and since they throw them into construction because I think it's just that easy why not be one of the person that picks them up and help them to move up so yeah so that happened I worked for this company for almost two years.

7:51As I said, working for trustees was a bit different. And I loved what I did, but not necessarily things went this smooth with the relationships with some. And some of my staff saw things and decided, why don't you do your own thing? And I never thought of it before then. I'm from Croydon and I thought, you know what, something like this could work in Croydon. And what they didn't offer was plumbing and electric, because no one thinks a young person can do that. Academically, they think they're not able. They'll give them all the other constructions, painting, carpentry, et cetera, but not that.

8:26And I thought there's a niche there and there's a gap to be filled in our market. So that's what I'm going to go for. And so that brought me around to coming up with CEO. Yeah, great. And kind of on that topic, what is CEO and what is your mission? So CEO has said the name CEO is what I really want to stand out. Well, then, you know, obviously it's construction engineering, but actually, you know, everyone knows CEO at the moment as chief executive officer. And my accountant, for example, when I showed him the name, I was filling out the company house forms to register my company. He said to me, oh, CEO, it won't work.

9:05CEO, C-I-C. You know, it's not going to work because of the acronym and so forth. But I'm like, nope, I'm sticking with CEO. There is a reason. There is a brand on that. And I want it that, yes, everyone does know CEO at this point to stand for chief executive officers. But actually, there's going to be a day when it's like, oh, you don't mean that CEO. You mean CEO, construction and engineering opportunities. It should be that way. So for me, that's a brand that I want to build. The mission is to actually the CEO. It's a status that people have and some have, very few have. and actually I think it's a status that everyone should have if they're in their own rights.

9:49You are the CEO of your own life. Take that and run with it and that's what I want my young people to know. Do not let people define you because as I said things didn't go quite as well with trustees and you know the job I went for or the job they took me on for they had hunted me but they changed the role before I started. The job role was a CEO for both my predecessor and the entering in my space. But when they contacted me, it was changed to a manager role. And it was only because I negotiated after the probation period, I would like at least to go to director more for my LinkedIn status. That was just a movement.

10:28I soon discovered actually I am not doing them less. And actually I did more because I broadened what we did. And I did an email. I did put that to them when I was back to six months and even getting the director was a bit of a tassel. You know, I had to keep pushing to get back after six months. They, you know, the CEO was subliminally told to me when I first spoke to him on the phone by one of the trustees that it was a role that was self-appointed and they don't know how that came about. And it was very recent. Unfortunately, after being there for a year or more and then realizing, looking at some old minutes that CEO role at the time they were speaking to me was being advertised on Indeed for a CEO at that time it wasn't only just recently the lady had been in that position she worked there became a CEO and I'd been there for over eight years and then the interim CEO so it left me what was the difference and unfortunately one of my missions I suppose in life which it's not a mission it's not a mission for me but I suppose it now it at that time became a mission was that not to be defined and not to make my color be the reason why I do not succeed and whatever other people look at as your disadvantage because it's other people looking and interpreting your disadvantage do not take it on board and so CEO that was for me taken away because of my color of my skin, which I think that was the first time actually I have grown up and I know about racism, but I've never really felt affected.

12:03And that did affect me because it devalued who I was, you know, my qualifications, my achievements I already had going into that job. It took for granted that I didn't know the truth about the role. And I therefore was at a disadvantage purely because of the color of my skin. And for all of those reasons, I could have decided, okay, give up. But for me, I'm very defiant. And if you tell me I can't do something or get something, I will go for it. And so I thought, no, I'm not actually going to, I'm going to have my own company, but it's not going to be, I'm not going to be the CEO. I'm going to make the company CEO.

12:41So the company now is CEO. And it means that anyone who wants to come to CEO have access to becoming that person. So my mission is to empower young people to understand that you do not take a label. You do not take what people, so many young people, for example, says, I am dyslexic. I am autistic. I am elderly. And I start and say, you have, you are not. You don't define yourself as I am. You have something, but it's nothing that can't stop you from reaching the goals that you decide on. And that's what I want when they come to CEO. It's because they're coming to somewhere that's saying you are already in that position.

13:20You're coming to a place that's going to build you up to empower you, build your self-confidence, raise your lowest esteem, and building resilience. That's what CEO's mission is about. And helping younger generations, especially, to get into employment or to become their own entrepreneurs and show their worth in nice you know so that is basically yeah what ceo is doing and though it does it through construction it doesn't mean i expect them to do plumbing electrics what i'm doing is just giving them the skill set to know that whatever you want to do you are able to do it yeah that is amazing i think you've already discussed some of kind of the inspirations for why you started ceo but why Why do you think this topic is so important to you?

14:09As I said, being a black female, I've never really, you know, it's one of those things. I don't really like to highlight, oh, I think up to this point, I haven't really highlighted. Oh, I'm female. I'm in this industry. I'm black. I'm in this industry. But actually the reality, when I looked at it, I started in this industry approximately 40 years ago now. therefore women were not in was not into construction generally just women were not in construction as much black female in construction even less so uh and as i said yeah just being a female in an industry that is male dominated there were you could have said there were lots of challenges i actually i love challenges maybe so i don't actually see a chatting.

14:55I see a reason to explore and to conquer. That's the way I see a challenge. You have something, you explore, you conquer, you move on. And so I think for me as a topic, it's something that I want other people to look at that way. You know, we speak about fear. Do I get fearful? Absolutely. You know, running a business can have a fearful effect, but I refuse to live in it or to stay in it and I think people need to understand that that's the old idea when I'm teaching I'm installing that in my teaching there is nothing you cannot do or overcome because fear as it says is fake evidence appearing real and at the end of the day that's as long as you remember that you will feel fear and it's so a young person coming to me they will be fearful especially when they've not succeeded in school they've been excluded or you know they're taken out of class they're at risk whatever there is a fear and they'll put a bravado on but there is that hidden fear and it's like be vulnerable let your fear come out you're in the right space you can this is a place where you do not fail you just meet your obstacles and you turn your obstacles into stepping stones and by doing that every fear that you overcome by turning it into a stepping will take you higher my ceo sign if you look at my design my son designed it for me and i know someone asked me about branding the other day and just like not wanting to change a ceo when my accountant you know i was adamant nope ceo is staying as it is okay thanks the i have a mentor who recently brilliant thank you to weights i have some brilliant mentors and um he was lots about branding and i said i don't mind changing a few things but it's quite personal to me and And that's because my son designed it, not because it was my son, but he listened to what I was saying when designing it.

16:53And what I was saying to him was, I want young people to understand that no matter where they come from, on a socioeconomic kind, wherever they're coming from, they can move upwards. They can go up. And so the sign, my CE shows, you know, like a tail end, but then it shows an arrow going up and it's to take you wherever you want to go. If you have that mindset to do well, that mindset alone won't do it. You do need education. You do need the support. But with the right mindset, you can achieve literally anything that you want to do. And so, yeah, I think that's my inspiration behind this and how I, you know, want young people to feel that the things that I've, if I ever look on my own little challenges in life in Concord, I'm willing to support and help anyone else.

17:44and yeah for a topic for my inspiration my own journey through to come to become a CEO or the title of a CEO I said I don't think I had a rough life or anything like that but facing racism in that way that was the first time I actually felt you know what I'm kicking back against it now I'm not allowing it but I'm doing it in my way not you know that's it really. Great. So I think you've already discussed how you worked in kind of places similar and then decided to start your own business. What do you think makes CEOs stand out from those other organizations? Dare I say I do? It might sound a bit vain and I really don't mean it that way.

18:34However, without me, there would be no CEO. So I have to say I am my brand. I am the person that's propelling it forward because no one else had this vision. So without that vision, you know, the vision of doing plumbing and electrics, when I say no one else, everyone has this different construction. But no one's worth taking young people, you know, at 14 and teaching them plumbing and electrics because as far as they're concerned, academically, they might not be there. They're too young. I reduce that age group now to six to nine-year-olds. I run a mini construction air club that's funded by children in need.

19:09And so for me, my brain works at 100 miles an hour, I think, sometimes. One of my directors, she's more very much. She's the one that keeps me grounded, I would say. She's very down to earth, very compliant, you know, and you need that in a business. I'm the, get an idea a minute and I need to be controlled at times. But it's those ideas that makes the, you know, it's the idea that why can't a six-year-old, at first I was thinking mini construction is 10 to 16. I was asked to do an event, a STEAM event, which is STEM with A, science, technology, engineering, art and maths. I was asked to do an event and though I felt the audience there wasn't my audience, I was more than happy to be there for the day.

19:56They were all under 12. I thought they'd be too young to join in with, you know, to be doing a thinker CEO. And quite a few of them were around the six to nine age group. And actually watching these young people manage the tools and be excited about changing a tap washer and connecting wires and seeing the light come on in that. And I thought, OK, there we go. they've got to do something for these and so Millie Constructioneer Club was born out of that and it's that other than that you know being able to pivot at the right time and having that excitement to want to follow through on different avenues and projects seeing the need when there is a need and following it through to create a project that will help others and I think so if I if I wasn't the person I was if I was someone that's quite relaxed or wait for someone else to do it CEO wouldn't be there so I think yes I that's why I say I am the person I am the passion behind it and that's not to say however I just mentioned my colleague and director Anniko she is brilliant she's the one that nominated me thank you very much Anniko but and she's you know we're a small team I have two directors I but Anniko's one of those she's right there she's been there all the time she left the same place we worked at to come and support me and so without the right team behind you there was again no CEO and Aniko's been that person she has stuck with me through thick and thin whether money's coming in or not she's doing the work you know she moved abroad and she works from abroad still so yes I would say if I wasn't there but I also acknowledge that without the right support and without the right team behind you there is no company and so if you see CEO you might see me but behind me there is the biggest supporter those that believe in me that's no not a big team but in belief there is that support and that's what propels me forward.

22:02It's so important to have that network around you no matter the size because someone might have 100 people behind them. But if you have one person who really, truly believes in what you do and supports you in it, that truly is the difference. Absolutely. Absolutely. So CEO works with refugees, young people and ex-offenders. How do you design inclusive training that caters to such a diverse group? I think the word is diversity. We are diversity in construction as it is. If you want an industry that is diverse, construction couldn't be more diverse. And I literally mean diverse. You go onto the building site, you will see every nation at some point on a building site.

22:53We spoke about youth offenders. Where do they usually send people when in life things have gone wrong? At the colleges, the ultimate place where they think, oh, they're not academic enough. throw them down to construction. So they end up naturally going to construction. So on the site, you'll see that a lot of people, not a lot, but I'd say there's a good proportion of people have maybe had past lives where, you know, they got involved with criminal justice and the route out was through construction. So, you know, it's something to champion construction for being at least one of those industries that will take on people who have been in a criminal justice system.

23:33Okay. and with the asylum seekers again well I think we know from Brexit for example we do not have many in our in in the UK now that are educated in construction so those jobs such as because everyone puts construction just down to the practical side well we are already failing because by 2030 we will not have the right amount of trades people in plumbing electric and all those engineering because we're not training them up also we definitely haven't already got those people or many of them should i say because they are there to not want to stereotype but we don't have enough management roles quantity surveyors the designers architectures everything can you know the even the down to document controllers there are so many diverse roles even occupational therapy in construction people speak of construction as just being a practical and so young people are educated onto the roles that they can go into if we get that education right the estimators and all of those roles it is one of the most diverse industry it's I mean I started as a plumber I became a lecturer I then became an advanced practitioner I I done my HMC in building in service engineering so I can, you know, do the design side.

25:00You know, if I so wanted to, I could have gone down that route. And now I run my own business. Nothing against accountants, but just an example, if someone studied accountancy, they could maybe, yeah, become a lecturer, et cetera. But they're limited in how many things that they can do. There might be different branches of accountancy, but to branch out in the same way. construction offers so much that you can branch out into and so for all of those diverse groups that is a brilliant thing that they do not have to come with a particular education already and that's how I make it diverse I'm starting from entry level we're not starting at you have to be in level two or level one even entry level because I'm starting with someone as if you're a newborn baby and you're learning for the first time and I'm going to nurture and train you in that way and give you the respect and the time, prioritize you for who you are, not for you being in a community of people, but as an individual person.

26:05So yes, we're a diverse group, but you are still an individual when we come to CEO. And so if you come as an asylum seeker and your language is Farsi, I have no Farsi. So I can say, huban shatori to you, meaning good day, how are you? Because I'm learning from you while I teach, I learn from you. And so when people are comfortable that you're willing to learn from them as well, because no matter how much I can teach you, I can still learn from you. And that's when my young people, I don't know half the things that's put on like an emoji or you know text talk etc but I can say what's that meaning they're teaching me that small thing but I the fact that I'm willing to learn something from them makes them even more willing to learn from me and so it's having that respect for people showing people that yes my job here is to teach you or my job because I'm everybody is to be a manager and to run this department to discipline you to do this and that but it's through love that I do it all and through respect of you.

27:09And that's where, you know, young people speak about, I want respect. And I say, yeah, but what is respect? You know, we say if you give, you gain. And I think it's learned then, not hearing that word, but having, living it. And that's what through CEO actually, they live and see that we respect them. We will evoke discipline and you need discipline in construction. It's a very disciplined industry to be in. and whether you're an asylum seeker, a youth offender, an ex-offender or a young person who's not done well at school, actually you're an individual, you're a human being and that's who I see.

27:46I don't see you as someone that doesn't know English well. My job is just to help you along the way. You know our asylum seekers when they come to us I use Scrabble. We use that as a tool of learning English and speaking about the words and I use the tools because they're there to learn about at all. So they enjoy that. And when they turn around and say, you know, one of my asylum seekers said, Viv, my English has improved so much since I've been here because he's doing something he enjoys. And that's what it is. Find out what someone loves and enjoy. And you'll be surprised how, you know, they'll get wings and fly with that.

28:21I have five grown men, six of them actually at one time. They are asylum seekers and I was teaching them the vowels. And I don't know if you know this song, but it's A-E-I-O-U. And by the end of it, they're walking into the workshop with their hard boots on. They're going and singing A-E-A-E-I-O-U. And it goes on. But they remembered it. And every time I say the vowels, all of a sudden this choir breaks out now. It's a running joke. But the thing is they remembered it. And so it's making, I think making the diversity that I bring is to make learning fun. And as I grow, that is the harder part.

29:05As you grow, you've got to have someone that's going to do that for you, continue it. But that's what I say to anyone that comes with me, that learning should be fun. And once it's fun, you will learn. Yeah, that is amazing. And I think you also mentioned about how you'd never fully realised about that you would be the only woman and then it kind of dawned on you about that. So I think many view trades as a very male dominated space. How do you kind of navigate and challenge that dynamic? I think from quite an early stage when I decided to go into cumming, one of the things that came to mind is that I'm in a very male-dominated space.

29:51However, men have also been in that space themselves at one time in industry, nursing. Nursing would have been a very female-dominated space. and if you know you could imagine men and I've seen documentaries when men first exited into the nursing but being that man going into that very female area how isolated it could feel at times see a group of women maybe feel that even when they're not speaking about you they may be speaking about you try to integrate yourself into it so from my perspective I could say oh well this is how hard it is to be a female in this industry etc but I think I went into it that mindset that men used to be underrepresented in nursing now we look around male nurses are the common factor it's took years for that to happen it didn't happen overnight and it's still evolving and I see that for our industry and construction and I say our industry because you it doesn't matter whether you're male or female if you are a construction worker working anywhere in that industry it is your industry and I think that's the thing take onus of it first rather than say I'm a female in the male industry just say my industry is construction stop labeling it as a male or female industry because that's what slows us down you know and I know that when I started yes there were many women who I used to be part of a organization I called women at manual trades I actually cheered it for one of the years and it was brilliant because it was women coming together helped each other out and that's good and that's community and I think you always need that but it wasn't about fighting to sell a woman in the industry as much as I am just a person doing a job that I would like to do and that's it find what you want to do and don't let no one dissuade you from doing it and I've never let anyone if anyone tells me I can't do something I'm gonna go and do it because I'm very much the opposite so when my dad laughed when my mum was like no no don't do it actually you know I wasn't 100 % sure I loved chemistry but actually I found and that's where I said this academia thing where it's practical not academic my chemistry which is very academic as they would put it helped me so much when I was doing my plumbing because the theory behind it, understanding comparative material, all metals and reaction with oxygen and that.

32:20There is so much to it. And the study that goes into this, there was, you know, all of that. And, you know, our male counterparts go through that as well, et cetera. And it's just not, I think my thing is so much not about a woman being a woman in the industry. It's about our industry full stop being undermined that you don't have any brains. And because I'm a woman though I'm seen differently meaning my male counterpart have gone through the same thing but they're just a plumber I turn up as a plumber wow you're a plumber oh I can't believe it and it's like why is there that difference so I'm all would sort of I would always empower women to do what they want and go into the industry regardless of what anyone says but I want to also say stop to other people stop undermining what we do because actually if you have no flushing toilet you will have a poor hygiene if you have no running tap poor hygiene our state of our nhs would not be where it is if we if you would look at a third world who has brilliant doctors but poor hygiene you can see disease still is there so a plumber is just as important as a doctor you know the difference is one works on the body we work on your plumbing systems in the homes or you know in a commercial setting and without us and all the other trades we would not have shelter we would not have as many as a woman i i would say use that to empower you to come into the industry and show what you can do and know that when a seed is planted it's planted in a dark it takes many years for that seed to grow and if it's a tree it's going to take quite a few years for that tree to grow to its full glory and even maybe a few years for the fruit to be seen.

34:07But it doesn't mean it's not happening. And I believe, yes, it has been very slow for women in the industry. 40 years on, I'm still maybe still few amongst the gas engineers, but there are definitely more than when I started. And there's definitely women plumbing firms, Pink Lady. And, you know, I don't know about it personally, but I know that I believe it's a woman that took over Piumico. So it's happening. And so what I would say is let's not label it no more as a male-dominated industry. Just label it as it is. It's a construction industry and we work in it. Amazing. I guess kind of talk about being a woman in the industry.

34:45You won the Inspirational Woman of the Industry Award at the Hustle Awards this year. So congratulations on that. What does that mean for you, both personally and professionally? Wow. the wow would be you know it's like okay I think I was nominated and shortlisted in two categories last year didn't win anything but actually just being shortlisted is still being recognized that's still quite important so yeah but then to go one step further now and I think on the evening I wasn't actually thinking of coming because I was flying out to Jamaica the next day it was going to be too much but in the end we did go and when I in the category I suppose I didn't read my emails too well because I thought I wasn't going to make it and I thought well if I win it'd be lovely and someone would you know be there holding for me keep the award till I get back but I'm really happy I did come because though I didn't win one of the awards I was up for founder of the year and that was the only award I thought was up for my husband was flicking through when we sat down and looked at the program and he said, Viv, you're in this one as well.

35:56And I looked and I thought, oh, I didn't even realize I was in that. So I went, oh, I'm in two. And so when I did, when the first one I thought, oh, there's still a chance here in CE, I think that was it, you know, that moment that I said CEO being recognized. I wanted CEO to be recognized here in CE being called in a way that I've wanted to be called. That was the moment. It wasn't me, it was CEO, it was a company it was that brand that was bringing it to life it's it's got recognition it's you know it's ceo's being recognized for something else other than the name that everyone knows it so yeah that recognition oh that was it's it's um i don't know it's indescribable to say to win something that it's sort of gives me reason to keep pushing forward even more it's like it wasn't that i was giving up or anything but now it just spurs you to say you're being appreciated you're being recognized what you're doing is worth it because it's the impact and yeah so it's having an impact enough for people to notice it and you know I write impact reports on my funders and actually sometime again it's not until you're writing that report that you realize what you've done but again you still don't have time to really soak it in because you've got to move on to something else so you know that's at the startup event and the ussels award I think it's really brilliant because it does give that time for reflection to say wow you know I'm I'm relatively young still in my business my third year I just completed I'm just moved into my fourth year and so for me it's a recognition still in my third year to have such a prestigious award to win something like that yes it means a lot and I think it does add to recognition of who you are hopefully people will start to say ah CEO so that's the person yeah we want to deal with that person that's what you you have as startup giving us that so I thank you very much because it is you know another step in my obstacle to overcome so yeah yeah I hear from a lot of founders that when they win because obviously I interview all the winners like it gives us a chance to kind of sit and reflect because as a founder oftentimes you're kind of looking forward you're thinking oh what's next and you don't have that time to personally reflect on everything that you've achieved and then all of a sudden you're like oh my god I've won this thing wow I have done a lot haven't I yeah yeah yeah it's like you saw like three years has gone past relatively quickly I'd say and I've pivoted a few times in within the business not away from it but within you know adding different elements and okay that's not working let's go for this I need funding so I've got to which community do I need to serve and so Annie Coe would say to me and the other director she says to me Viv but we were meant to be doing this and I'm like yeah but the community needs that now and so I'm always on my toe trying to think of what to do and it becomes very tiring and there are times that I put my head down and you're like what funding or how am I you know can't pay yourself or you know I go my first year didn't pay myself but I wanted to make sure everyone else was sorted out and then I don't know if I'm going to be able to pay the rent or I've got to take it from a personal all of these things but it gets to you know and I'm still on that journey at the moment sometimes but it makes it worth it to say you know just people recognizing to be you know you're in with your peers that evening with your peers who are in the same position many of them are worthy of the same recognition and you know as my thing sorry I forgot the lady's name that spoke on the evening.

39:39But, you know, it was very clear that everyone is quite deserving. It's, you know, but there has to be a winner. And so last year I was not that winner. This year I'm taking the full glory of being that winner. I'm like taking it on board and saying, yeah, because if I've stood out that much, it empowers me. I want to empower others. Thank you for empowering me through them all. Yeah, well, thank you. so going to move on to discuss your journey a bit more you've already mentioned how you don't really see challenges as challenges but what do you think some of the biggest challenges not challenges have been on your journey so far and how have you managed to overcome them um I think because the challenges when I say I don't see them they're all going so I could say as of today my challenge is I'm in Jamaica my leaseholder is just confirmed that from the 5th of September, my license is expired.