THE SLOW DOWN

Grace Williams grew up in Buckinghamshire, the eldest of three, watching her father build a career in banking through long hours - an early blueprint that welded success to hard work. She followed a version of that blueprint into law, training as an arbitration lawyer and measuring her days by billable hours and how late she stayed at her desk. At 21, on the eve of her first legal internship, she woke up numb down one side of her body and was diagnosed with MS.
She kept working. In 2019 her mother, Amanda, was diagnosed with a terminal brain tumour, and six months later her father was diagnosed with cancer too. For three years Grace worked full-time as a lawyer AND cared for her mother, refusing to let anything visibly slip - an armour, she says now, that let her avoid ever asking how she actually felt until in 2021, an MS attack coincided with full burnout. Her mother passed away in the summer of 2022 and a year later, still working the same hours, a blunt conversation with her aunt on a Friday night ended with Grace handing in her notice the following Monday.
Now re-trained as a Health Coach and Nutritionist, Grace specialises in high-performance wellbeing, working with corporate women to help them reconnect with the bodies they've learned to override.
In this episode we cover:
Early definition of success built on hard work and long hours 

Being diagnosed with MS at 21

Why answering "I'm exhausted" is armour

Her mother's terminal brain tumour diagnosis, and caring for both parents through COVID

Why work became the easiest place to hide from grief

The Friday night conversation with her aunt that moved her into action 

Building her new coaching business and relearning her own boundaries

Redefining success as peace, and what legacy means to her

Mentions:
The Way (2010), dir. Emilio Estevez, starring Martin Sheen
Links:
https://www.instagram.com/g_documented/
This season of The Slow Down is sponsored by female-founded, Greek swim and resortwear brand Kiohne. The Slow Down listeners can use code theslowdown for 20% off their first shop on kiohne.com. Enter their world, explore their collection and buy beautiful pieces designed to be enjoyed while slowing down this summer.

Adot Gak is a Sudanese-American supermodel, writer and former contributing editor at The Standard, named BFA Model of the Year, who has walked for Rick Owens, Vetements, Richard Quinn and Tony Ward, and fronted campaigns for SKIMS and Alexander Wang. Born in Sudan, Adot's family fled to Egypt when she was four; at nine, she witnessed a violent police attack on a group of Sudanese refugees in a Cairo park that killed her older sister, then just 13, and changed the course of her family's life forever. At ten, she relocated to Iowa with her mother, growing up as the child of immigrants before being scouted in a shopping mall and moving to New York to build one of the industry's most recognisable careers.
Since then, Adot has become known as much for her voice as her face — outspoken on the modelling industry's relationship with race, unafraid to set boundaries and say no, and using humour as a way of carrying what she's survived. In this episode, we talk about what "booked and busy" actually looks like behind the scenes, when she stopped waiting for permission to belong in fashion, and what she wants to build next.

In this episode we cover:
Early memories of Sudan and her family's move to Egypt

The police attack in Cairo that killed her sister, and how she holds that now

Getting scouted in a shopping mall in Iowa and moving to New York

Deciding to stop waiting for permission to belong in the industry

Race and diversity in fashion: what's real progress and what's performance

Being told she "looks like AI"

Modelling as an "extreme sport" — burnout, boundaries and saying no

Mentions: 
‘Becoming’ - Michelle Obama

Links: https://www.instagram.com/adotthegreatt/

This season of The Slow Down is sponsored by female-founded, Greek swim and resortwear brand Kiohne. The Slow Down listeners can use code theslowdown for 20% off their first shop on kiohne.com. Enter their world, explore their collection and buy beautiful pieces designed to be enjoyed while slowing down this summer.

Laurence Stoffel grew up in the Swiss mountains. A shy, dreamy child who liked to observe the actions of adults, she went on to study industrial design at ECAL, one of Switzerland's most competitive art schools, talking her way back in after being rejected on her first attempt. Her early career took her from a Munich furniture studio to Freitag, the Swiss bag brand and eventually to a design research grant that sent her and her partner to Ghana and Burkina Faso, where six weeks spent weaving baskets with local designers under a mango tree unravelled everything she thought she knew about "correct" design.
Laurence then joined On, the Swiss running brand, when it was a handful of people selling shoes out of Zurich, and spent the next decade building its Creative Studio from scratch, scaling the team from 1 to over 100 people and helping steer the company to an IPO now valued at $11.8 billion. Along the way she became a mother of two, weathered a burnout serious enough to stop her mid-marathon, and rebuilt her relationship to work around one rule: choose it, don't owe it. Now, having recently left On and turned down several seven-figure job offers, Laurence is deciding what comes next. 
In this episode we cover:
Growing up in the Swiss mountains and the ideas of success inherited from her parents

Studying industrial design and talking her way back in after rejection

Early career: a Munich furniture studio and Freitag

A design research grant that took her to Ghana and Burkina Faso 

The unconventional path into On, and why she doesn't believe in job applications

Scaling On's Creative Studio from 1 to 100+ people

Becoming a mother of two, choosing not to marry, and letting go of milestones

What burnout actually looked like for her

Why she is turning down seven-figure job offers right now 

Ultra-running as a mindset

Mentions:
On
ECAL
Stefan Diez - Munich furniture/industrial designer Sibylle Stoeckli - Lausanne-based female industrial designer
Freitag (Swiss bag brand) and its co-founder Daniel Freitag Pierrot le Fou (1965), dir. Jean-Luc Godard
Links:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/laurence-stoffel/
This season of The Slow Down is sponsored by female-founded, Greek swim and resortwear brand Kiohne. The Slow Down listeners can use code theslowdown for 20% off their first shop on kiohne.com. Enter their world, explore their collection and buy beautiful pieces designed to be enjoyed while slowing down this summer.

Gina Martin is a multi award-winning gender equality advocate, writer and facilitator. At 25, after a man took photos up her skirt at a music festival and police told her nothing could be done because she was wearing underwear, Gina launched the 18-month campaign that led to the Voyeurism (Offences) Act 2019, making upskirting a criminal offence in England and Wales — all while working full-time and facing hundreds of online threats.
She's since written three books, writes for outlets including The Telegraph and the World Economic Forum, and was named on TIME's 100 Next list. We talk about the cost of activism, life as a public figure, escaping social media vitriol, and what happens when your thoughts change but the media wants you fixed in place. It's been seven years since her law passed, and Gina now believes prevention and education matter more than punishment.
Her activism happens both on the ground - she worked in schools for three years unpacking gender stereotypes with teenagers and now is a practitioner and facilitator in primary prevention of gendered violence with adults who work in the sector, as well as training adults to support and engage young people - and at scale, through her writing, speaking and media work.

In this episode we cover:
Hyde Park, 2017: what happened, and the police response that started it all

18 months of campaigning, a full-time job, and hundreds of threats

Why passing the Voyeurism Act felt like relief, not pride

Moving from "carceral feminism" to believing in prevention & education

Her 2023 PTSD diagnosis, stepping back from social media, and rebuilding around real capacity

The importance of facilitation work 

Redefining success as sustainable, lifelong work

Mentions: 
Voyeurism (Offences) Act 2019
Nyome Nicholas-Williams' #IWantToSeeNyome campaign, which changed Instagram's nudity policy for Black and plus-size bodies
Angela Davis, Audre Lorde and bell hooks
Richie Reseda and The Feminist on Cellblock Y (2018) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYxTzsabkH8 
Songs from the Hole (Netflix, 2025)
A Hymn to Life by Gisèle Pelicot (2026)
Aja Barber - Sustainability Activist, writer and consultant 

Links: 
https://www.instagram.com/ginamartin/
https://ginamartin.substack.com/
https://ginamartin.online/
https://www.tiktok.com/@ginamartinuk 

This season of The Slow Down is sponsored by female-founded, Greek swim and resortwear brand Kiohne. The Slow Down listeners can use code theslowdown for 20% off their first shop on kiohne.com. Enter their world, explore their collection and buy beautiful pieces designed to be enjoyed while slowing down this summer.

Justine Palefsky grew up in San Francisco, raised by open-minded, community-oriented parents who treated their home as a shared asset and took her to Burning Man. That ethos of hospitality, gifting and non-transactional exchange became the foundation for everything that followed.
After studying cognitive neuroscience at Brown, she moved into customer experience roles at OpenDoor and Homebound. When she decided to take the leap into building her own company, she made a deliberate and unusual choice: she wanted a co-founder first. Matchmade by OpenDoor's CEO Eric Wu, Justine and Tasneem Amina spent four days locked in a cabin in Calistoga doing what Justine calls "co-founder dating".
What emerged was Kindred: a members-only home-swapping platform now with over 350,000 members across 150+ cities, 450,000 nights booked and $150 million raised. The radical bet at its core? Remove money from the guest-host relationship entirely. No buying credits. Every home is equal. A give-to-get economy where the most generous members hold the most power (not the wealthiest). It's a small pocket of the world built the way Justine wishes the rest of it worked.

In this episode we cover:
Growing up with community values in San Francisco 

Studying cognitive neuroscience at Brown 

Why she chose her co-founder before her product idea

The "co-founder dating" cabin retreat - questions to ask before you commit 

The history of home swapping, from Intervac in the 1950s to today

Why Kindred removes payment between guests and hosts — and why Silicon Valley thought she was crazy

Building a platform based on Radical Generosity

How handwritten thank-you notes became a cultural pillar of the platform

Raising $150 million while refusing to grow at all costs — the "no assholes rule" for investors

What it means to lead as a woman who is "not Zuck" — and dropping the CEO mask

Burnout, the cost of giving a damn, and how to pull yourself back

Defining the meaning of life for yourself and sticking to it 

Mentions: The Partnership Charter by David Gage The New York Times 36 Questions to Fall in Love Intervac: https://www.intervac-homeexchange.com

Links: Kindred: https://www.instagram.com/livekindred/ Justine: https://www.linkedin.com/in/justinepalefsky/

This season of The Slow Down is sponsored by female-founded, Greek swim and resortwear brand Kiohne. The Slow Down listeners can use code theslowdown for 20% off their first shop on kiohne.com. Enter their world, explore their collection and buy beautiful pieces designed to be enjoyed while slowing down this summer.