Dame Jayne-Anne Gadhia and Richard Harpin join James Ashton to discuss starting a business in a pandemic, coping in a crisis, long-term ambition and being kind to yourself.

Dame Jayne-Anne Gadhia is the founder and executive chair of Snoop, a banking app designed to help consumers save money on bills and day-to-day spending that recently raised £10m via crowdfunding.

Dame Jayne-Anne spent six years at Norwich Union, before founding Virgin Direct and then Virgin One, which was acquired by Royal Bank of Scotland in 2001. Her next venture was challenger bank Virgin Money, which swallowed much of the collapsed Northern Rock. It listed on the stock exchange in 2014 and was bought by another lender, CYBG, in 2018.

Richard Harpin is chief executive of Homeserve, the home repairs firm that helps more than 8m customers worldwide with burst pipes and heating breakdowns and runs the Checkatrade tradespeople website. He founded the firm in 1993 as a joint venture with South Staffordshire Group and successfully revived the business after it was hit with a giant £31m fine for mis-selling in 2014.

Harpin’s business training came through Procter & Gamble’s brand management programme and a stint as a management consultant at Deloitte. Now he backs entrepreneurs by investing in promising start-ups.

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