Molly Johnson-Jones

Flexa

Co-Founder & CEO

11:FS

Senior Research Strategy Lead

Stone & River

Senior Consultant

Consultant

GlobalData Retail, formerly known as Conlumino and Verdict Retail

Lead Food Retail Research Analyst

Nomura International plc

Food Retail Analyst

Deloitte

Scholar

Rothschild

Intern

Hello, I'm Molly, CEO and Co-Founder of Flexa.

At Flexa, we're revolutionizing the future of work by showcasing what makes companies unique and bringing much-needed transparency to the job hunting process. With 3 million users globally, we partner with esteemed brands like Airbus, Mars, BT, and Verizon to create inclusive employer brands that attract the right talent. If you're keen to get your company on Flexa, reach out to Poppy at poppy@flexa.careers.

As one of the UK's foremost thought leaders on the future of work, I’ve been featured in major media outlets like Forbes and The FT. I’ve headlined talks at prestigious events such as Sifted, Recfest, and RunningRemote, and appeared on BBC News and TalkTV. I run workshops on a variety of topics, including EVPs and DEI, which I’ve delivered impactfully for GWI and Microsoft. Additionally, I’ve partnered with industry leaders like Mercer, Intel, Awesomic, and Samsung, consistently achieving excellent results for their campaigns.

If you're interested in collaborating on an influencer campaign or booking me as a speaker, please reach out at hello@mjj.work or connect with me on LinkedIn. Let’s build the future of work together!

Building a culture remotely is hard, they say.

WELL 

Not if you rank your employees’ fighting skills in a league table and a 158 message, very animated, discussion ensues.

CEO & Co-Founder @ Flexa | Future of Work Speaker & Creator (100k) | Employer Brand | DEI | Talent Intelligence

At 23, I almost had to stop working full time.

I’d just been diagnosed with a chronic autoimmune disease that affected my mobility. 

Some days, I couldn’t walk. Others, I felt completely fine. The inconsistency frustrated me so much.

Not just physically - but professionally.

I ended up losing my job because of it - because I needed to work from home one day per week .

The traditional world of work wasn’t built for people like me.

I’d sit in interviews, trying to understand if flexibility was offered without directly asking for it.

Because I didn’t want to be seen as a risk or someone who would work less hard than their able bodied counterparts. 

I didn’t want to be ruled out before I had the chance to prove myself.

And that’s when the idea for Flexa started.

Because if I was struggling to find a company where I could thrive, how many others were too?

One of the best things that came out of building Flexa was that people no longer have to choose between:
 
- Working and being well
- Ambition and flexibility
- Salary and representation
- Culture and progression

And today, over 4.3 million people worldwide use Flexa to discover companies where they can do their best work.
________________________

👋 I'm Molly and I run Flexa, the platform that enables you to filter for your next employer based on what you really care about (like hybrid working and autonomy)

🔔 Follow me for musings on the future of work and equality

When women are assertive, we're called aggressive.

When women get frustrated, we're called irrational.

When women are confident, we're called arrogant. 

When women are resolute, we're called cold.

When women are direct, we're called rude.

When we disagree, we're called difficult. 

Women are expected to be warm, submissive, non-confrontational, and passive.

And when we aren't, we're penalised.

It's time to challenge stereotypes by double checking whether you're judging people differently because of their gender. 

________________________

👋 I'm Molly and I run Flexa, the platform that enables you to filter for your next employer based on what you really care about (like gender equality)

🔔 Follow me for musings on the future of work and equality

CEO & Co-Founder @ Flexa | Future of Work Speaker & Creator | Employer Brand | DEI | Talent Intelligence

Most people aren’t asking to WFH for an easy life. They’re asking because real life isn't easy, and flexibility is the only way work and life fit together.

But WFH isn't the answer for everyone. There are people who don't live in environments conducive to work, who thrive in structure and routine.

People are like plants; we thrive in different environments. 

The most powerful thing a company can do is be clear on their approach, so that people can make an educated decision about whether your company is right for them. 

________________________

👋 I'm Molly and I run Flexa, the platform that enables you to filter for your next employer based on what you really care about (like remote, hybrid, or office based companies)

🔔 Follow me for musings on the future of work and equality

Women’s hormone cycles impact far more of our working lives than we were ever taught. 

I've struggled with PCOS, PMDD and suspected endometriosis for most of my adult life. No one tells you how your hormones affect your ability to show up, get work done, and succeed professionally.

I spent years struggling against pain and all of the sh*t that hormonal changes throw at you. Although these things will never disappear, I've found that there are ways to work with your cycle, rather than wasting time fighting against it:

Week one (period):

Uncomfortable, but strangely clear-headed. It’s often the best time to do focused work, make practical decisions and plan ahead. Emotions feel more stable, even if the physical symptoms aren’t.

Week two (follicular):

High-energy week. Confidence rises, motivation is easier, and resilience is stronger. This is when big pitches, strategy, difficult conversations and anything that needs bravery and energy suddenly feel far more achievable.

Week three (ovulation):

Bloating and soreness. A noticeable shift in empathy and social awareness. It’s a great week for one-to-ones, coaching, collaboration and anything that benefits from being more attuned to other people.

Week four (PMS):

The worst week, but it’s often when intuition is sharpest. You can spot issues quickly, simplify messy ideas and do early-stage creative thinking. Avoid big conflicts, high pressure meetings, or emotionally detached decisions.

None of this means women have one “good” week and three bad ones. It means our strengths change, yet we were never taught to recognise that.

Most workplaces still treat hormonal health as a taboo topic despite the fact it affects how millions of women work every single month. 

Work is better when we design it around how people actually function and we have empathy for something 50% of our working population goes through. 

___________________________

👋 I'm Molly and I run Flexa, the platform that enables you to filter for your next employer based on what you really care about (like companies that support women's health)

🔔 Follow me for musings on the future of work and equality

I hired one of my best friends, and it totally changed our friendship. 



People always warn you not to hire your friends, but the truth is that you just shouldn’t hire the friends you can’t work with. 

I've known Beth Carter since I was 19. Three years ago, we hired her as our Head of Growth. Today, she’s heading off to something new... and we'll remain friends. 

It’s made me think about why it worked, and what actually happens when you blur the line between friend and colleague.

The friendship didn’t stay the same, and we never expected it to. 

It changed drastically.

Working together meant seeing each other fully: the strengths, the weaknesses, the stress patterns, the way we each respond when things get messy or urgent. 

You can’t learn that over dinners or holidays. You only learn it when you’re solving real problems side by side.

And, strangely, that made the friendship stronger overall rather than putting it under strain. We understand each other better now because we’ve had to be honest, clear, and occasionally very direct (although that's probably not that occasional for me). 

We’ve had to face difficult situations and get through them. We've had to navigate complex power dynamics. We’ve had to give each other feedback without tiptoeing around it. We've had to shift the way we do things to prioritise the business as well as our friendship. We've had to support and pick each other up from places you'd rarely see a friend. 

Not every friendship can hold that. Some depend on avoiding tension or keeping things easy. Some thrive on fun and spontaneity. Others are an escape from work.

Those friendships don’t survive working together.

But when a relationship is built on trust and clarity to begin with, working together adds something meaningful to it. It gives you a different kind of respect for one another. 

It deepens the friendship because you’ve moved beyond the polished version of yourselves. 

The work changed the friendship, and the friendship shaped the work.

Hiring a friend isn’t the risk. Hiring the wrong friend is.

She’s off to an exciting opportunity, and the friendship is stronger because of the three years we spent working together. And her friendship with my husband, Maurice, another co-founder, has grown over that time too. 

That feels like the best possible outcome.

Good luck, Beth 🍀 
________________________

👋 I'm Molly and I run Flexa, the platform that enables you to filter for your next employer based on what you really care about (like cultures built on trust and respect)

🔔 Follow me for musings on the future of work and equality

One of the best employers I’ve come across lately wasn’t a tech company or a start-up. It was a rail operator... here's why:

We’ve just onboarded Northern onto Flexa, and I’ve been genuinely impressed by how much they offer. 

They aren't just things that sounds nice on paper, but things that actually make a difference to people's lives. 

Here’s a snapshot of what they provide:

• 9 months of enhanced maternity leave on full pay
• Pension contributions matched at 1.5x
• Compassionate leave
• Various options for flexibility
• Emergency leave
• Carers leave
• Pregnancy loss leave
• Early careers opportunities across graduates and apprentices
• Neonatal leave
• Leave for fertility treatment
• Paid volunteer days
• Veteran communities
• Clear and transparent representation goals

None of this is box-ticking. It’s the kind of support that acknowledges people have families, responsibilities, health challenges and ambitions outside of work.

And it’s a reminder that great workplace culture isn’t confined to tech, or start-ups, or the industries people normally point to. Every company has the potential to be truly inclusive, no matter the industry. 

I’m really pleased to have Northern on Flexa – and I think a lot of companies could learn from what they’ve put in place.

You can read more about them on their profile page on Flexa... you know where to go!

________________________

👋 I'm Molly and I run Flexa, the platform that enables you to filter for your next employer based on what you really care about (like inclusivity)

🔔 Follow me for musings on the future of work and equality

I’ve never been convinced by the idea of work-life balance.

It suggests work and life sit in two separate buckets, and that the goal is to keep them perfectly level. But most people’s days don’t look like that. Things don’t politely wait their turn until 6pm. Life spills into the working day, and work spills into life, and pretending just makes everyone feel as if they’re doing it wrong.

And our brains don’t really work in those neat blocks either. Many of us think better when there’s some variety in the day: a mix of focus, admin, movement, and actual life. That isn’t a distraction - it’s normal.

This is why I prefer work-life integration.

It’s more realistic. It acknowledges that people have dogs to walk, kids to collect, parcels to sign for, or simply a moment in the afternoon when they’re better off doing something else and picking work up later.

And the point isn’t that work should take over your life, or that life should take over your work. It’s that you don’t need to sacrifice one to make the other function. You can have both, as long as the way you work actually suits you.

Integration gives you the best of both worlds (if you thrive in that style of working). For a lot of people, it removes the constant tension of trying to force real life into a timetable designed around office hours and commuter trains.

Work and life don’t need to be balanced like scales - they just need to fit together in a way that feels workable.

___________________________

👋 I'm Molly and I run Flexa, the platform that enables you to filter for your next employer based on what you really care about  (and like work life balance / integration)

🔔 Follow me for musings on the future of work and equality

Post number one on my journey to unpick WHAT ON EARTH is going on with the LinkedIn algorithm at the moment? 

I don't really know where to start with this. I love(d) Linkedin; I had an audience of super engaged followers, which was growing by c.80-100 per day, and consistently achieved over a million impressions a week. 

Then towards the end of last year / early this year, that dropped off a cliff. I'm lucky if I get 100k impressions in a week and my follower growth is now c.20-40 a day. 

This isn't new - I'm sure you've seen everyone is posting about it. 

I noticed that that it's mostly women that are suffering with reduced reach, but some men were too. The men who were complaining tended to post about more traditionally "female" topics, and the women who were most affected talked about women's health, equality, flexible working, ethical p*rn, and more. 

There are still dozens of people smashing it here, but I had a hunch that proxy bias was at play, and I was ready to post about it. A big shiny opinion led post. I even changed my gender as I thought that it would prove my point. 

But I was wrong. Although nothing happened for a month, but my posts are back to performing significantly better than they have done over the past 6 months. 

To make it a fair test I did not mention me changing my gender for LinkedIn (because of course that kind of content will catch people's eyes) and my topics have not moved away from my usual future of work and equality posts. 

One of my posts was very clearly about equality, and it was one of my best performing posts in a long time. It's too small a test to base anything on yet, but I've been working away in the background for 2 months trying to understand what on earth is going on. 

There are nuances to every opaque topic like this, and it's crucially important not to oversimplify what is happening here, because blanket statements are easy to pick holes in, and holes means the very valid concern of censorship on LinkedIn will be taken less seriously.

I'm going to post openly and honestly every week until we work this out. I'll share my findings so far, evidence, opinions of other people, and thoughts as someone who has posted over 700 times on LinkedIn over the past four years until we suss it out. 

Yes, this is a bit WAGAtha Christie, but in a world where free speech is used as an excuse for saying whatever people want, yet certain views are being genuinely censored, I think it's incredibly important we don't let suspicious activity slide. 

Please feel free to follow me, join in the conversation, and share your views... The greater the variety of opinions, the better, and hopefully we'll find some answers.

After managing dozens of people, hiring teams, and building a company, I’ve realised most people miss the one thing that actually moves their career forward:


✨ Make your work visible ✨ 


When I first became a manager, I didn’t really understand just how invisible good work can be.

Before you manage people, you assume great work naturally speaks for itself. 

You believe that if you deliver something brilliant, the right people will notice.

But inside a business, things move too quickly for that. Everyone is juggling their own priorities. No one has the full picture. And “great work” can easily sit quietly in someone’s inbox, unseen.

As a manager, I started to realise that the people who removed friction - the ones who communicated clearly, surfaced context early, and didn’t make you guess - were the ones I valued instantly. 

Not because they were loud, but because they made everything around them work better.

Fast forward to being a founder at Flexa, and that finding has become even more true. 

The people who are indispensable to the business aren’t the ones shouting about how busy they are. They aren’t performing hard work; they’re doing it, and they make their impact easy to understand.

- They make decisions visible 
- They complete work without being chased
- They give clarity before the question arrives
- They make collaboration feel smooth, not like a fight
- They tell you what’s happening so you don’t have to go digging
- They start discussions early, showing how they work as well as what they do

As a founder, that is gold. Those are the people you build the company around.

Those are the people you give bigger opportunities to because you trust the way they work, and you never have to dig around to understand their impact.

The truth is: people are recognised and rewarded based on the work they can actually see, not the work they hope is being done somewhere in the background. 

It’s the same as building an incredible product and refusing to market it because “people will realise how good it is eventually.”

It's highly unlikely that they will. 

Not because they don’t care, but because that product / person just isn't at the front of their mind.

Visibility often carries the negative connotations of self-promotion, but it's only ever a positive trait in the workplace. 

So, if you want to progress, get a bonus, or negotiate a payrise, make your work easy to see, easy to understand, and easy to build on.

That’s what people notice and that’s what makes you indispensable.

________________________

👋 I'm Molly and I run Flexa, the platform that enables you to filter for your next employer based on what you really care about (like career progression)

🔔 Follow me for musings on the future of work and equality

Here are some of the brilliant companies investing in women's health, and therefore the resilience of their workforce:


🛍️ Deliveroo offer pregnancy support and fertility benefits 

🩺 Patchwork Health have an incredible range of benefits, including pregnancy loss leave, fertility treatment leave, menstrual leave and more

🚢 A.P. Moller - Maersk give their employees women's health leave and a private GP service

🖥️ EY with their surrogacy leave and menopause support

💧 Anglian Water Services offer fertility treatment leave and a private GP

🧠 Amplifi (Europe) give women's health leave, pregnancy support, and more

💰 ClearBank have an amazing offering, from pregnancy loss leave through to fertility treatment leave 

🤝 Brit Insurance offer fertility treatment leave, pregnancy loss leave, menstrual leave and more

💻 SAP offer fertility benefits and fertility leave, as well as a range of other women's health benefits

Given that 50% of the working population will experience one or more of periods, pregnancy, fertility struggles, and women's health complications, it's amazing to see so many companies recognising that support is invaluable. 

___________________________

👋 I'm Molly and I run Flexa, the platform that enables you to filter for your next employer based on what you really care about (like all of these wonderful benefits)

🔔 Follow me for musings on the future of work and equality

My post about our unhinged Slack conversation went viral - apparently people are desperate to find employers with equally unhinged cultures.

You asked, and we delivered. 

No matter your preference on company culture, you can find your perfect match on Flexa (alongside hundreds of other super useful filters from location flexibility to pet friendliness). 

We're currently the only ones with that filter on... who else has a company that should be discovered by the unhinged filter? 

You only qualify if you'd publicly rank your colleagues by how they'd fare in a company-wide fight. 

________________________

👋 I'm Molly and I run Flexa, the platform that enables you to filter for your next employer based on what you really care about (like unhinged cultures). Join 4.3 million people conducting over half a million searches every month and find your perfect match. 

🔔 Follow me for musings on the future of work and equality

The challenging job market this year has driven some fascinating shifts in talent demands:

- Gen Z's demand for in-office work has risen 3x during 2025; likely driven by a challenging jobs market, fewer graduate roles, and an awareness that in person time is crucial for learning. 

- Demand for part-time work is up 39% and job sharing is up 66% across all groups (up 78% for parents); likely driven by the need to stay economically active while juggling household responsibilities, and an increased demand for better work-life balance. Often, the two compete, but in alternative working patterns they better align. 

- Demand for flexible hours is up 28% for women, and set hours is down 46%; likely driven by needing more flexibility in terms of time without the greater abundance of remote working that we saw over the past five years. 

- Demand for benefits is down 25% across all users and reward & recognition is up 118%; this shows that not only are monetary incentives far more valuable during a cost of living crisis, but people want their hard work to be recognised. It's not all a pound for pound game - when people work hard, it's natural to want to feel valued. 

What we're seeing this year strongly suggests two things:

1) People are trying to make work work for them while batting increased strain from cost of living increases and demands from health and family. 

2) There's an increasing awareness of what is realistic in a tough job market, without totally sacrificing your ideals. 

My themes for 2025 are therefore "realism" and "juggling". 

I talk more about this in our 2025 talent data webinar, where I'm joined by Miranda Tate - Global Head of TA at Merlin Entertainments, Mark Crompton - VP Talent Attraction at Leonardo, Chris Woods - Recruitment Marketing Leader at Mars. 

Watch on demand here: https://lnkd.in/epNXPmRR

We've seen significant investment into creative benefits this year, so I thought I'd do a run-down of the areas that market-leading companies are investing:

🩺 Comprehensive health and wellbeing support:

From Deliveroo's private GP with specialist menopause support to A.P. Moller - Maersk’s women’s health leave, and BT Group’s paid carers leave. These are the benefits that recognise people have lives beyond work.

⛴️ Global mobility and travel support

At companies like Adaptavist and Camunda, employees aren’t limited by location. Whether it’s work from anywhere setups or support to work across regions, mobility is built in.

🐶 Pet-friendly perks

Goodlord and Mars have shown how far pet benefits can go, with benefits like pawternity leave and dog-friendly offices, acknowledging how important the relationship with our pets is.

📚 Learning and personal development

From Northern’s free travel on their trains to NHBC personal development days, and Boomi’s investment in apprenticeship and internship programmes, these benefits build careers, not just CVs.

💳 Financial support

Mondelēz International's enhanced pension contributions, Brit Insurance's L&D budget, and EY's wellbeing support stipend show that some companies really do invest into our futures. 

👶 Family friendly benefits 

We've seen this come on leaps and bounds over the last few years, and some great examples are SAP's on-site childcare, ClearBank offering fertility treatment leave, and Boomi's eldercare leave. 

As investment into these kind of benefits grow, you'll find all of them and more on Flexa where you can filter for your next company using 452 different filters 

________________________

👋 I'm Molly and I run Flexa, the platform that enables you to filter for your next employer based on what you really care about 

🔔 Follow me for musings on the future of work and equality

ad | Burnout gets talked about so casually now that we’ve almost lost sight of what it really is. Real burnout isn’t “I’m a bit tired”: it’s debilitating. It can hospitalise people. It takes months to recover from. 

And that’s partly why this stat stopped me in my tracks: Deloitte research in 2024 estimated the cost of poor employee mental health (including burnout) at £51 billion.

Not because everyone is burning out all the time, but because when it does happen, it’s catastrophic for the individual and expensive for the organisation. 

Lost knowledge, spiralling recruitment costs, teams absorbing extra load… it adds up quickly. 

But if we agree that true burnout is severe, surely the answer isn’t just to get better at catching people once they fall. It’s to stop them getting anywhere near that point. 

That’s why I’ve been looking at what Bupa and YuLife are doing, and am now proud to be working with them. Clinical support when you genuinely need it packaged with daily engagement that people actually use to deal with the early stage signs of burnout. 

Half of their members opening the app every day is unheard of for a health benefit. In a good way. Because it hints at something we’ve been missing: consistency beats crisis response. 

Supporting people shouldn't be about wrapping them in cotton wool; it should be about making the everyday healthier so the extreme moments are far less likely. 

At Flexa, when we talk about building sustainable companies, this is what we mean: designing work in a way that prevents problems instead of just reacting to them. 


#workplacewellbeing #futureofwork #employeebenefits

Brand partnership • CEO & Co-Founder @ Flexa | Future of Work Speaker & Creator (100k) | Employer Brand | DEI | Talent Intelligence

Good morning to everyone except people who speak so slowly you almost want to climb inside their mind and speak for them. I cannot 1.5x you and it makes my brain hurt.

Gen Z aren't lazy. They're just done with your outdated workplace BS 💪

I'm tired of hearing Gen Z being called "the lazy generation" when they're actually doing what the rest of us were too afraid to do - demanding better

They're asking the questions previous generations were scared to ask. Can I work remotely? What are the growth opportunities? How does this company support mental health? What's your DEI commitment?

And here's the thing - by being vocal about these needs, they're making work better for EVERYONE. Not just themselves.

Our data shows what Gen Z actually wants from work:
💰 Salary: 75% (obviously)
🌍 Location flexibility: 57%
👩‍🎓 Personal development: 53%
🩺 Benefits: 30%
🤝 Mission: 23%

They're not asking for ping pong tables and free snacks. They want fair pay, the freedom to work where they're productive, and real opportunities to grow.

In this week's newsletter, I'm breaking down:
📊 What Gen Z actually prioritise at work (backed by real data) 
🚀 How they're redefining work for the better 
🎯 How to actually attract Gen Z talent (hint: be transparent) 
💡 What every generation can learn from Gen Z employees


Read the full newsletter below 👇 



#GenZ #FutureOfWork #EmployerBrand #WorkplaceCulture #DEI

Hello and welcome back to my newsletter! I write about the future of work, flexible working, startups, and DEI. If you've been forwarded this newslett

Open article: Gen Z in the Workplace: The Ambitious Generation Redefining Work by Molly Johnson-Jones • 8 min read

Gen Z in the Workplace: The Ambitious Generation Redefining Work

Accessibility shouldn't stop at the interview 

Too many companies treat accessibility like a checkbox during hiring and then forget about it

But accessibility needs to show up every single day. In your culture, in your operations, in your EVP

Our data shows candidates with disabilities prioritise:
Diversity: 58% above average
Dog-friendly workplaces: 52% above average
Core hours flexibility: 43% above average

And with 20% of the working age population being disabled, companies that ignore accessibility are excluding massive talent pools

This week's newsletter breaks down: 
♿ Why accessibility is a business advantage, not compliance 
🔄 How to make it an everyday priority (not just at onboarding) 
💼 How to embed it into your EVP authentically

Because disability inclusion shouldn't be a nice-to-have. It's essential.

Read the full newsletter here 👇


#DisabilityInclusion #Accessibility #DEI #EmployerBranding #WorkplaceCulture

Hello and welcome back to my newsletter! I write about the future of work, flexible working, startups and DEI. If you've been forwarded this newslette

Open article: The International Day of Persons with Disabilities: Why workplace accessibility must go beyond compliance by Molly Johnson-Jones • 10 min read

The International Day of Persons with Disabilities: Why workplace accessibility must go beyond compliance

What do you think ranks after salary and flexibility for candidates?


It's career progression! With 36% of people saying that it's a non negotiable for their next company.

When companies make career progression a real priority, it turns into a powerful retention and attraction tool.

Here are some brilliant Flexa verified employers recognised for investing in development and progression 👇

📊 EY – structured career paths, professional qualifications and opportunities for international mobility

✈️ TUI – skills development and progression opportunities including hackathons, L&D budget, in house training, language lessons and further education support

🛩 Airbus – clear progression frameworks, apprenticeships, graduate programmes and internal mobility across engineering and innovation

🍫 Mars – investment in career development and leadership growth at all levels, including lunch and learns, in house training and studying sabbaticals

💻 SAP – continuous learning programmes, L&D and personal development budgets, study support, hackathons and in house training

📱 Vodafone – personal development days, LinkedIn learning licenses and clear progression routes

📡 Virgin Media O2– structured development programmes, internal opportunities and leadership training

🚆 Northern – clear pathways, apprenticeships and study support and sabbaticals and financial coaching

📞 BT Group – career mobility, internal learning platform, L&D budget, coaching and mentoring and LinkedIn learning licenses

🏦 ClearBank – personal development budgets, financial coaching and in house training

Career progression shouldn’t depend on luck or how loud you shout. It should be designed into the company culture.

________________________

👋 I'm Molly and I run Flexa, the platform that enables you to filter for your next employer based on what you really care about (like career progression)

🔔 Follow me for musings on the future of work and equality

Annual reviews aren't enough and here's why 📊

We've seen a 60% increase in demand for reward and recognition throughout 2025. And honestly? It makes sense.

Waiting until the end of the year to tell someone they're doing great work is like only checking your car at the MOT and ignoring everything in between. By the time you notice the problem, it's too late.

Annual reviews still have their place, but they can't be the only moment that matters. Real development happens through ongoing conversations, not once-a-year check-ins.

This week's newsletter breaks down:
📊 Why demand for recognition has jumped 60% this year 
🗓️ The real problems with annual-only reviews
💫 How to shift to year-round performance conversations 
⭐ Companies getting reward and recognition right

Because recognition shouldn't be seasonal. It should be constant.


#EmployeeRecognition #PerformanceManagement #FutureOfWork #Leadership

End-of-year reviews have been around for a long time, and most companies still treat them as a core part of performance management. But how often do w

Open article: Recognition all year round: why employee appreciation shouldn't be seasonal by Molly Johnson-Jones • 5 min read

Recognition all year round: why employee appreciation shouldn't be seasonal

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Filtered

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Our customers realize real $$$ savings from day 1 (up to 50%), 10x faster curation, and significantly better LXP and LMS experiences. And we're bloody good at it!

Co-Founder

- Taking over a CS function of zero CSMs as we pivoted our business to a new category
- Running all AM duties across 30+ enterprise accounts and taking on full quota responsibility (£MMs)
- Planning account mapping, expansions, renewals, territory management & full cycle revenue mgt
- FY22 results (to quota): Q1 105%, Q2 122% (2nd highest booking period in the company's 13+ year history; remaining top five periods also under my stewardship (FY20/21))
- Within 6 months, re-established CSM function by evolving the careers of our IMs into CSMs
- 100% logo retention of new product; 95% logo retention of legacy product; 135%+ NRR
- New & improved processes across: sales handoffs; pricing models; professional services; customer & MI reporting; product feedback; sales intelligence; account management

Co-founder & Chief Customer Officer

- FY20/21: Oversaw CS function; team achieved 120% to quota (unrevised during covid): Q1 97%, Q2 140%, Q3 126%, Q4 104% (including the top 4/5 quarters by bookings in the company's 13+ year history)
- Retained all major logos, and creatively upsold through new products, features, licences and partnerships; setting up the business to successfully pivot to a new product/sub-category in FY21
- Sold into blue-chip organisations by multi-threading C-level execs and securing company’s largest ever multi-year contract £MM+
- Developed pipeline to support new logo acquisition in FY21
- Grew both functions 3x and created a progression framework to attract, retain and develop staff
- Implemented executive, sales and customer training programmes, reading groups and sales frameworks to build an optimal CS and ops function
- Setup systems to proactively monitor under-utilised accounts, user engagement or new corporate initiatives for cross/upsell opportunities
- Oversaw ops & CS functions during covid and stabilised cashflows through revenue growth and refinancing (renegotiated contracts, payment terms and Innovate Grant/Loan funding)

Co-founder & COO

- Co-led (with CEO) on corporate strategy to secure company’s first rounds of seed funding in both equity and convertible notes (Jan 2016-Jun 2018)
- Created new workflows to support an evolving team as we pivoted to B2B-enterprise sales and developed an AI-based LXP; first-to-market with learning recommendations
- Acquired new B2B enterprise logos (2017) and built post-sales infrastructure to support these early customers (2018)
- Won a place for Filtered on Startup 500’s founder bootcamp in SF (Sep 2018)
- Secured and led on loan financing (Dec 2018) and then series A (Jul 2019); taking total funding to date $5m+

Co-founder & Head of Operations

Travelled around SE Asia, New Zealand and the US

Co-founder & Director (on sabbatical)

- Created and launched from scratch a brand-new B2B brand (Filtered) to take our B2C off-the-shelf library success into large corporate businesses
- Oversaw all ops, marketing and product/engineering functions, introducing new processes such as Agile, scrum, hifi/lofi prototyping, and emerging technologies such as Hubspot marketing/CRM, Customer.io, Heal, Algolia and many others
- Led on establishing the company’s first recurring revenue base of customers, going from £0 to £600k ARR in <6 months, and minimal acquisition/expansion spend

Co-founder & Head of Product

- Prototyped and innovated a novel approach to algorithmic, adaptive online learning, US-patent approved algorithm: "Computer systems and computer-implemented methods for providing training content to a user"; United States No 14/540395.
- First-to-market online training courses through daily deal sites, growing revenues from $0 to $5m+ in <24 months building a profitable, bootstrapped startup
- Launched multilingual, global products across all time zones, setup CS, support, finance, ops/people functions from scratch, growing team from three founders to 35+ staff in <18 months

Co-founder

Revenue Syndicate

The Revenue Syndicate is Europe’s first investment community and angel investment syndicate built for go-to-market operators in the European tech industry. Our 500+ exclusive members are some of the best go-to-market practitioners in Europe and are driving the growth of the fastest growing companies in the world.

Investor

Replicate Labs

Replicate helps sales teams understand their buyers better.

Instead of using outdated personas, Replicate creates dynamic, real-time personas that evolve with new data from LinkedIn, podcasts, calls, and emails. You can view these personas to see how they change, interact with them for research and feedback, or role-play any sales scenario to practice and get targeted coaching.

With powerful analytics to see if using these personas lead to real-world improvements in sales behaviour and business impact.

Backed by Emerge Education, Revenue Syndicate, SFC Capital and Al Newman. Official partners of ValueSelling Associates and Salesloft.

Odin

Odin is building a better way to invest together. Our first product is a relationship-focused, community-centric investment marketplace, which gives you access to the best private markets investments and allows more people to participate in building the future.

Foundy

Find out why thousands of other business buyers and founders use Foundy for a streamlined, transparent acquisition process. Sell your business via Foundy's end-to-end platform

Honest Mobile

Changing Mobile for Good. Good for you. Good for the planet.

Uhubs

On a mission to enable 1 billion people realise their potential by 2030. We started by improving the performance of Sales and Marketing teams.

Led and built a revenue function which hit record-breaking months and quarters, acquired a flurry of MM and enterprise logos and established itself as a recognised player in the Employer Branding space.

New logos acquired include: Microsoft, Mondelez (owners of Cadbury's), TUI, Centrica, MoneySuperMarket, Trainline, Not On The High Street, Motorway and 50+ others.

Highlights & results include:

- Results: Achieved 2.5x ARR growth in 9 months
- ACV: 10x growth from £1.5k to £15k (inc 3x largest deals)
- New logos: 55+ new logos acquired, inc 5x enterprise
- Retention: 125% NRR and 100% GRR (Tier 1 logos)
- Satisfaction: Achieved 4.8/5* on G2 in <3 months (no prior presence)
- ICP: Evolved our value prop to accelerate our up-market motion (from VSBs to MM and Enterprise)
- Team: Setting up a revenue function of SDRs, AEs, CSMs & AMs, with career progression plans

- Stack: Fully setup Hubspot CRM & Marketing, Apollo.io and Gong in <3 weeks
- Process: Pipeline reviews, SPICED sales framework, deal management, deal desks and new contracts
- Customer Success: Established Time-To-Value metrics & monitoring, implemented a proactive programme of "always-on" customer marketing, case studies and testimonials via our CSMs
- Commissions: Created new quotas and commissions schemes for all roles in the function
- Marketing: Ran mixed format events, including first industry conference (10x cost outlay recovered through 3x new deals within 3 months)
- IC contribution: Led from the front, ran my own deals and carried my own quota

Chief Revenue Officer

âcasă - your home run

Financial management platform for the home. Invested at seed stage.

Experienced startup operator, investor and advisor on all things revenue and GTM.

Hired 300+ people over the years, created startups that have grown to £MM's in recurring revenue, and led teams of all sizes at the startup - series B phases.

I'm in my comfort zone when I'm working in high-performing and high-trust teams, where we expend the effort to go and visit our customers, understand their worlds and do our best to help them. I'm a deeply empathetic leader who invests a lot of time in my teams. Whether it's working as an SDR, AE, CSM or AM, or the wider organisation, I always lead from the front. And let my teams grow and develop.

Also an angel (seed) investor in a range of UK startups (solo seed and via syndicate) & Venture Fellow on the Newton Venture Program (LBS, LocalGlobe).

Vinit Patel

Two years ago I shot my shot. 🏀 🏀 🏀

I got two separate investor mailshots (Notion Capital and Connect Ventures) in the space of two weeks about how they'd bankrolled a $5m seed round into a tinnyyyyy ass Belgian startup with 6 people in it.

These were two funds I'd tried to raise from for years and had no luck!

And on top of that some super angels like Christina Cacioppo (Vanta CEO) + former Google and Deliveroo execs + others also participated.

I was like:
"who the hell are these Aikido guys?"
"how da f did they do that in <1 year?"
"i need to be a part of this!"

10 mins later I sent this email.
A few mins after that, I got an immediate response.
Damn these guys were fast.
My kinda people.

We spoke.
I did a mock demo.
And had to learn about this thing called "application security".
FAST.

And the rest is history.

I joined at <$250k ARR.
We're now at $XXm+ ARR and growing fast.

Team has grown from 6 to 160.
We'll touch 200 soon.

From the 160.
About 20 of us are ex-founders with something to prove!

The best part:

Our founders (Willem, Roeland, Felix) are just as obsessed as at day 1

Our team is just obsessed about delighting ALL customers (big or small) as if they’re our first.

We’re fortunate to count the likes of Revolut, n8n, Visma, Niantic, Inc., GoCardless, Allica Bank, ClearBank, Montblanc, SoundCloud and nearly 2k+ others as customers (1,800 of them joined in last 2 years alone).

We have many open roles across entire biz.

Meet my friend Jarno Broodcoorens: at aikido.dev/meetjarno

We’ve only just started!

Aikido Security. 

PS - lol, I love a PS. Even bigger news dropping soon. Watch this space.

Vinit Patel 🛡️

No bullsh*t security for devs 🛡️ | Rev Leader @ Aikido | Recovering Founder | Investor

you just need this:

"Safe-chain: Exiting without installing malicious package"

the second you try to pre-install a malicious package from NPM

you are IMMEDIATELY blocked. ❌ 
no ifs, no buts.

and every dev can run Safe Chain for FREE. completely free.
no ifs, no buts.

if you're not using Safe Chain, you're exposing yourself to a serious attack vector for no upside. all downside.

still not convinced?

go read what we discovered today at Aikido Security and which affected c. 500 packages / 100 millions monthly downloads

including from some reputable, first-class maintainers including Zapier, ENS, AsyncAPI, PostHog, Browserbase, and Postman

Read more here: https://lnkd.in/ea9f6Exf

Install Safe Chain now (yes, $0 forever!): https://lnkd.in/eZrRahs6

Malware detection is a race against time. Be first OR be good.

When we're first = we publish, inform & spread the word. Fast.

When we're not = we follow, we support, we help. Generously.

We're proud of our amazing research team. Unsung heroes!

Kudos to Wiz and StepSecurity who did reach out to confirm and credit our research & researchers.

Important point here is that...

Sha1-Hulud Strikes Again was confirmed by Aikido Security on Nov 24th 03:16:26 (GMT+0).

If you found it before us - tell us, and share the evidence.

If you didn't - join us in informing others and give us credit for it.

Our Malware Intel feed runs on 5m+ popular packages EVERY DAY and we notice weirddddd sh*t all day long:

⚠️ Intentionally malicious by design. Packages deliberately created to steal data or compromise systems

🔡 Typosquatting. Malicious packages with names similar to popular legitimate packages

🐍 Dependency Poisoning. Injecting malicious code into legitimate package dependencies

🔥 Compromised Accounts. Attackers gain access to legitimate maintainer accounts to push malicious updates.

💩 Dodgy updates. Previously safe packages that introduce malicious code in later versions

We scan, triage and notify these with manual, human research every day
Today was a full on day for our brilliant research & eng team

And it's ONLY one of 15+ core capabilities of ours at Aikido Security

I'm damn proud of our team who do all this and more.

You can also block all this nasty stuff with Safe Chain!
(completely free for you to use)

https://lnkd.in/e7qpQNYd

====

Less impressed when others that just post as if they found it without even mentioning the original researcher. Not even once. Anywhere.

Open article: Aikido Intel- Open Source Threat Intelligence by intel.aikido.dev

Aikido Intel- Open Source Threat Intelligence

We compete with some of these BUT
We also ALL wanna stop the baddies too!

Huge shout out to the incredible researchers and teams at the below (and more).

This is an exceptional community! Round up:

Aikido Security > https://lnkd.in/ea9f6Exf

Wiz > https://lnkd.in/ekf2hB3V

Snyk > https://lnkd.in/ebvPsfsy

GitGuardian > https://lnkd.in/eVsDqeCF

Datadog > https://lnkd.in/eESADC-G

Sonatype > https://lnkd.in/ect5n-UR

Sola Security > https://lnkd.in/eGjUDwvz

Harness > https://lnkd.in/ekzSSSCM

Endor Labs > https://lnkd.in/eq6Tninr

Upwind Security > https://lnkd.in/eDrUf7V4

And of course always wrap your npm pre-installs with Safe Chain

https://lnkd.in/eZrRahs6

New vuln in your dev AI agents found by Aikido Security

If you're a dev building with Claude Code (Anthropic), Codex (OpenAI), Gemini (Google) or AI Inference (GitHub) then read this.

Attackers can submit crafted issues/PRs that trick the AI into executing privileged GitHub CLI commands- leaking secrets or modifying CI/CD workflows.

⚠️ 🚨 Introducing PromptPwnd: A new vulnerability class affecting AI agents in GitHub Actions

What we found:

 • Confirmed exposure in FIVE Fortune 500 companies
 • Google’s Gemini CLI repository was also impacted (now fixed)
 • Vulnerability pattern is already present in real-world workflows
 • Likely affects many more organisations using AI agents in CI/CDIf you use AI agents in GitHub Actions/GitLab CI/CD check your pipelines immediately.

Recommendations:
1/ Remove or restrict privileged tools available to AI agents
2/ Never send untrusted PR/issue content directly into AI prompts
3/ Treat AI-generated output as untrusted code
4/ Limit the blast radius of GitHub tokens (IP-restricted tokens recommended)

👉 How to check if you are affected:
1) Scan your GitHub Action files using Opengrep (Aikido provides rules: https://lnkd.in/dnrEqjdM)

2) Use Aikido Security, which automatically identifies unsafe AI prompt flows in the free tier

Full research by Rein Daelman is here: https://lnkd.in/ehkkvF9U

Open article: Prompt Injection Inside GitHub Actions: The New Frontier of Supply Chain Attacks by aikido.dev

Prompt Injection Inside GitHub Actions: The New Frontier of Supply Chain Attacks

Zapier NPM account is compromised, see details below. 

About 16k (and counting) packages are affected.

Always use Aikido Security's completely free/OSS Safe Chain as an npm wrapper

https://lnkd.in/eZrRahs6

Developer and Security Advocate @ Aikido Security

🚨ZAPIER SUPPLY CHAIN COMPROMISE ALERT

In the latest episode of “Please Stop Breaking the Internet,” Aikido Security has just detected Zapier's NPM account has been compromised & multiple packages have been infected with Malware by the same actors behind the Shai Hulud self-propagating worm discovered in September. 

So far 16k+ public Repositories have been created on GitHub containing stolen credentials under the name "Sha1-Hulud: The Second Coming"

Zapier packages include:
zapier-platform-core
zapier-platform-cli
zapier-platform-schema
@zapier/secret-scrubber

The same malware was infected in the ENS ecosystem as well
@ensdomains/ens-validation
@ensdomains/content-hash
ethereum-ens
@ensdomains/react-ens-address
@ensdomains/ens-contracts
@ensdomains/ensjs
@ensdomains/ens-archived-contracts
@ensdomains/dnssecoraclejs

What’s going on?
 The same threat actor behind the Shai Hulud malware has pivoted to new targets, injecting malicious code into these packages. The intent is familiar: steal credentials, exfiltrate sensitive data, and generally ruin everyone’s Monday. 

What you should do now:
Check which versions you depend on.
Rotate secrets if you consumed the affected packages.
Pin trusted versions & enable package integrity tooling.
Use tools like Safe-Chain to prevent install malicious packages. 

This is an unfolding situation, I will provide more details as they unfold in comments including a technical blog.

taplio

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The Battle

Molly Johnson-Jones

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