From Olympic Gold To FemTech Founder with Dame Jessica Ennis-Hill

Jessica Ennis-Hill (0:00)

I never allowed myself to get too far ahead of where I was until that moment of crossing the line after the 800 meters. And it was just like the most amazing feeling where I just achieved all I ever dreamt of really. It was very, very surreal.

James Mitra (0:22)

Welcome back to this special 40 Minute Mentor episode for International Women's Day. I'm lucky enough to be surrounded by phenomenal women in my family, friendship group, and at work. So it felt really fitting to feature one of my personal heroes in this week's episode, Dame Jessica Ennis-Hill.

But before we get to that, I want to say a massive thank you to our series sponsors, Chipper Cash. We had the pleasure of having Chipper's founder, Ham Serunjogi, on the podcast last series to find out all about their amazing journey to double unicorn status. So if you haven't heard that episode before, definitely check it out via the show notes.

If you haven't heard of Chipper Cash before, they're an African cross-border payments company trusted by over four million users. And it's widely considered as one of the most valuable African fintechs. The company has been on an incredible journey over the last few years, and a team is hiring for some very exciting roles. So if you want to be part of the mission to unlock global opportunities and bring Africa together one transaction at a time, then head over to chippercash.com forward slash careers to find out more. And now on to today's episode.

It was such an honor to welcome Dame Jessica Ennis-Hill onto the podcast. She's one of Britain's most decorated Olympians and also the co-founder of FemTech Startup, Jennis. It's not every day you get to speak to an Olympic gold medalist. And yet Jess is one of the most humble and down to earth leaders I've ever spoken to. In today's episode, we dig into Jess's incredible athletics career. Exploring how she battled back from failures, how she dealt with the pressures of super Saturday and why she decided to retire when she did. We also hear about her pivot into entrepreneurship by her FemTech Startup, Jennis, who JBM have had the great pleasure of working with. This episode is jam packed with inspiring mentorship and is easily one of my favorite ever episodes. So please sit back, relax, and enjoy today's episode with the incredible Dame Jessica Ennis-Hill.

Jess, welcome to 40 Minute Mentor. How are you today?

Jessica Ennis-Hill (2:35)

I'm really good, thank you. Nice to be here.

James Mitra (2:37)

Fantastic. We always like to start our episodes with a quick far round of questions. So please, can you finish these sentences after me?

Number one, when I was younger, I always wanted to be...

Jessica Ennis-Hill (2:49)

An athlete, but I also wanted to be a journalist and a chef as well.

James Mitra (2:54)

Oh wow, look at that. A proper multi-hyphenate. How are your cooking skills now?

Jessica Ennis-Hill (2:59)

I'd say they were quite good. Yeah, I enjoy cooking, so it's something. I definitely couldn't be like a Mitchell star chef, but I do enjoy cooking.

James Mitra (3:07)

Good stuff. My first job was...

Jessica Ennis-Hill (3:10)

I was a waitress.

James Mitra (3:11)

Classic, absolute classic. Yeah, I was a terrible waiter. I think I've said this on the podcast before, but I would be the person that would pour champagne on very rich people's hands and just like drop things.

Jessica Ennis-Hill (3:25)

I was very much like that. I was a waitress for not a very long time, but yeah, I had a few clumsy moments as well as I can relate.

James Mitra (3:32)

It's something that I think everyone should do though, just learning customer service and it's a bit of a rite of passage, isn't it?

Jessica Ennis-Hill (3:39)

Yeah.

James Mitra (3:40)

My biggest achievement in my career to date is...

Jessica Ennis-Hill (3:44)

I would say definitely winning the Olympic gold medal in London, but I would also say winning the World Championship gold medal in 2015 in Beijing. That was after I'd given birth to my son and gone through a whole transformation and journey. So that was a real massive, massive moment for me. So probably those two moments.

James Mitra (4:02)

Such a great answer. I mean, not many people can say that, Jess, so totally understand that. And yeah, I can't wait to unpack some of those amazing experiences as the conversation develops.

I wish I could be better at...

Jessica Ennis-Hill (4:16)

I wish I could be better at making quick decisions. I can often be really, really indecisive over mainly the small things. But yeah, I'll take quite a long time to make decisions on small matters, which is quite irritating for me and some of the people around me at times.