Swim Against The Tide

The idea behind Swim Against The Tide podcast is to meet founders and leaders of businesses who have launched and operate in competitive markets, taking the bigger, more established players head on. It is about exploring what drove them, how their brand stood out, what they had to do to win and what lessons they have learned that they can share with the listeners to hopefully inspire them to take their own journey. The show is presented by Steve Henry, Co-Founder of the specialist marketing group Audience Collective. Steve has enjoyed a 30-year career in advertising helping 100s of brands win and grow. He is passionate about telling these stories and sharing their journeys, both good and bad, to help the next generation learn and encourage them to one day start their own challenger brand. If you would like to be a guest on the podcast, please email satt@thisisaudience.com and we will be in touch.

Swim Against The Tide is a business podcast hosted by Unknown Host, with 98 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80. PitchCentric scores this show on Booking Probability, Listen Score, and live audience signals refreshed every 24 hours.

Unknown Host hosts Swim Against The Tide, a business show with 98 episodes published.

Our AI reads these to draft pitches. Use them as grounding for a pitch that cites a real guest and a specific topic.

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  Episode #99

  Ep098 – Toby Bradon, MD, Redemption Roasters | Changing lives with a shot of Redemption | SATT

  Aug 26, 202648 min

  Redemption Roasters isn’t just competing in London’s crowded coffee market - it’s using coffee to help break the cycle of reoffending. In this episode, MD Toby Bradon explains how the King’s Award-winning business trains people in prison, supports them into meaningful employment and achieved a remarkable zero reoffending rate among its participants last year, compared with a national average of 42%. Toby shares the lessons he learned scaling Vue Cinemas across Europe, navigating the cinema industry through Covid and now helping Redemption Roasters enter its next phase of growth. It’s a fascinating conversation about brave leadership, building a commercially successful business with genuine purpose, and why - in Toby’s words - “profit powers purpose.” The SATT Team :) #podcast #business #swimagainstthetide #growth #entrepreneurship

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  Episode #98

  Ep097 – Peter Cattee, CEO, Peak Pharmacy | The Rolling Snowball: Building Peak Pharmacy | SATT

  Aug 21, 20261h 4m

  This week we are delighted to meet Peter Cattee the co-founder of Peak Pharmacy. Starting from “base zero,” Peter and his wife Jane transformed a single, dated chemist into Peak Pharmacy – now one of Britain’s largest independent pharmacy groups, with around 150 branches and turnover approaching £250 million. Peter joins Steve Henry to share the candid story behind that extraordinary growth: the risks, the lucky breaks, the acquisitions and the principles that shaped the business. It’s a refreshingly honest conversation about using money as a tool, trusting your own judgement, building for the love of building - and knowing when to step back for the next generation. The SATT Team :) #podcast #business #swimagainstthetide #growth #entrepreneurship

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  Episode #97

  Ep096 – Sid Sethi, Founder, Specscart | The Power of Solving Your Own Problem | SATT

  Jul 30, 202653 min

  What happens when an outsider takes on one of the world’s biggest industries? In this episode of Swim Against The Tide, Steve Henry sits down with Sid Sethi, Founder of Specscart, to hear how a broken pair of glasses as a university student sparked a mission to reinvent eyewear. From challenging industry monopolies to building a business obsessed with innovation, customer experience and speed, Sid shares the thinking behind one of the UK’s fastest-growing challenger brands. This is a conversation about solving real customer problems, building a culture where innovation comes from every corner of the business, and how founders must evolve as their company scales. Sid also reveals why customer obsession beats convention every time, how Specscart is preparing for US expansion, and why delegation became one of the biggest lessons of his entrepreneurial journey. If you are interested in challenger brands, entrepreneurship, marketing, leadership or building a business that refuses to follow the rules, this episode is packed with insights you won’t want to miss. The SATT Team :) #podcast #business #swimagainstthetide #growth #entrepreneurship

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  Episode #96

  Ep095 – Josh Sargent, CEO of UK, Clark | Tom & Polly: Taking down the giants | SATT

  Jul 23, 202656 min

  In this episode, Josh Sargent, CEO of UK for CLARK, the business behind the Tom and Polly life assurance brands joins Steve Henry on Swim Against The Tide. Josh shares his remarkable journey from a working-class upbringing in Gloucestershire and choosing work before university, to joining the business as an account manager and ultimately rising through the ranks to become CEO. They explore how Tom and Polly have used distinctive branding, clever customer segmentation and a refreshingly human approach to make life assurance feel simpler and more relevant to younger families. Josh also talks candidly about scaling from a small team to more than 200 employees, navigating acquisitions and private-equity ownership, and developing his own leadership style along the way. It’s a fascinating conversation about disrupting a traditional industry, using technology to build stronger customer relationships, and the challenge of continuing to think like a challenger when you’re increasingly becoming one of the established names in the market. The SATT Team :) #podcast #business #swimagainstthetide #growth #entrepreneurship

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  Episode #95

  Ep094 – Nick Rawlings, CMO | Taking on the giants – and winning! | SATT

  Jul 16, 202657 min

  Nick Rawlings has spent his career helping ambitious challenger brands compete against some of the biggest names in technology and communications. From taking on BT and Sky during the early days of cable to helping scale Plusnet, Nick has learned what it takes to get noticed, build trust and win customers in fiercely competitive markets. In this episode, Nick shares the thinking behind great challenger marketing: understanding exactly what customers are frustrated by, finding a distinctive position and having the confidence to communicate differently from the established players. He also discusses the importance of building a brand that delivers on its promises rather than relying on clever advertising alone. When at Gigaclear, Nick has applied those lessons to another major challenge—bringing better broadband to rural communities and competing in a market dominated by household names. It is a fascinating conversation about career-defining campaigns, customer insight and the mindset required to keep challenging the status quo. The SATT Team :) #podcast #business #swimagainstthetide #growth #entrepreneurship

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