Hardy Sidhu is the Founder and CEO of Format-3, but labels have never sat comfortably with him. Designer, strategist, business builder, father, philosopher…

Hardy has moved fluidly through roles and identities since entering the industry as a teenager, driven less by titles and more by a constant need to feel, question, and stay awake to the moment he is in.

In this episode, Hardy joins Adam for a raw, expansive conversation about presence, discomfort, and what it really means to be alive inside your work. He talks about growing up working class in West London, building a career without formal qualifications, and learning early on that comfort is not where he does his best thinking. For Hardy, creativity lives in tension. In pressure. In chaos. And in the willingness to sit with both the good and the bad without trying to escape either.Hardy reflects on why every project should make you feel something, how anxiety, frustration, and uncertainty are not signs of failure but signals of engagement, and why honesty with clients and teams matters more than polished delivery. He shares the philosophy behind Format-3, from vetting clients as carefully as projects, to embracing chaos as a prerequisite for innovation, to protecting his team from burnout by choosing the right partners, not just the right budgets.This is also a deeply personal episode. Hardy opens up about therapy, self-acceptance, slowing down, and learning to stop chasing and start welcoming whatever shows up. He talks about presence as a daily practice, about listening to yourself as much as you listen to users or trends, and about why love, not ego or fear, is the only sustainable way to move through life and work.

This is a powerful, unfiltered conversation about creativity, humanity, and staying present in a world that constantly pulls you out of yourself.

In this episode, we cover:* Why every project should make you feel something, not just look successful* Understanding anxiety, frustration, and pressure as part of the creative process* Growing a career without qualifications and trusting your own path* Why Hardy actively seeks discomfort and avoids staying comfortable too long* The philosophy behind Format-3 and embracing chaos as part of innovation* How radical honesty with clients builds stronger partnerships* Vetting clients to protect team wellbeing and creative quality* Therapy, self-reflection, and learning to accept who you are* Presence as a practice and why slowing down changes everything* Listening to yourself as much as you listen to users, trends, or technology* Why love, not anger or fear, is the most powerful creative force* Letting go of approval, even from yourself

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This is Awaiting Approval. A podcast about the messy, human side of creative leadership.

Hosted by Adam Jennings - a creative leader with three decades of experience leading teams and projects for global brands including Microsoft, Salesforce, 20th Century Fox, Paramount Pictures, Ancestry, Dolby, BBC and many more - this show features honest, unscripted conversations with the leaders shaping design, storytelling, and innovation today.

These are the conversations you don’t hear in keynotes. The ones about imposter syndrome, trust, failure, confidence, and finding your voice as a leader.

Whether you’re just stepping into creative leadership or you’ve been at it for years, Awaiting Approval is your place to feel seen, challenged, and encouraged.

Awaiting Approval is a Cordial Fox production.Hosted by Adam Jennings.Produced by Adam Jennings & Jasmin Egner.© Cordial Fox Limited, 2025.

Ready to level up your leadership with real, honest support?

Join the next cohort of Supercharged Creative Leaders - my flagship four-week programme for creative leaders who want clarity, confidence, and a community that gets it.

✅ Small groups (just 6 per cohort)

✅ Weekly live sessions with me and your cohort

✅ Async access to me and your cohort via a private Slack community

✅ Invitation to join my alumni community once you’ve completed the programme.

Previous attendees have gone on to win major pitches, land new roles, get promoted and step into leadership with more purpose and presence.

🚀 Learn more and apply here:

https://www.growwithadamjennings.com

Angela Arnold has built her career by listening deeply. To herself, to others, and to the quiet signals that tell you when something feels right… or when it doesn’t.

As Head of Product Design at Genomics England, her work sits at the intersection of craft, care, and impact, shaping experiences that matter in some of the most sensitive and complex human contexts.

In this episode, Angela joins Adam for a thoughtful, warm, and deeply reflective conversation about creative leadership, instinct, and trust. She shares how curiosity and gut feeling have guided her decisions, from navigating uncertainty in design work to knowing when it’s time to pause, reframe, or take a leap into something new.

Angela talks openly about losing confidence early in her career, finding her way back through learning-by-doing, and becoming a self-taught product designer through making, coding, and hands-on experimentation. She reflects on the mentors who believed in her, the environments that shaped her, and how working across agencies, finance, and not-for-profits eventually led her toward healthcare, where her work could have a more profound human impact.

This is a conversation about grace under pressure. About patience, self-care, and staying true to yourself in an industry that constantly shifts. Angela’s clarity is calm and powerful. Her leadership is rooted in empathy. And her belief in thoughtful, human-centred design comes through in every story she shares.

In this episode, we cover:

* Trusting instinct and knowing when something doesn’t work

* Losing confidence early on and rebuilding it through making and learning

* Becoming a self-taught product designer through code, prototypes, and practice

* The importance of asking “who is this really for?” in design critiques and leadership

* Why alignment on outcomes matters more than perfect solutions

* Understanding your strongest creative rhythms and working with them, not against them

* Learning when to pause, reframe, or let go of an idea that isn’t serving you

* Moving across industries and what each environment teaches you

* Why healthcare design became a calling, not just a career move

* Designing the spaces between decisions, where real change actually happens

* Self-care, simplicity, and creating a joyful life outside of work

===

This is Awaiting Approval. A podcast about the messy, human side of creative leadership.

Hosted by Adam Jennings - a creative leader with three decades of experience leading teams and projects for global brands including Microsoft, Salesforce, 20th Century Fox, Paramount Pictures, Ancestry, Dolby, BBC and many more - this show features honest, unscripted conversations with the leaders shaping design, storytelling, and innovation today.

These are the conversations you don’t hear in keynotes. The ones about imposter syndrome, trust, failure, confidence, and finding your voice as a leader.

Whether you’re just stepping into creative leadership or you’ve been at it for years, Awaiting Approval is your place to feel seen, challenged, and encouraged.

Awaiting Approval is a Cordial Fox production.Hosted by Adam Jennings.Produced by Adam Jennings & Jasmin Egner.© Cordial Fox Limited, 2025.

Ready to level up your leadership with real, honest support?

Join the next cohort of Supercharged Creative Leaders - my flagship four-week programme for creative leaders who want clarity, confidence, and a community that gets it.

✅ Small groups (just 6 per cohort)

✅ Weekly live sessions with me and your cohort

✅ Async access to me and your cohort via a private Slack community

✅ Invitation to join my alumni community once you’ve completed the programme.

Previous attendees have gone on to win major pitches, land new roles, get promoted and step into leadership with more purpose and presence.

🚀 Learn more and apply here: https://www.growwithadamjennings.com

Joel Gill has lived several creative lives in one. Musician, engineer, global design leader, single father, mentor, and now Chief Experience and AI Officer at Experience Artisan. His story stretches from hiding in a school music room and becoming a session synth player & pianist in 1980s London, to shaping early digital at British Airways, to leading design inside megacorps like Shell, HSBC and S&P Platts—while also contributing his craft to teams across Barclays, WPP, Santander, Hyatt, Sapient, Hogarth Worldwide, Vodafone and many others. Through it all runs a single thread. Integrity. Show up. Experiment. Tell the truth. Look after people.

In this episode, Joel joins Adam for a rich, funny, emotional and very human conversation about the real work of creative leadership. He talks about discovering design through music studios, building clickable prototypes in PowerPoint before UX existed, and being part of the early BA dot com team in the days before digital design really had a name. He shares how contracting across agencies, banks and tech companies gave him the scar tissue he now teaches his teams to embrace.

Joel speaks openly about walking away when a place no longer aligns with your values, the difference between delivery and maturity, and why introducing Design Ops at scale became both a battle and a breakthrough. He also reflects on raising two boys alone while travelling the world for work, the people who shaped him, and the moment his son unknowingly reminded him what matters more than any job title.

This is an episode full of integrity, humour, scar tissue, and heart. Joel’s stories are defining. His clarity is unmistakable. And his love for people, culture and craft comes through in every minute.

In this episode, we cover:

* How Joel went from session musician to early digital pioneer

* As part of the early BA dot com team, he learned UX by hacking together prototypes in the days before the discipline really existed

* Contracting across agencies and banks, collecting the scar tissue that shaped his leadership

* Why he left HSBC and how he recognises when it’s time to walk away

* Building design capability at Standard & Poor’s and later at Shell

* Introducing Design Ops and why resistance taught him hard lessons

* How to observe people, question everything and tell better stories

* Why every job needs an exit strategy as much as an entry one

* Raising two boys while leading global teams and what they taught him about presence

* Visibility as accountability and why smiling is a leader’s most powerful currency

* The three helium balloons he uses to measure his own growth: experience, expertise, enthusiasm

===This is Awaiting Approval. A podcast about the messy, human side of creative leadership.Hosted by Adam Jennings - a creative leader with three decades of experience leading teams and projects for global brands including Microsoft, Salesforce, 20th Century Fox, Paramount Pictures, Ancestry, Dolby, BBC and many more - this show features honest, unscripted conversations with the leaders shaping design, storytelling, and innovation today.These are the conversations you don’t hear in keynotes. The ones about imposter syndrome, trust, failure, confidence, and finding your voice as a leader.Whether you’re just stepping into creative leadership or you’ve been at it for years, Awaiting Approval is your place to feel seen, challenged, and encouraged.Awaiting Approval is a Cordial Fox production.Hosted by Adam Jennings.Produced by Adam Jennings & Jasmin Egner.© Cordial Fox Limited, 2026.Ready to level up your leadership with real, honest support?Join the next cohort of Supercharged Creative Leaders - my flagship four-week programme for creative leaders who want clarity, confidence, and a community that gets it.✅ Small groups (just 6 per cohort)✅ Weekly live sessions with me and your cohort✅ Async access to me and your cohort via a private Slack community✅ Invitation to join my alumni community once you’ve completed the programme.Previous attendees have gone on to win major pitches, land new roles, get promoted and step into leadership with more purpose and presence.🚀 Learn more and apply here: https://www.growwithadamjennings.com