“From Layoffs To Lemonade” with Abadesi Osunsade, DE&I Leader and Founder & CEO of Hustle Crew

“It’s sad when you go into something with the idea of building a legacy and then that gets cut off. You have to realise, this is happening because you take risks, and that’s a good thing.” In this week’s 40 Minute Mentor episode, we’re joined by Abadesi Osunsade, DE&I leader and Founder & CEO of Hustle Crew, a inclusion education provider on a mission to create a world in which businesses are centred on inclusion, belonging and redistributing power. Before building Hustle Crew, Abadesi followed a hugely successful career path in Tech - from roles at Product Hunt, Elpha, Amazon, HotelTonight and Groupon, where she was promoted after her first 8 months and helped scale her department 5X leading up to their record breaking IPO. Amongst all the success, Abadesi was also laid off twice in her career and is refreshingly honest about her experience, in today’s episode. We chat about: ➡️ More about our sponsors, Alchemist [00:23] ➡️ The obsession with raising funding and capital [05:05] ➡️ Abadesi’s hugely successful career in Tech [07:45] ➡️ Being the only black employee at HotelTonight and how that led to Hustle Crew [11:45] ➡️ Getting stuck in the DE&I Founder echo chamber [13:00] ➡️ Her experience of being made redundant, twice [16:22] ➡️ How to bounce back from layoffs and figure out what’s next [26:54] ➡️ A podcast recommendation from us [30:30] ➡️ Navigating layoffs as a Founder [31:44] ➡️ The evolution of Hustle Crew [34:58] ➡️ Why community building isn’t about size and not everyone needs to have one [40:12] ➡️ Advice on getting into Tech [45:31] ⛳ Helpful links: ➡️ More about Abadesi: https://www.linkedin.com/in/abadesi/ ➡️ Check out Hustle Crew: https://www.hustlecrew.co/ ➡️ Get your copy of ‘Dream Big, Hustle Hard: https://www.hustlecrew.co/dream-big-hustle-hard ➡️ Read ‘Do Things That Don’t Scale’ by Paul Graham: http://paulgraham.com/ds.html 💙 A big thank you to our Sponsors: Alchemist - an industry leading learning and development company, whose learning journeys and experiences help organisations who want to grow, change or transform by putting the learner first to optimise organisational performance. To learn more about Alchemist and see how they work with some of the most innovative companies in the world, head over to https://thisisalchemist.com/40minutementor/ to find out more. 🏆 Want to partner with us? Do you want to get your brand in front of leading Startup Founders, Investors and C-Suite decision-makers, and attract some of the sharpest talent in the Startup/Scaleup scene? Get in touch with our Head of Marketing and Producer, Hannah to find out more about how we can co-produce content that will help you stand out and engage with over 40,000 loyal monthly listeners. You can reach her on hannah@jbmc.co.uk 🤝 Explore Hidden Pages: For this year’s Black History Month, we’ve had the great pleasure of partnering with Samuel Tholley and Hidden Pages - a zine discovering hidden Melanated history & lists of sources exploring the Melanated/"Black" experience. We talked about his motivation behind Hidden Pages, why it's so important to normalise black history and he shares some amazing historic figures we can all learn from. This is only the beginning of this partnership, so make sure you check out our initial conversation with Samuel here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kF_-blY_kUQ ⭐Enjoyed this episode?⭐️ Keep up to date with all our latest episodes, by hitting the subscribe button on your favourite podcast platform. And for any feedback on what you enjoy the most and ideas on what we can do to make 40 Minute Mentor even better, please leave us a review on https://ratethispodcast.com/40mm Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices