Hi Claire! Can you please tell us when the Coffee and Start Up Inspo club began, and what the idea behind it was? 

The idea for the club came about at the beginning of 2020, when I thought there would be people like me, self-employed and working on their own, who were lacking those water cooler or coffee interactions because they were now at home by themselves. 

Who dials into the online club sessions each week? 

Typically we would have around five women join in each week, from a range of businesses that range in maturity. They’re from all different industries; we have coaches and people who design products, ecommerce companies, people working in media.. All sorts! 

“I guess most people don’t think about this very beautiful, coordinated cellular response to make antibodies…” Michelle Linterman’s passion for her subject is immediately obvious. Born and bred on the Kapiti Coast, Michelle is a globally-renowned immunologist at the Babraham Institute, a site for biomedical research centred around an old red-brick manor house in a rolling natural landscape just outside Cambridge. This picturesque English setting provides the research group she established ten years ago with cutting-edge laboratory facilities for testing responses to new vaccines. Early in the pandemic, Michelle’s ten-person team at the Babraham ran an important preclinical study of the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine in aged mice, in order to test - faster than could be tested in ageing humans - how that vaccine would act in older bodies. 

The Linterman Group’s wider research programme centres on the “nuts and bolts” of how the immune system mounts a good response against vaccination, and why vaccines don’t always work as well for certain age groups. Michelle’s team tests the detailed cellular and molecular functioning of vaccines against a range of human diseases, such as malaria and influenza. 

“There are always ideas - some happen, some don’t. There are constant opportunities and it's about picking and choosing the ones that align,” Chantelle Nicholson says. The Kiwi restaurant owner and Michelin-starred chef, who recently appeared on the BBC’s Celebrity Masterchef, is seasoned in pushing her ideas forward to fruition. Chantelle, 42, has been developing a trailblazing career in high-end cuisine with her own personal flavour since she first arrived in London 18 years ago. 

A New Zealand-trained lawyer, Chantelle began her transformation into a star chef at the iconic Savoy Grill, working all hours. “One of the things I’m grateful for is that I was actually quite naive about what I was getting into, and I didn’t really have an opportunity to overthink it,” she says. Her early mentors included restaurateurs Gordon Ramsay, Josh Emett and Marcus Wareing, the latter of whom elevated her to become the driving force at acclaimed Covent Garden eatery Tredwells in 2016. As owner-operator, Chantelle became recognised for her seasonal approach to menus and empathic attention to the sustainable use of human, environmental and food resources. For this, Tredwells received in 2021 a Green Michelin Star, the renowned Guide’s new recognition of ethical and environmental sustainability.