Success sometimes begins in the unlikeliest of places. Potholes, broken wrists, air-con units — just some of the improbable starting points for the careers of our second annual Young Power List.
Our definition of power goes beyond bank balances and social media followings. This is about the power to think differently, break records and make lives better. To choose our 30 winners — who appear below in no particular order — we called upon the expertise of Sunday Times editors from every section of the paper — sport, politics, business, the arts, technology, entertainment, beauty, fashion and food.
They nominated the young British men and women who are dominating their field, rewriting the rules and are most likely to have enduring careers. The criteria? They need to be 30 or under, from the UK and doing brilliant things on the world stage or behind the scenes. Our youngest winner is just 16, a tech founder who has already made his mark on Silicon Valley (he’ll finish his GCSEs when he gets back).
Maisie Peters, 24, musician
Recently Peters found the Christmas lists that she and her twin sister, Ellen, had written when they were 13. “Hers said, ‘I want a waffle maker,’ ” Peters recalls. “And mine said, ‘I’d love a guitar.’ ” Ellen is now a chef; in 2023 Peters headlined Wembley Arena. “We were on our paths.”
By 15 messing around on the guitar had turned into sharing songs on a YouTube channel — “I remember getting 100,000 subscribers and being, like, ‘Wow, I’m huge’ — which became a record deal with Atlantic Records aged 17. “My mum had to sign it with me.”
In 2021 she co-signed with Ed Sheeran’s label, Gingerbread Man Records, and later that year released her first album, You Signed Up for This, which reached No 2 in the UK charts. Her second album, 2023’s The Good Witch, debuted at No 1.
The big gigs keep coming: Peters has played Glastonbury’s Pyramid Stage and supported Coldplay, as well as Taylor Swift on her blockbuster Eras Tour. “I grew up listening to a lot of female songwriters and being inspired by them — Taylor Swift, Lily Allen, Kacey Musgraves.” On the playlist right now? “Bruce Springsteen, Tunnel of Love.”
• Maisie Peters: ‘I was shocked when Taylor Swift liked my cover of her song’
Despite being the twin who now plays gigs to audiences of 60,000 people, Peters says that while growing up in Brighton she was the “shy” one. So how does she prepare to face the stage? “I’m with the band backstage and we all do a handshake.” Touring is a joy: “You’re travelling the world with music you wrote, and suddenly it’s teenagers in Hungary who connect with it.”
Maisie’s advice: Don’t be afraid for things to take the amount of time they’re going to take. We’ve seen with Sabrina Carpenter and Chappell Roan — they’re killing it now and they were killing it three years ago in a different way. PL
Joshua Reynolds, 26, Liberal Democrat MP for Maidenhead
Reynolds used to breeze through his local Tesco in 20 minutes. “It’s now a good two hours,” he says. “I stop and have a chat, pick up a bit of casework.”
It’s an occupational hazard: in 2024 Reynolds was elected the Liberal Democrat MP for his home town of Maidenhead — his dream job. “This is the place I care about.” He first started thinking about politics as a 16-year-old, when three politicians visited his school: “They were talking about dog poo and potholes. I started thinking, we should have something better than that.”
After being elected as a councillor for Windsor and Maidenhead in 2019 during his second year of a business and management degree at Cardiff Metropolitan University, he made his first bid to become MP for Maidenhead in the general election held at the end of that year. He got the job when the nation went to the polls again last July.
He wants his generation to stand up and be counted and notes there are more young people in parliament than before. “It shows you don’t have to have done PPE at Oxbridge. It’s not the route I took.”
The days are long but working at Westminster never loses its magic. What’s his favourite quirk of the building? “You can pretty much get anywhere by finding a little staircase behind a random door.”
Joshua’s advice: If you care about your community and want to make it better, that’s why you should be in politics. PL
Lando Norris, 25, F1 racing driver
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Henna Zinzuwadia, 27, sommelier
“I fell into being a wine sommelier in a literal sense,” Zinzuwadia says. “I fractured my back and was almost left paralysed. I moved to London for my recovery and spent nine months learning how to walk again. I didn’t see sunlight.”
Zinzuwadia, from Leicester, was 19 and studying economics at the University of Manchester when she fell six metres from the top of a slide at an indoor trampoline park. She dropped out of university and, isolated from her friends, felt directionless until she spotted Bedales wine bar in Spitalfields, east London, on one of her first tentative post-accident walks.
“I went in and told them I really needed a job,” she says. “I was still in a back brace but they could see my passion and that I just needed some time to grow and learn.” Zinzuwadia couldn’t tell the difference between a chardonnay and a pinot noir at that point, but she liked the celebratory ritual of buying a bottle of wine and she wanted to know more. The Bedales team took a chance on her and within a year she was hosting her own tastings at the bar. After two years she was made general manager. The company also sponsored her through exams set by the Wine and Spirit Education Trust (WSET).
Zinzuwadia was named GQ’s sommelier of the year in 2022 and soon found her niche: wine pairing for non-European cuisines. She left Bedales to be the head sommelier at Akoko, a west African restaurant in Fitzrovia, London, and has since been the head sommelier and wine buyer at the Indian restaurant Pahli Hill Bandra Bhai, also in Fitzrovia. “The wine industry isn’t just old, white and male any more,” Zinzuwadia says. “It’s so diverse.” She is now working freelance with MJ Wine Cellars, a UK importer, hosting her own tastings.
Despite not knowing the lexicon before getting her start, Zinzuwadia didn’t feel intimidated by the experts. “I think there’s a misconception that the wine industry is really stuffy or snobby, but I personally haven’t found that. The community is so friendly.”
Henna’s advice: Being a sommelier isn’t the only route into wine — explore trade, marketing and branding options and apply for a job in a wine bar. Learning on the job is the best and you could have your WSET Level 1 and 2 sponsored. Henna recommends her five favourite affordable wines. YC
Cole Palmer, 22, footballer
There is one goal that Cole Palmer says he will never forget — his equaliser for England in the Euro 2024 final against Spain.
“Coming on as a substitute in the 70th minute, finding the net within three minutes and levelling the score ” he says, recalling the heroic moment that very briefly restored the hopes of a nation. “We lost, but that goal remains a highlight of my career.”
Growing up in the south Manchester suburb of Wythenshawe, he was scouted by the Manchester City academy at the age of six and made his debut for the first team in 2020. Three years later he joined Chelsea in a deal worth £42.5 million.
During his time at the London club he has produced 36 goals and 18 assists in the Premier League (at the time of writing), plus a record-breaking 12 consecutive successful penalties, and has scored four times in one match — twice.
Last year he won the PFA’s Young Player of the Year award and his trademark “shiver” goal celebration has become as famous as Ronaldo’s “Siu” shout, earning him the nickname “Cold Palmer”. The England manager, Thomas Tuchel, has said, “He’s cool, he’s composed, he’s clinical.”
While delivering the BBC’s annual Richard Dimbleby Lecture last month, Tuchel’s predecessor, Gareth Southgate, stressed the need for positive male role models. Does Palmer feel pressure to be one for young men?
“I understand the responsibility that comes with being in the public eye,” he says. “But you’re not always going to have all the answers.”
When he spoke to The Sunday Times, Palmer was recovering from a muscle injury that kept him out of England’s opening World Cup qualifiers, and was eager to return to the game he “loves”.
He doesn’t have pregame rituals — “I keep things simple, there’s no elaborate routine” — though admits he still gets nervous. “I’m human, but a bit of nerves is natural and keeps me focused.”
• Scallywag, genius — why Cole Palmer is the hero modern football needs
In his spare time he and his older sister, Hallie, “mess around making TikToks together. People love them, especially when she quizzes me on make-up and fashion,” he says, referring to one particular video that had over two million views.
TikTok aside, he also loves gaming — Fifa is his favourite.
“The sacrifices are real,” Palmer reflects on his football career. “Time away from family, constant pressure but it’s all worth it when you’re on the pitch.”
Cole’s advice: Stay grounded, keep working hard and never forget where you came from. RK
Jess Hunt, 28, co-founder of Refy Beauty
This year Refy is set to exceed £100 million in retail sales, but the beauty brand began in 2020 with an investment of £60,000 from each of its co-founders, Jess Hunt and Jenna Meek. Meek’s stake came from her first cosmetics and jewellery business, Shrine, while Hunt’s share was through her personal brand as a content creator and model.
Less than a year after launch, Refy was being stocked in Selfridges and Sephora, and the brand has remained self-owned and self-invested. The pair’s success has also won them each a place on this year’s inaugural Sunday Times Beauty Rich List.
At 21, Hunt, from Plymouth, left her job as an administrator in the NHS to focus on content creation full time. “I loved sharing looks and this was a time when Instagram and the idea of being an influencer was very new,” she says of a platform on which she has 1.7 million followers to whom she now successfully markets Refy products.
The early days of the brand meant taking a few gambles. “We were having crisis talks before the business even launched because we had to order a crazy amount of stock for the lab to take a chance on us and create Brow Sculpt, our first product,” Hunt says. Together the pair created a brow wax/gel hybrid that comes with a double-ended applicator to shape and set hairs in place. The gamble paid off: the six months’ worth of stock sold out in the first six weeks.
“From then on the mission was to simplify beauty and fix problems in your make-up routine,” she says.
Jess’s advice: Send emails with pitch decks and business ideas. Show that you are driven and understand your brand. If you want to work in social media, put yourself out there and find your niche. YC
• Times+ members can enter to win £100 vouchers for D Louise and Refy. Visit mytimesplus.co.uk to find out more
Kaleb Cooper, 26, farmer and TV personality
From the age of 13 Cooper barely attended school. He was more interested in running his first business. “Within two months of my mum buying me three hens, I was selling eggs all around Chipping Norton,” he says.
As the breakout star of Clarkson’s Farm, Cooper, 26, has no qualms about telling Jeremy Clarkson where he might be going wrong. “People say, ‘Oh, you speak to Jeremy like he’s an idiot.’ Well, he is,” Cooper says. “On the farming side of things at least. He’s really good at being a journalist.”
Cooper’s skills developed out of necessity. His parents went through a “tricky divorce” when he was 12 and he took it upon himself to help his mum pay the bills. “I knocked on a farmer’s door and asked for a job and he said, ‘I’ll give you a pound an hour because you’re not from a farming background.’ I said, ‘No problem.’ ”
The dream is to own a farm one day with his fiancée, Taya, and their children, Oscar, four, and Willa, one; they are expecting a third baby in the summer. “I struggle to get the work/life balance right, but I’d love to go into the fields with my kids either side of me,” he says. “Oscar is very hands-on but Willa is a bit of a princess.”
Cooper still works 18-hour days on Clarkson’s Diddly Squat Farm. He supports the farmers protesting against the Labour government’s inheritance tax plans. “British food standards are right up there,” he says. “To make that food affordable for everyone we need subsidies. Take those away and food becomes too expensive.”
Thanks to Clarkson’s Farm, his media career has blossomed too. He has published three books, most recently Life According to Kaleb in 2024. And he is touring the UK with his comedy show An Evening with Kaleb Cooper. Accounts filed at Companies House show that Kaleb Cooper Productions’ assets were worth £908,860 in the financial year ending June 30, 2024.
He remains unsullied by celebrity culture. “I went to the National Television awards and everyone was saying hello,” he says. “I didn’t know a single person, but give me a cow and I can name every single breed.”
Kaleb’s advice: Offer to work for nothing. Farmers are good people and they’ll want to pay you, but you’ve got to show how willing you are. YC
Molly-Mae Hague, 25, entrepreneur and influencer
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Murvah Iqbal, 29, parcel delivery firm founder
When you’re building a business in this century it has to be sustainable by default,” says Iqbal, who founded her parcel-delivery company, Hived, in 2021. It now has a fleet of about 250 electric vehicles that deliver around London, with Asos, Zara and Nespresso among the retailers using it.
Last year its rival Evri achieved a measly customer-satisfaction rating of 32 per cent, according to Ofcom, and Yodel scored 38 per cent, so Iqbal had a receptive audience clamouring for a better service. To date Hived has received £30 million of investment and delivered more than five million parcels. The next step is expanding outside the capital in Birmingham and Manchester. “Manchester is my home town, so I’m excited about that,” she says.
Iqbal’s entrepreneurial and competitive spirit stems from her childhood. She worked on the branding side of her uncle’s diner chain, Archie’s, as a teenager and played football for Manchester City Women’s youth teams. But it was a trip to San Francisco, where she visited Google and Tesla, that opened her eyes to big business: “I learnt how you could build culturally defining companies and no one really cares about your age and your experience. You just need a big vision, ambition and to work hard.”
To her parents’ dismay she declined an offer from a prestigious consultancy in favour of being her own boss, but has won them over with her dedication to Hived. In the past five years she has taken only one week off. “The payoff is when friends message you, saying, ‘I just received a Hived parcel and it was amazing.’ ”
Murvah’s advice: Starting is the hardest part, so just start and start small. I began by delivering two parcels a day on my bike. If you have an idea, test it on friends and family then grow. YC
Anna Lapwood, 29, organist
“If you’d told me ten years ago that I’d be in this career I wouldn’t have believed you,” says Anna Lapwood, Britain’s most recognisable organist — thanks to TikTok — who was appointed MBE last year.
Lapwood is a vicar’s daughter, and growing up in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, she hated the organ — despite being a musical prodigy who played 15 instruments including the harp and the piano. She came around to it as a teenager, but only after she heard that organ scholars at Magdalen College, Oxford, get a grand piano in their rooms. She became the first woman in the college’s 560-year history to be awarded an organ scholarship.
In 2016, aged 21, she became director of music at Pembroke College, Cambridge — the youngest woman to hold the position at an Oxbridge college. Two years later she set up the Pembroke College Girls’ Choir, for girls from local schools. She stepped down in February to focus on her primary career as an organist. Her solo performances have included the BBC Proms and she also collaborates with symphony orchestras.
• Anna Lapwood: Phones at classical concerts? Fine with me
Organists traditionally sit out of sight in a gallery above the church entrance, but during the pandemic Lapwood started filming her performances for TikTok. She captures everything from the moment she checks her feet position and wipes her hands to the emotional relief of finishing a piece of music.
“Young people are so honest on social media — you see the mistakes as well as the highlights,” she says. “It allows you to bring your niche thing to a new audience and get them to go to concerts.” By the start of this year she had more than a million followers, ten times the number she had three years ago.
Her proudest moment so far, she says, was when the electronic music artist Bonobo invited her to join his band’s final night performing at the Royal Albert Hall in 2022, after hearing her rehearsing earlier in the day. She found herself performing in front of an audience of 5,000 people.
“Usually 20 people is a good audience at an organ recital,” Lapwood says. “I had this moment where I realised that what I’ve been doing is working.”
Anna’s advice: Surround yourself with people you really trust to be honest with you if you’re making a mistake. KT
Zak Marks, 27, and James Cohen, 29, co-founders of Kitt Medical
A visit to hospital at the age of five for Marks after an allergic reaction to peanut butter was the beginning of the Kitt Medical story. “I was handed two anaphylaxis pens,” he says — the devices are used to deliver an emergency dose of adrenaline to treat severe allergic reactions. “Mum managed my allergy up until university, then I never took them anywhere as I was trying to fit in. And I realised this was a massive issue.”
After reading industrial design and technology at Loughborough University, he teamed up with his friend James Cohen, who was working at a tech start-up, in 2021. They built a prototype box containing four of the pens that could be placed as prominently as defibrillators in public spaces. Each can be lifted off its mount and carried to the emergency site, and pens are replaced before expiry or after use. They launched Kitt Medical in February 2023; today their “kitts” are in more than 600 schools and businesses as well as in Alton Towers and the Royal Albert Hall.
In September last year they learnt that one of their “kitts” had been used by a teacher at Harris Academy Rainham in Essex to save the life of 14-year-old Ava Illingworth after she had a severe allergic reaction to nuts. In February Marks and Cohen went on Dragons’ Den and secured a £75,000 investment from Deborah Meaden and Steven Bartlett.
Success to Cohen is about more than profit alone: “It’s about people like Zak walking into the restaurant for the first time, not being afraid to say they have an allergy and there being stigma attached to it.”
Zak’s advice: Test and get feedback. Build something people actually want, not just something you think they need.
James’s advice: Everything takes longer and costs more than you think it will. KT
Harry Brook, 26, cricketer
The majority of Brook’s childhood was spent on the cricket field 20 yards from his grandmother’s house in the village of Burley in Wharfedale, West Yorkshire. But it was the cricketing scholarship he won to the independent Sedbergh School aged 13 that made a career in the sport a real possibility. “We had all the facilities and resources you could ever ask for and people who were really willing to help you,” the batsman says. “You got thrown into things you might not have wanted to do — that’s a good step for the future.”
Brook’s batting coach Martin Speight would get him to the nets for 6.30am and they would practise for hours before the start of the school day. The discipline has served Brook well. In 2023 he made history as the leading run scorer in Test cricket after his first nine innings. He achieved 809 runs, beating the record of 792 set by India’s Vinod Kambli. Last year he also became the sixth Englishman, and the first in 34 years, to score a triple century in Test cricket — that’s 300 or more runs in a single innings.
Brook is now ranked as the second best batsman in the world for Test cricket by the International Cricket Council (England’s Joe Root is No1). His career standout is winning the T20 World Cup in 2022. “That was phenomenal,” he says. “We had so much fun in Australia and to come home with the trophy just made it all the better.”
His first mentors were his parents and grandmother.“They would drive me up and down the country, playing for Yorkshire,” he says. After the death of his grandmother in February last year Brook pulled out of the Indian Premier League. “My grandma was the one who brought my family together and she played a massive role in my career. I owed it to her to go back and spend as much time as I could with her before I never saw her again.”
Not all of Brook’s loved ones were born cricketing fanatics. In the five and a half years that he has been with his girlfriend, a children’s nurse, he has put in the work to get her following the sport. “She wasn’t a fan but she is now,” he says. “Well, she is when I’m playing.”
Harry’s advice: Practise every shot and you should be able to take them into play and put the opposition under pressure. You’ve got to be fearless — don’t be scared of getting hit.” YC
Saba Sams, 28, author
The email that changed Sams’s life arrived when she was in bed. The author, then 23, had sent examples of her writing to an editor at Bloomsbury as part of a creative writing course at Manchester University. “We’d been emailing, discussing our favourite books,” says Sams, who grew up in Brighton (she has Syrian heritage on her paternal grandfather’s side). “Then the editor said, ‘We’re going to give you a book deal.’ It was mad.”
The result was Send Nudes, Sams’s debut short story collection, published in 2022, which explores what it’s like to be a young woman. It won prestigious prizes including the BBC National Short Story award, and in 2023 Sams was named one of Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists.
“After Send Nudes I realised how important it is to write about the granular details of being a young woman,” Sams says. “You can’t really prepare yourself for how it feels for your writing to touch someone else.”
Unlike many students, Sams was juggling writing her first book with caring for her baby — an unplanned pregnancy. “Everyone thought I was naive and I partly was but it still worked out,” she says of pursuing a writing career while looking after a newborn. “There’s a line in one of my stories that says, ‘I was stupid but I was right too.’ It’s sort of true.”
• Saba Sams: The truth about having a baby at 22
In May Sams will publish her debut novel, Gunk, about the relationship between the ex-wife of a student nightclub owner and an enigmatic young woman he hires: “Writing a novel was much scarier. There were many moments where I was, like, ‘I can’t do this.’”
Sams now has three children aged between six years and four months with her partner Jacob, from university: “I’m spinning plates all the time, but having young children makes me pay closer attention to the world.”
Saba’s advice: Your perspective of the world will be different to someone else’s, so put all that detail into your writing. RK
Simmy Dhillon, 27, ready meals entrepreneur
My brother Jhai and I were the ones selling sweets in the playground,” says Simmy Dhillon, co-founder of the health-conscious meal-delivery company Simmer Eats, “so I don’t think people would be surprised by what we went on to do.”
Although he had always wanted to start a business, Dhillon worried that he needed to wait until he had more experience. “Being a working-class brown kid, I definitely didn’t think I was credible.”
So when Simmer Eats started, it was almost by accident. Dhillon had learnt to cook at home, where “healthy food that was well seasoned and well spiced” was the norm. His brother Jhai was playing football professionally, first as a youth for Chelsea and then at Stevenage, and wanted to eat well. At university Dhillon — originally from Hitchin, Hertfordshire — began selling extra portions of the meals he made to hungry students.
As demand grew, he took a year out from reading economics at Bristol to focus on the business. Ever the overachiever, he also did internships at Google and an investment bank and went travelling before launching in 2017, growing to £36.1 million in revenue in the year to January.
Today Simmer Eats is one of the UK’s fastest-growing businesses, ranked 11th on the Sunday Times 100, the annual list of Britain’s fastest-growing companies. Their menu now contains more than 60 reheatable meals — average cost: £6.90 — with about 25 available on rotation each week. They deliver around the country and have 15 employees; they certainly live up to their motto: “Do more with less.” Simmer also counts a number of famous faces among its customers, including his Young Power List peer Molly-Mae Hague.
With no external investors, Simmer Eats grew by reinvesting “everything” into the business, which his mum and brother, Jhai, joined. “We all look out for each other — we all know that if we win, we all win.”
Simmy’s advice: Execution is better than perfection — get started, work hard and don’t worry about what others think. Most business ideas die before they’ve even started, so half of the game is surviving. LT
Bella Maclean, 27, actress
As Taggie, the ingenue who bags the (much older) lothario, Bella Maclean, 27, was the breakout star of Rivals. Read our exclusive interview with Bella Maclean.
James Vitali, 29, Conservative councillor
The political is personal for Vitali, Conservative councillor for the Stalbridge and Marnhull ward in Dorset.
Vitali was born in the village of Marnhull and the concept of public service, instilled by a military family, drove him towards politics. He lives on the same road where he grew up and went to school, and says it’s “very special for me to now be Marnhull’s councillor as I know its aspirations, concerns, public services and community”.
Alongside his local duties Vitali is also a senior fellow at the Policy Exchange think tank in Westminster, where he focuses on what he believes is the most critical problem of our generation: property ownership. His perspective on how vital ownership is for young people to succeed benefits from inhabiting the world of Westminster and the hyperlocal Marnhull simultaneously.
A fan of Thatcher and the Tory leader Kemi Badenoch, Vitali says his views are an extension of the values he grew up with — in a “close-knit neighbourhood where people have obligations to one another”. But he recognises that they “probably make me quite strange or different from most young people” in the UK, who are increasingly voting for left-wing parties.
While Vitali has a life outside politics — including his Christian faith, which “plays a good role in levelling me out” — he worries that a string of scandals in Westminster has built the false perception that politics is a dishonest profession.
“The worst thing that young people could do is to disengage because if you’re not in the room, you can’t influence the conversation or the policy.”
James’s advice: The best advice I’ve been given is to listen to your mum and dad, because they know more than you do. KT
Darcie Maher, 27, bakery owner
Maher’s first adventures in baking involved mud pies in the garden of her home in Ayton in the Scottish Borders and an early attempt at bread rolls. “My family are quite health conscious, so I was, like, ‘I’m not going to add salt.’” The dough collapsed.
No more kitchen disasters — Maher is now the owner of the Edinburgh bakery Lannan, which became a hit when it opened in 2023. It has 100,000 Instagram followers, won Pastry Opening of the Year at the World Pastry Awards in 2024 and has tourists and locals queueing up at 6am.
Maher left school as soon as she could and spent five years working as a commis chef. “I say to my staff, ‘Bake like you’re cooking. Season a custard the way you’d season a soup. Everything has to be tasted and tweaked.”
She is self-taught — she learnt what she could from her mother, grandmother, Naked Chef recipes and by practising, practising, practising, she says. “I know if I follow the recipe properly, the outcome is going to be as I expect.”
These days her showstopper is a fruit tart “with infused custard” and she’s trying to master pasteis de nata and canelés. Next up? A Lannan café, plus Maher would like to write a book. “A personal one and a Lannan one. I’d love to do a kids’ one as well.” Several books, then. “One thing at a time.”
Darcie’s advice: Stick with it. When I started looking for a job, I applied everywhere in Edinburgh and none of the bakeries would give me one. Darcie shares three delicious recipes for jam biscuits and buns. PL
Immanuel Feyi-Waboso, 22, rugby player and medical student
The biggest problem is fitting it all in the day,” Feyi-Waboso says. This is no surprise: not many people can juggle playing professional rugby for England with a full-time medical degree.
Fortunately, both tutors and coaches are flexible — although Feyi-Waboso’s rugby coaches are more supportive of medicine than his lecturers are of rugby. “Because obviously we can’t cut corners in medicine.”
Born in Cardiff, his passion for rugby was sparked by his schoolteachers and he was signed for the Cardiff Blues academy in 2020. He joined Wasps in 2022, then moved to the Exeter Chiefs after Wasps were suspended from the Premiership.
Feyi-Waboso represented England in the Six Nations last year and scored his first Test try in the Calcutta Cup. In April 2024 he set a new record in the Champions Cup while playing for the Chiefs, beating 13 defenders in a fixture against Bath.
• Immanuel Feyi-Waboso: Facing the Haka? It’s much scarier on the TV
The accolades go on. He won Breakthrough Player of the Season in May 2024, as well as RPA Young Player of the Year, an award voted on by his fellow competitors.
Feyi-Waboso started medical school at Aston before taking a year out and decamping to Exeter University. But he always knew rugby would be part of his future. “I was just kind of good at it — it came naturally.”
Medicine was the same. He “really liked sciences” and gained A*AA at A-levels. He is considering a future specialism in plastic surgery.
And as if Feyi-Waboso didn’t have enough on his plate, he’s learning new languages. “I’m keen on the romantic group, — ones that are close to home, like Italian and Spanish.”
Have there been pinch-me moments? The first time he went abroad with England, dressed in branded kit, and sat in business class. And playing at Twickenham the first time, which was “surreal”.
Immanuel’s advice: Find what you really want to do — then you can achieve anything. LT
Fergal Mackie, 27, prosthetics designer
At the age of 22, a skateboarding accident left Mackie, from Perth, with two broken wrists and a long summer ahead.
When his injuries inspired an interest in prosthetics, he soon learnt there was a lack of adequate options on the market. Armed with a product design engineering degree from Strathclyde University, he started Metacarpal,and detailed prototyping yielded the first body-powered, multi-articulated prosthetic hand. After work, Mackie spent his nights as a driver for Uber Eats to make ends meet.
Metacarpal’s concept soon gained traction. It now employs a team of ten people and the firm has raised more than £1 million in investment.
The invention harnesses the body’s motion to power and control the hand. Mackie says that because it’s mechanically engineered “there’s a lot less that can go wrong”. It’s waterproof and requires no batteries.
Set to hit the market in late spring, the device has the potential to transform prosthetics, which usually require clinical infrastructure to support intensive teaching and individual variations. “Ours is pretty much plug and play.”
Fergal’s advice: Making a wrong decision and later correcting it is usually better than making no decision at all. LT
Rosie Wrighting, 27, Labour MP for Kettering
Wrighting doesn’t fear failure. “Politics is about winning; you have to have a thick skin,” says the MP, who grew up in Kettering, Northamptonshire, and, on winning her seat there at last year’s election, became the youngest female member of the House of Commons. “My upbringing gave me that. I’m from a single-parent family and didn’t grow up wealthy. There have been hurdles on the way.”
One of those hurdles was dyslexia, which meant Wrighting “struggled with parts of school. I wasn’t always the best at being academic,” she says. “I powered through, but I still struggle.”
Wrighting joined the Labour Party while studying fashion buying at the University of Westminster and was working as a buyer for Asos when the 2024 election was called. Now she is achieving recognition in her new role. She was praised for her speech in support of the assisted dying bill last year, and last month, during a debate to mark International Women’s Day, gave a powerful account of her experiences since announcing she was standing for parliament — which included being asked if she has an OnlyFans account and receiving regular online abuse.
Wrighting is also very much your typical twentysomething woman. She loves BookTok, Taylor Swift and Sabrina Carpenter, and has “an obsession” with Cadbury Creme Eggs — her most bought item of 2024, according to her Tesco Clubcard. Having qualified as a personal trainer while at university she says exercise is her favourite way to unwind, especially weightlifting and figure skating, although she’s quick to stress she’s not a professional. “The ice rink is very different from Westminster,” she says with a laugh.
One of the trickiest parts of doing her job is maintaining friendships. “When you’re campaigning, that’s all you focus on, so it’s harder to check in with your friends,” Wrighting says. “I make a conscious effort to text them. Those friendships add a lot of value to my life.”
She still pinches herself every time she hangs her coat up at work and doesn’t “think it will ever sink in”. “My success is not really about me. I’m motivated by the little wins. It’s about seeing how you’ve had a direct impact on someone else’s life.”
Rosie’s advice: If you think you have something valuable to add, just go for it. Don’t wait for someone to come and ask you to go for it. RK
Toby Brown, 16, artificial intelligence pioneer
Brown’s favourite invention is older than him. “It’s the original iMac G3,” he says. “I think it’s a cool piece of computing history.”
He might collect desktop computers that went out of commission in 2003, but in every other way Brown is the future. From Twickenham, southwest London, he is the founder of Beem, an AI-powered operating system designed to handle boring admin such as finding the right flight for a work trip. It’s already attracted $1 million in Silicon Valley investment and Brown is planning to take part in an accelerator programme in California run by the investor South Park Commons to help Beem boom. He’ll finish his GCSEs at his local Catholic secondary once he’s back.
He’s always been a whizz kid. “My parents have this story where I was in a buggy staring at the AC unit, and that’s all I was thinking about,” he says. He built an alarm system for his bedroom aged four; at school he has been balancing homework with coding club. “When ChatGPT was released I decided, ‘This is cool, I’m going to build my own.’ ”
What does he think people get wrong about AI? “That it’s this super-dangerous tool that’s going to replace all of us. There’s room for concern, but look at the internet. Everyone was, like, ‘Oh my God, this is going to destroy so many jobs.’ It really did the complete opposite.” He’s excited. “We’re in the AOL days of AI — the earliest days. There’s going to be so much more good that comes from it.”
What about his dreams for Beem? “I want it to be something you can chat about with your grandma and she’d know what you’re talking about.”
Toby’s advice: Just going and doing something is my philosophy — not waiting for someone else, having no respect for that status quo. It’s worked out so far for Beem. PL
Laviai and Lina Nielsen, 29, British Olympians
The Nielsen twins have “always been stronger together”, a fact proven last year when they won bronze for Team GB in the women’s 4x400m relay in Paris.
After Lina was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis at 17, she had to watch her sister compete in global championships while she struggled to walk, in the knowledge that her sister was at risk of developing the illness. At 25, Laviai was diagnosed too.
The sisters grew up in Leytonstone, east London, in a single-parent family. “Our Danish dad left during mum’s pregnancy, so we never knew him. But that just cemented the bond between the three of us,” Lina says. “Mum came here from Sudan. She’s the strongest woman we know and we still draw a lot of our strength from her.”
When they were 13, they were competing in long-distance events. “Now I specialise in 400m hurdles and Laviai runs 400m flat,” Lina says. “If we’re doing a speed session I’ll tail her, so she sets the pace. And if we’re doing endurance she’ll tail me. If she’s killing it, I’ll work harder.”
Lina first had symptoms of multiple sclerosis — tingling, numbness and double vision — when she was 13. “It felt incredibly lonely — the first time in my life I was on my own with something. It wasn’t until I was 17 and I had complete right-side paralysis that I had an MRI scan and was given a diagnosis of relapsing remitting MS.”
Laviai was then diagnosed in 2021. “I remember thinking, ‘It can’t be, I’m in the shape of my life.’ But I thought, ‘Lina’s fine, I’m going to be fine.’ She said, ‘You’ll be OK, we’ll manage this.’ And we have.”
The setbacks were worth it for that moment on the Olympic podium. “Finally we were walking side by side again. We know it’s important to grow as individuals, but it’s nicer doing things with Lina.” Read our full interview with Laviai and Lina.
Ella Lambert, 24, activist against global period poverty
Lambert wanted to do something constructive in lockdown. During those strange, quiet days, she wondered how women around the world were accessing period products. “I thought, what about people who don’t have a sustainable income to buy pads because they’re moving from place to place — what are they doing?” she says.
Having planned to go to Colombia to volunteer before lockdown, she decided to find a solution. “I borrowed a sewing machine and learnt on YouTube how to sew reusable pads. I can’t make anything else,” she says with a laugh.
Lambert happened upon a group of volunteers looking for a project to use their sewing expertise — people who had been sewing masks and PPE for the NHS and other health services — and the work snowballed from there.
Lambert, from Chelmsford, Essex, is now CEO of the Pachamama Project, which creates and distributes reusable period products to vulnerable women and girls around the world, including refugees. More than 2,500 volunteers across 13 countries — calling themselves “pachamamas and pachapapas” — have produced 160,000 reusable pads. This amounts to 20,000 people helped out of period poverty in 11 countries.
Having experienced debilitating periods herself growing up, this cause is personal. “I used to miss school every month,” she says. “So when I first heard about period poverty, it really struck a chord with me.”
Ella’s advice: If you have an idea, just run with it. You never know where it’s going to go and you never know what impact you might have. LT
Henry Rowley, 27, comedian
Rowley, from Leicester, started a TikTok account while studying English literature at Bristol University and has since accrued almost two million followers across social media, many of whom are the subject of his satire: raspy posh girls.
After taking his online comedy skits to sold-out shows at the Edinburgh Fringe, he is now diversifying into acting: his first screen role is in the new MGM+ series Robin Hood, due to air later this year. The comedian shares more about his career, daily routine and one embarrassing dating faux pas here.
Olivia Jenkins and Jack Zambakides, both 28, jewellers
At first, Olivia Jenkins didn’t know how to make affordable jewellery that doesn’t tarnish — she just knew the products on the market weren’t good enough. Which is where D Louise comes in: jewellery that is affordable but still comes with a lifetime guarantee that it won’t leave a mark or fade.
Her fiancé and co-founder, Jack Zambakides, saw the potential in Jenkins’s idea, encouraged her and planted the idea of starting her own business.
Born in Cardiff, Jenkins had developed a love of jewellery during shopping trips with her mum. “We would spend hours — no phones — and would try on loads of clothes and jewellery. I absolutely loved it,” she says.
Jenkins and Zambakides made the perfect match — not just in their relationship, which began after they met at university, at a party where Jenkins was dressed up as an Oompa-Loompa, but as business partners.
Zambakides, from London, had started his own ventures — notably LS Personal Shopper, which he began with his student loan overdraft and built up to a turnover of £10 million in five years — so he had the experience to turn the D Louise idea into the multimillion-pound business it is today.
D Louise is named after Jenkins’s mother, who died from cancer in 2017. “When she passed away, I lost direction,” she says. “I knew that if I named it after her I had to really stick to it and give it a good go.”
Now Jenkins is dedicated to helping other people facing cancer in their families, and has been made a chairwoman of Cancer Research UK’s Business Beats Cancer.
The pair recently brought Steve Hewitt, a former CEO of Gymshark, on board after he invested in the brand 18 months ago. “He’s been an adviser, a mentor, almost like a family member, and he’s taught us so much,” Zambakides says.
It’s no wonder Hewitt is keen to get on board with D Louise — its growth has been exceptional. Turnover was £290,000 in its first year, scaling up to £6.6 million in the fourth. It employs 15 people and is on track to turn over £10 million this financial year.
When did they realise that D Louise was truly a success? “Black Friday in 2023,” Jenkins says. “We sold out all of our stock for December, January and February.”
Jack’s advice: I think just instilling self-belief into yourself is so important.
Olivia’s advice: Really understand who you are as a person, what gives you purpose and energy, and go after that. LT
Archie Hewlett, 30, footwear entrepreneur
Hewlett was all set to study psychology at Durham University. Instead he took a job in recruitment. “I liked the idea of having purpose and being around people on the same kind of mission each day, rather than bumming about in uni dorms.”
That mission wasn’t recruitment but Duke + Dexter — a shoe brand Hewlett founded in his bedroom in Reading in 2015 with a £9,000 loan. The gamble paid off: the brand, which has expanded into clothes, is now stocked at Selfridges and Harrods, sold all over the world and worn by stars including Tom Holland, Matthew McConaughey, Snoop Dogg and Eddie Redmayne — who collected his best actor Oscar in 2015 wearing a pair of Duke + Dexter loafers.
In the early days Hewlett would pack boxes and print labels. “I was so scared I was going to run out of money,” he says. He didn’t tell his friends about the business for two years: “I felt a bit embarrassed —I’d dropped out of university and I hadn’t given it much thought.”
Hewlett now runs a team of 17, so what kind of manager is he? “I’ve improved and learnt a lot. The difficulty of starting a business with your own cash, and little of it, is you’re obsessed with everything. I’ve definitely learnt the art of delegation.”
Archie’s advice: You need to be good at hiring. That’s the biggest factor — bring the right people in. PL
Rebecca Wilson, 29, farmer and podcast host
Wilson is a fifth-generation farmer, but her parents were not keen for her to follow in their footsteps. “They saw an industry that was struggling financially and wanted me to do something different,” she says.
She took their advice and landed a place at Cambridge University to study human, social and political sciences, but she couldn’t shake her desire to delve further into farming. She went on to gain a master’s degree in rural land management from the Royal Agricultural University.
When Wilson’s father became unwell in 2021, she returned to the North Yorkshire farm to help out temporarily and then decided it was time to really learn the ropes.
At 25 she was operating heavy machinery and helping with the lambing. Wilson also started up her podcast, Boots and Heels, with newbie farmer Lizzie McLaughlin, which aimed to demystify the agricultural world. They covered topics such as whether cows are destroying the world, diversity in farming and veganism.
In 2023 the duo won the Women in Agriculture award at the Northern Farmer Awards. The series has now ended but Wilson has launched another. Wilson & Ashley, co-hosted by the dairy farmer Charlotte Ashley, will focus on the day’s farming issues. “For example, a big thing is OnlyFans,” Wilson says. “A lot of girls in farming are turning to it to make money. Good on them, but it’s devaluing the women in the agriculture movement and reinforces stereotypes of girls in bikinis on big tractors.”
Wilson is strongly critical of Labour’s inheritance tax changes for farmers. “A fair tax should be levied on people who have the ability to pay,” she says. “The impact on British food production would be massive. A lot of consumers want food that’s high welfare, traceable and sustainable. We can’t guarantee that from food produced abroad.”
Rebecca’s advice: There’s a place for everybody in this industry, whether it’s milking cows or creating the software that drives our tractors. YC
