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A Year That Asked Me to Rise: Reflections on 2025 and the Road Ahead

There are years where you gather, years where you build, and years where you realise you’ve quietly crossed a threshold without announcing it to anyone. For me, 2025 was all three. It’s been a year of deep work, new beginnings, and the kind of clarity that doesn’t arrive loudly, but settles in your bones and refuses to be ignored.


At the centre of it all was the birth of STYLISA FoundHers. A platform I’ve carried within me for years without knowing its name. When I launched it in April, I thought I was simply creating a space to spotlight female founders. What I didn’t expect was how profoundly it would reshape me. Telling the stories of women who are building, breaking barriers, and backing themselves has pushed me to elevate the way I think about my own work. It reminded me that storytelling is not just a strategy. It’s a responsibility.


STYLISA FoundHers became a mirror. Each founder reflected something back to me - courage, creativity, self-belief, truth-telling, resilience, and an unwillingness to shrink. Their journeys sharpened my own. They helped me step more fully into the work I’ve been circling for years: elevating underrepresented voices by pairing strategy, storytelling and substance.


The first interviews felt like a spark. By the time spring turned to summer, it had become a fire.


A collage of diverse female founders featured in the STYLISA FoundHers series, smiling and confident, against a soft pink background with the STYLISA FoundHers logo in the corner.
Every story matters. Every voice counts. These are the women redefining what it means to build with purpose.

Where the platform expanded itself

What emerged next took me by surprise. As conversations deepened, I found myself thinking about money. Not in the transactional sense, but in the way it shapes power, opportunity and possibility. So many brilliant women are building extraordinary businesses without the access, networks or confidence that investment ecosystems too often demand.


It didn’t feel right to tell their stories without also interrogating the systems they have to navigate. That instinct became FoundHer FundHers - the finance-focused branch of the platform that explores investment, capital, financial confidence, and the realities of funding as a female founder.


I wanted to create a space that stripped away the jargon and politics of finance, and instead centred honesty, accessibility and empowerment. A space where women who’ve raised, funded, coached, or built financial platforms could tell the truth about what it really takes.


Launching FoundHer FundHers felt like the moment the platform took its true shape. It wasn’t just storytelling anymore. It was infrastructure-building. Education. Connection. Illumination.


The first interviews - Sarah Dowzell, Sedge Beswick and Tara Attfield-Tomes, really set the tone. They brought generosity, insight and candour. Their wisdom wasn’t wrapped in performance. It was offered with intention. They reminded me that the investment landscape is full of nuance, but opportunity widens when information is shared openly and the door is held long enough for others to step through.


What this year taught me

If I distilled 2025 into a handful of lessons, each one would connect back to the same theme: alignment. Not the soft, decorative version that looks good in a quote, but the grounded kind that demands action.


This year taught me that clarity arrives when you stop forcing things that are no longer meant for you. Letting go is rarely easy, but it creates space for work that actually fits, work that uses your gifts rather than drains them. I stepped back from roles that no longer aligned with my direction, and in doing so, found more time, energy and creativity for the work I am here to do.


I also learnt that building something of your own is a long game. There are moments of momentum, moments of quiet, moments of doubt, and moments where everything clicks. What matters is not speed, but consistency. Every FoundHers interview, every script, every caption, every conversation, each one has built another layer.


Another lesson that stayed with me is the importance of meaningful visibility. Not performative presence, but intentional expression. This year reminded me that you don’t have to share everything to make an impact. You just have to share the right things, at the right time, with the right intention. I’ve become more selective, more thoughtful, and more grounded in the way I show up. It’s not about hiding. It’s about contributing.


And perhaps the biggest lesson of all: when you back yourself fully, the world responds differently. Confidence isn’t loud. It’s consistent. It shows up in the decisions you make when no one is watching, in the boundaries you honour, and in the opportunities you pursue without waiting for permission.


The internal shifts that shaped everything

Behind the external milestones, this year brought an internal evolution that feels far more significant. I’ve grown into a new relationship with risk. Not the fear-driven kind, but the intelligent, strategic kind that asks you to trust your discernment.


I’ve learnt that risk is not the enemy. Unaligned risk is. It is a door, expansion and growth disguised as uncertainty.


I also learnt to hold space without holding responsibility. Supporting others doesn’t mean absorbing their challenges. Leadership doesn’t mean over-functioning. I’ve found a steadiness this year, a quiet authority that I wasn’t chasing, but was ready to claim.


There has also been a softening. Not in ambition, but in energy. I no longer feel the need to rush. The right work arrives when you are actually ready for it, not when you demand it. That shift in pace has changed everything - my clarity, my creativity, my boundaries, and the depth of the work itself.


What I’m taking into 2026

If 2025 was about emergence, 2026 will be about expansion - intentional, grounded, and strategic.


I’m taking with me a stronger sense of my own voice. Not just as a strategist, but as a thinker and storyteller. I’m taking the confidence that comes from building something original and watching it resonate. I’m taking the clarity that comes from listening to my intuition, even when it leads me away from certainty and towards possibility.


I’m also taking a deeper commitment to the mission behind STYLISA FoundHers and FoundHer FundHers. This is not content. It’s a body of work. It’s a platform with purpose. It has the potential to influence the way women are seen, funded, supported, and understood. In 2026, I want to build on that momentum with more interviews, deeper conversations, wider reach, and partnerships that align with the platform’s values and vision.


I’m taking forward a non-negotiable: I am building a life and business that honours who I am becoming, not who I’ve been. That means choosing work that feels purpose-led. People who feel energising. Partnerships that make sense. And opportunities that allow me to stretch without compromising myself.


And finally: I’m taking gratitude. Quiet, grounded gratitude for the people who have supported me, collaborated with me, read my work, watched my videos, shared the platform, and trusted me with their stories. FoundHers and FundHers only work because these women were willing to let me into their worlds. Their courage has shaped mine.


Closing the year with open hands

2025 asked me to rise, not through force, but through truth. It asked me to choose alignment over obligation, purpose over pressure, and vision over comfort. It asked me to build, to refine, to deepen, and to trust my own voice in a way I never have before.


As I close out this year, I feel steady. Clear. Prepared. Not because everything is predictable, but because I am no longer afraid of the unknown. The alignment is there. The vision is there. The work is unfolding exactly as it should.


2025 changed me.

2026 will expand me.

And I’m ready.


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