Holly Robinson fell into the jewellery industry by accident - a Christmas temp job at 21 turned into eight years, and eventually the confidence to ask why she was building someone else's business instead of her own. Holly Robinson Jewellery was born from that question, alongside a motivator she's disarmingly honest about: spite. Raised between two households after her parents split young, with an entrepreneurial dad and hard-working mum modelling opposite versions of ambition, Holly describes herself as someone who's spent her adult life trying to prove something.

Then came pregnancy, and a 20-week scan that revealed her daughter's heart condition - the start of a run of trauma most people never face in one lifetime. Holly and her partner Nick drove to Bristol while she was in labour rather than risk a transfer. Their daughter had heart surgery at two weeks old. The night before she was due home, Holly collapsed with a seizure - leaving Nick, who'd never changed a nappy, to collect their newborn alone. Tests revealed a brain aneurysm. Holly spent years half-joking about "not being allowed to die" before finally being treated. She admits she's still never properly dealt with any of it - using work, her "safe space," to avoid going near it in therapy.

That instinct to bury herself in work is a thread through the whole conversation: three weeks of maternity leave, and - in one of the episode's most striking moments - delivering an engagement ring to a client's door the day after giving birth. Holly and Hannah get into the same "default parent" question every guest has answered, spite as fuel, the friction of an 18-year relationship built on brutal honesty rather than romance, and why Holly's biggest fear isn't failing - it's reaching 60 and wondering what it was all for.

Topics covered:

• Falling into the jewellery industry by accident, and building a business out of spite
• Growing up between two households, and how that shaped her drive
• Discovering her daughter's heart condition at the 20-week scan, and the birth that followed
• A seizure, a brain aneurysm, and years of not being allowed to die before treatment
• Using work as a safe space to avoid processing trauma in therapy
• Delivering an engagement ring the day after giving birth
• The "default parent" question, and defaulting in different directions with her partner
• Judging colleagues with kids before becoming a parent herself, and the guilt that followed
• Her biggest fear: reaching 60 and regretting the trade-offs

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Rachel Aitken describes herself at school as "the middle girl" - not top of the class, not bottom, just happily along for the ride. That drifting energy carried her through a law degree she hated, into PR in London, and eventually into a senior marketing role - successful by most measures, but never quite the thing that lit her up.

The turning point came during lockdown, watching interviews on TV and thinking she could do better. Early in her first pregnancy, she found a stranger on LinkedIn - Laura Crompton, who had an almost identical career history and her own BBC Radio Manchester show - and messaged her cold, asking for a coffee. She didn't mention she was pregnant, worried it would make her seem less fun. Laura suggested a Zoom instead, and by the end of the hour, Rachel was drafting a message to a BBC producer. Within a week, she was live on air — having told no one except her husband, who tuned in on the radio at home.

That leap became a second career built alongside a full-time marketing job, motherhood, and - as Rachel is candid about - a serious mental health struggle most people around her never saw coming. Diagnosed with PMDD and postnatal depression, Rachel talks openly about what it's like to be the person everyone assumes has it together, and why that assumption can be exactly what stops people from checking in. She and Hannah also get into the reality of chasing a broadcasting career on maternity leave, including one interview that went memorably, spectacularly wrong.

Topics covered:

• Growing up as "the middle girl," and how that shaped her sense of ambition early on

• Cold-messaging a stranger on LinkedIn — and being on air within a week

• Building a broadcasting career in secret before telling anyone but her husband

• Chasing interview opportunities while on maternity leave, baby in tow

• PMDD and postnatal depression — what it actually looked like day to day, and why nobody suspected it

• Being the "yellow" character everyone assumes is fine, and why that's often exactly who isn't

• Dual-career life with her husband, a doctor who also changed careers at 30

• Living in Southport with no family nearby, and what that support gap actually looks like

• Where she wants to take her broadcasting career next

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HR expert and content creator behind @itsjessfromHR and mum to two young boys, Jess Dunne brings a professional lens to working parenthood: legislation, employer responsibility, and why "default parent" is really about the mental load, not the task list.

Full Show Notes

Jess spent over a decade in corporate HR roles before building her own platform across social media after noticing a gap from the inside: HR has become more strategic and less accessible to individual employees, leaving many without anywhere to turn for honest, practical guidance on their workplace rights.

Her second maternity leave became the turning point that let her build the business properly, growing @itsjessfromHR into a platform sharing legislation updates and practical workplace guidance to fill that gap, amassing almost 70,000 followers on Instagram and almost 30,000 on TikTok.

In this conversation, Jess and Hannah dig into the same "default parent" question Hannah now asks every guest — a question Hannah's own TikTok on the topic turned genuinely divisive, sparking comments ranging from "great communication" to accusations she didn't love her own kids. Jess offers the clearest professional framing yet: default parent isn't about who does more tasks, it's about who carries the mental load — often shaped less by choice than by instinct and social conditioning.

The conversation also turns personal: both Jess and Hannah lost a parent young — Jess her mum at 19, Hannah her dad at 22 — and they talk candidly about how that's shaped their approach to building their own families. Jess speaks openly about the guilt of loving her commute and her time away from her boys, the anxiety of being replaced while on maternity leave, and closes with blunt, practical advice for any employer listening about what real flexibility looks like.

Topics covered:

• Building a social media platform from the ground up

• Legislation, employer responsibility, and what "flexible working" actually means beyond WFH

• The "default parent" question — mental load vs. task-splitting, and the backlash Hannah's TikTok on the topic received

• Guilt around enjoying time away from your kids, and anxiety about being "replaced" on maternity leave

• Losing a parent young, and how that's shaped both Jess and Hannah's approach to family

• Protecting a no-phone boundary at home, and the tension of running a social platform alongside it

• Practical advice for employers on engaging working-parent employees, not just accommodating them

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