In Conversation With Lauren Webb, Founder of Yellow Eve

Meet Lauren Webb, Founder of Yellow Eve, a platform providing expert career coaching and practical career advice with a vision to empower women seeking work and life fulfilment. Yellow Eve is much more than a supportive community: members have access to a wealth of high-calibre virtual sessions delivered by experts and networking sessions with like-minded women. Alongside the monthly membership package there’s tons of free content in the digital magazine to support and empower women in their career development. 

After liaising with Lauren and discovering more about the origins of Yellow Eve, it’s easy to see Lauren’s passion shine through in the content offered on the platform. Lauren started Yellow Eve because she fell into roles after graduating and felt ‘under-served’ in her career. Now Lauren spends her time crafting content, organising events and partnering with the right coaches to offer support to women in their professional lives. Let’s find out about Lauren’s journey and her plans for Yellow Eve. 

You talk about ‘falling into’ roles after graduating, did you have a career plan whilst studying? 

While at university I didn’t spare a minute to think about my future career. I focussed on getting through whilst having the best time I could and studying hard to get a first.  

During first year, my stepdad was diagnosed with terminal cancer, so I was supporting my parents whilst dealing with those difficult emotions. In my second year, I got a very bad dose of glandular fever - probably from my first-year diet of Lambrini and custard creams! I was bed-ridden for four months, but it was important to me to keep studying. A side effect meant I was covered from head to toe in psoriasis, and as a result, I also suffered from depression and anxiety. Sadly, my stepdad passed away in my second year too. 

I was so focused on academia that I honestly didn’t carefully consider my career path. My mum suggested I take a break and go travelling, so that’s what I did. I spent around three months travelling around and living in California, which was great. When I came back, I got a temp Christmas job at Harrods, with a plan to go back travelling the following year, but that never happened. Hence why I say I ‘fell into’ my very unusual career!

Let’s talk about Harrods! You’ve worked for a couple of decent brands, Harrods and Media Agency Group (MAG) - what drew you to these roles?

I wouldn’t say that I was particularly drawn to the brands and reflecting now with what I know about my own values and goals, they definitely were not the right fit for me. Harrods was an unplanned choice because they hire a lot of Christmas temps. That temporary job turned into something more permanent in a project team that was implementing new software. In all honesty, I was seduced slightly by the Harrods brand; it’s a big company and I thought I could learn a lot and that it might look good on my CV. That’s as far as my thinking went. 

With MAG, I was simply trying something different. I was unhappy in my work, my boyfriend at the time lived in Manchester so I moved up there looking for a more creative role in an ad agency. I kept ringing the same agency until they eventually created a role for me - a lot of agencies never replied or offered unpaid copywriter work. MAG saw potential in me but not as an Account Manager, so I was in a new and untested job role to do with internal communications, marketing external communications and client retention. The agency was modern and colourful and, again, I thought I would learn a lot. Really, it was about testing out what I wanted to do. 

In a previous press release, you mentioned feeling ‘underserved’ after falling into ‘unfulfilling’ roles. I’m curious to hear more about this, if you’re willing to share?

What I mean by underserved, is that there was a lack of support for any personal or career development. I’m not talking about formal training (of which there wasn’t either), but more simply about having positive role models and helpful line management. I’ve never experienced that feeling of working for an inspirational and supportive leader, or the feeling of being appreciated for contribution or having clear development prospects. 

That links to fulfilment, because if I had regular appraisals/catch-ups, positive feedback or opportunities for growth, I know that I would have felt more fulfilled. But fulfilment is also about values alignment – something I’ve learned on my Yellow Eve journey. Ideally, a person should have some sort of alignment with the values of the company and what it wants to achieve. I can 100% say I’ve never been values-aligned in my work until now. My work with Yellow Eve and our members is centred around helping people in an area that I’m very passionate about and so that’s as fulfilling as it gets.

You credit your time in Australia as planting the seed for Yellow Eve. Can you tell us about some of the key moments and people who inspired you? 

When I first arrived in Sydney, I worked as a Personal Trainer at an amazing female-only fitness studio in Bondi. This was probably the first time I enjoyed my work. Not because I got to train super lovely women on the beach at sunrise in one of the most beautiful places in the world, but because the owner of the studio and the team were just such brilliant women themselves. The whole ethos of the place resonated with me. Everything was about fun, empowerment, self-love and importantly holistic wellbeing. I honestly couldn’t believe my luck to have found a place and people that made me realise who I actually was and what I wanted to be around. 

The whole experience of living in Sydney helped me understand myself more. When you’re geographically so far from your past, you can become anyone you want to be without any negative ties. I made friends with a group of girls that became like my family and the way of life there really brought out the best in me. 

Then, as editor of Dynamic Business, I got to speak to amazing and inspiring entrepreneurs all of the time. I learned a lot about their passions, mindsets and business tips, so launching something of my own seemed less impossible than it had previously. I remember my interview with the founder of ModiBodi on her growth from the start to where they are now so clearly, I was totally amazed throughout the entire phone call. There were also a few other business owners that instilled in me a positive ‘can-do’ mindset and made me think about purpose and fulfilment. There was another publication called Women’s Agenda in Sydney, which I would have loved to have worked for. It is a female-led publication dedicated to covering female-focused news across a range of topics. Although Yellow Eve is very different, it definitely took inspiration from both the success and sense of purpose that Women’s Agenda has. 

What’s been the toughest day since the launch of Yellow Eve?

It’s hard to think of one specific day because it’s all been a blur so far and a journey I embrace through every emotion possible. Only now do I feel I have clarity on the brand and the direction I’m taking Yellow Eve. The first three months were very much about learning and testing, so I was constantly having to think, adapt and implement. While overall I enjoyed this stage, there were many days when I felt disheartened and completely burned out. If I’m honest with myself, I was probably a little naïve to how emotionally draining launching a start-up would be. Usually, a ‘tough day’ for me comes from wanting to be somewhere in the future because I’m eager to support as many women in fulfilling their career aspirations. It’s never to do with practical things or feedback; it’s always about my mindset, which has its ups and downs regardless of external factors. 

Tell us about your stand out moments of success since launching Yellow Eve.

The standout moments all revolve around receiving positive reader and member feedback. Every week we get emails sharing how something we’ve published or hosted has helped. It was great to hear directly from a member who had a 1:1 coaching session with Natasha, our Work Happiness Coach recently. She got in touch to say she felt completely uplifted and motivated in her work afterwards, after a long time of feeling the opposite. There are lots of examples of how much value people get from Yellow Eve which is truly amazing because that’s what I set out to do. Hopefully in the future we can deliver this to even more millennial women seeking support and help them to achieve that all important work-life fulfilment. 

I’ve also met a diverse range of incredible women who have been generous to contribute content and advice to the magazine or deliver workshops to members. The collaborations and giving nature of the community is wonderful because culture is so important to me. We’ve created a friendly and supportive (virtual) environment with the right people on board. 

Reaching milestones like 3,500+ page views per month and 50+ members have been great moments and I have ambitious growth goals for 2021 now that we’re up and running. Seeing the brand come to life and knowing what it represents is a huge celebration daily. 

What are the topics people need the most help with since the platform launched?

The biggest topic is confidence but that seems too vague to say because really confidence leaks into many other aspects of a career. Confidence is not something that can be studied, it has to be built from practice and coming out of your comfort zone. We deliver workshops on self-promotion and confidence but when we do so, we address more specific issues and share practical advice such as asking for a pay rise, speaking up in meetings or having difficult conversations at work. These are the things that really make an impact on not only your personal career success and happiness but also improving gender equality and diversity in the workplace; so everyone benefits. 

Specific popular topics include speaking and presenting, saying no more often, challenging workplace gender inequality, career planning, psychological profiling and personal branding. One of my main objectives is to give credible advice, based on solid foundations to truly give guidance that makes a positive impact.

How would you like to grow the platform and team in the future? 

There are so many ways that Yellow Eve can grow and I have to remind myself to be patient. In the future, I see us providing extra free resources such as a podcast and creative ways to recognise and encourage female talent in the workplace. Post-Covid there are many high-value in-person events that we could run for both members and non-members and I feel that there will likely be a hybrid of online learning (on demand) as well as offline meet-ups in the future. 

Partnering with corporates, likely SMEs initially, will be another item on the agenda for later in the year. Yellow Eve is an education and cultural piece - we need to encourage employed women to seek help outside of their organisation. If talent managers can recognise the need for the young women in their teams to access the kind of intimate and unbiased support Yellow Eve provides, hopefully we can partner with those companies to introduce corporate memberships or run collaborative events. 

We have just become part of the Virgin Start Up programme and secured a government-backed business loan, so in the coming months we will be launching a marketing campaign and bringing on more freelance-based support. There’s lots to be working on to really ensure we’re delivering the very best for our members. Ultimately our growth is completely built around what they will need to succeed and thrive.