Hi everyone, it's Sarah here from the Squiggly Careers podcast.

This week, it is the launch of our new book, Learn Like a Lobster.

So we've got some very special podcast episodes for you.

Each day, you will hear me talk to a CEO about one of their shell shedding moments.

Something hard that has happened, what's helped them, and how they have found their way

to growing even bigger, better and stronger, just like our new friend and role model, The Lobster.

And I really hope you enjoy hearing from the range of CEOs that you'll get the opportunity

to learn from this week, CEOs who ruin massive creative companies, who run fast-growing scale-ups,

charities, volunteer organisations, and even our very own, Helen, who's our CEO, will also be

talking about her shell shedding moments. So I hope you enjoy each of the conversations.

And if you've got any feedback or reflections we always love to hear from you

we're helen and sarah at squiggly careers.com. Nick, thank you so much for joining us on the

Squiggly Careers podcast today. Hi Sarah. I'm absolutely delighted to be here. Thank you for having me.

So this is part of our special CEO Shell Shedding Mom moments series. I'd say that I have to

practice that a few times to make sure I say that right. And I wonder if we could start with

you just introducing your role, who you are and what you do, so that everybody's kind of up to

speed before we dive straight into that shell shedding moment. With pleasure, yes. So I'm Nick Bent. I'm the CEO of Uprich. I'm celebrating my third anniversary in the job at the start of 2026. I joined in January 2020. I absolutely love it at U.S. We do some incredible work on social mobility. I've got an amazing staff team.

And Uptreach is one of the leading social mobility charities in the UK.

And our specific mission at Uppreach is to support undergraduate students from very disadvantaged backgrounds, working class backgrounds, low income backgrounds,

and help them on their career journey while they're at university so they can get amazing graduate jobs when they finish their degree.

Okay, great. So I think every CEO job is challenging. But I think being a CEO in the charity sector at the moment is probably particularly challenging.

We know there's lots of challenges around funding

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