Eastern Promise - The Podcast

Episode 151: LIVE EVENT! Skills, Careers & Policy

This Week: On 21st November 2025, Eastern Promise held a live event at Mills & Reeve's Cambridge office, focussed around skills, careers and creating better policy on both.
However, this recording, in front of a live audience set out to do something different: to talk to a group of young people about their hopes, dreams and future plans, and get a panel of educators and skills professionals consisting of: Andy Daly, Executive Principal of the Meridian Trust; Anne Bailey, CEO of Form the Future CIC; Kevin Keable, Chair of the East of England Energy Group (and, coincidentally, the recently announced Liberal Democrat candidate for Mayor of Norfolk and Suffolk), and Deputy Principal of East Norfolk Sixth Form College in Gorleston near Great Yarmouth, Dr Simon Fox, to address these points, before giving young people the final say.  
Then, in what is admittedly a bit of a 'long player' of a podcast, we move forward to look at the impact of career breaks, whether chosen or not, and career pivots.  We'll hear a number of stories of what can best be described as 'squiggly careers', huge life changes, sudden shocks, pivots from successful careers into new ventures and more. Taking us through this are: Deborah Dawson of Mills & Reeve, Victoria Higgins of 'Beyond the Noise', Sally Field of Cambridge Wireless and Tarquin Bennett-Coles of Compass Carter Osborne.
And finally, Charlotte Horobin, CEO of the Cambridgeshire Chamber of Commerce; Dan Thorp, CEO of Cambridge Ahead; Owen Garling of the Bennett School of Public Policy; and Gareth John, Director of Policy at accountancy trainers First Intuition will unpack everything we've heard and share their thoughts about what it all means going forward.
Eastern Promise would like to thank everyone who attended the recording, our engineer, North Cambridge Academy and East Norfolk Sixth Form, and especially Lee, Dotty, Mai, Drew, Ash and Shanae from those institutions for taking part.
To find out more about Eastern Promise, to listen to our back catalogue and to contact us, visit https://easternpromise.org.uk.
Eastern Promise is proud to be supported by Mills & Reeve.

Episode 150: Haverhill's EpiCentre is Five!

This Week: Mike Rigby joins the fun and frolics (there were frolics, weren't there?) to celebrate the fifth anniversary of the opening of Haverhill's very own innovation hub, the EpiCentre!  
Eastern Promise's own Grand Fromage, Mike Rigby, joins the jamboree and, at the invitation of Centre Manager Helen Earl and Innovation Director Gary Jennings, hosts four special panels for the galaxy of guests present, with each panel looking at a different aspect of the EpiCentre's offer to its community.  
We consider:
Funding;
Engineering Skills;
Healthcare & Innovation; and
AI.  
It's a celebration with insight, excitement, progress, and practical advice, and we thank all those who took part.
For more information on the EpiCentre, click here.
To listen to our whole back catalogue, or to contact Eastern Promise, click here.
Eastern Promise is proud to be sponsored by Mills & Reeve.

Episode 149: 'High Streets Matter' in North Walsham

This Week: High Streets Matter! They matter across our region and they matter in North Walsham, where your host, Mike Rigby, finds himself this week.
In the company of Alexandra Hemen of New Anglia Growth Hub, visits the magnificent Black Swan Pub and Theatre to chat with landlord, actor and all-round human dynamo Joseph Ballard, along with social entrepreneur Selina of Best In Broads.  
Alex then whisks us into the town proper, calling in at Dolly's gift shop, a recipient of support ftom the Norfolk County Council Retail Excellence Programme, to talk to shop florist Evie.  All our local guests have several things in common: their love of North Walsham and their soaring community spirit.  Alex(andra), meanwhile, brings huge and hard-won retail expertise at the pinnacle of one of the East of England's best known brands. One of Mike Rigby's favourite things is to get out and about across the East of England and North Walsham was truly something special.  
If you want to find out more about the High Streets Matter package of support, visit the New Anglia Growth website here: https://www.newangliagrowthhub.co.uk/norfolk-high-streets-matter/
Find out more about the wonderful New Stages Black Swan Pub & Theatre here. 
You can find out more about Eastern Promise, listen to our back catalogue or contact us here. 
Eastern Promise is proud to be supported by Mills & Reeve.

Episode 148: Cambridge Consultants

This Week: 'Ahead of the Curve' could well be Cambridge Consultant's business address.  Indeed, these global professional problem solvers, part of Capgemini Invent, thrive on getting out in front and staying there.
After an illuminating press day, host Mike Rigby is joined by Head of Biotechnology Frances Metcalfe and New Frontiers Board Member Richard Traherne, to find out more about this organisation, whose presence on the Cambridge Science Park site predates the park itself.  
For more information on Cambridge Consultants, visit their website here.    
To listen to our back catalogue or to contact Eastern Promise, visit our website here.
Eastern Promise is proud to be sponsored by Mills & Reeve.  Follow the link to discover more.

Episode 147: EI Innovate 2025 at the Earlham Institute

This Week: We start a new 6-week run of the Eastern Promise podcast at the Earlham Institute on Norwich Research Park! This event looks at the latest developments in genomics and brings together industry, academia, and Knowledge Transfer Partnership experts from Innovate UK.  
Your host, Mike Rigby, chats to all these fine folk, including Director of the Earlham Institute, Professor Neil Hall and Helena Saunders of Syngenta. Melissa Salmon and Marine Folgoas represent PhD candidates and Tozer Seeds-embedded Jamie Pike tells us more about KTPs, alongside Innovate UK's Mike Lloyd. We'll also hear from Georgie Oatley about Tropic's banana-based work!  
For more on the Earlham Institute, click here.
You can find more information, contact details and listen to the Eastern Promise back catalogue here.
Eastern Promise is proud to be supported by Mills & Reeve.

Episode 146: The Cambridge Tech Podcast

This Week: We welcome the two leading lights of the Cambridge Tech Podcast, all-round ecosystem lynchpin Faye Holland and MD of the iconic Bradfield Centre and NFL fan, James Parton!  We'll discuss how they do what they do, the importance of Faye's rolodex and what drives their pod forward!  Host Mike Rigby has been itching to interview Faye and James since day one of Eastern Promise so please listen, so maybe now he'll stop going on about it!
You can hear the most recent episode of the Cambridge Tech Podcast here, on Apple, Spotify, and Audible.
To listen to more of the Eastern Promise podcast, or to drop us a line via our contact form, visit the Eastern Promise website here.
Eastern Promise is proud to be supported by Mills & Reeve.

Episode 145: Cambridge Tech Week's Innovation Alley

This Week: You didn't think we'd forgotten about Cambridge Tech Week, did you?  Certainly not!  In fact your own (and you're welcome to him) Mike Rigby hits the anything-but-mean streets of the Cambridge Guildhall for 'Innovation Alley', and what an incredible experience it is...
We chat to some of the hottest names in new tech, some of the sharpest spin-outs, the most brilliant innovators and we say 'wilkommen' to visitors from the German tech sector.  Digital twins, AI, photonics, battery tech, it's all here!  
AND THIS IS JUST PART ONE!  Come back next week for part two, where we chat with the dynamic duo behind the Cambridge Tech Podcast!  
At Cambridge Tech Week 2025, we meet...
Cambridge Enterprise
Entopy
FiveD
Form The Future CIC
HutanBio
Illumion
Orca
Paicon
Prospectral
The University of East Anglia
To listen to the Eastern Promise back catalogue and to contact the show, click here.
Eastern Promise is proudly supported by Mills & Reeve and is a Podding Shed production..

Episode 144: The John Innes Centre

This Week: We peek behind the scenes at one of the most consequential research institutes in the world, let alone the UK or the East of England!  
Nestling at the heart of the Norwich Research Park, the John Innes Centre is home to the UK's greatest concentration of plant and microbial science and scientists - but that's not all!  No siree...
My co-host for our Royal Norfolk Show episodes joins regular roving microphone wielder Mike Rigby to look at just a fraction of the work being done inside the centre, including Bioimaging, Genotyping and the Insectary!  We also take in the social side of the John Innes Foundation, created though bequest by a Mr J. Innes.  
It was a struggle to keep this recording under an hour and it only just makes it. The recording was also bedevilled by technical issues, hence the delay bringing it to you and for which we apologise to you and the JIC.  
But wait!  We do find time for helicopters and fish!  And the link will surprise you...
For more information about the John Innes Centre click here.
To contact Eastern Promise or listen to our back catalogue, click here.
Eastern Promise are proud to be supported by Mills & Reeve.

Episode 143: The Cambridge Innovation Story

This Week: When Innovate Cambridge call and say "we'd like to talk about the HUGE week ahead for the city and both the tech and life science ecosystems", you drop EVERYTHING! 
And so, dear listener, we did...
So it was that your host, Mike Rigby, dropped in on The Glasshouse - home of Innovate Cambridge - to find out how the fun, inclusive and enigmatic branding unveiled last year is launching now, just as Cambridge Tech Week and the inaugural BioCentury Grand Rounds - Europe take the city by storm in ONE SINGLE WEEK (15th Sept. to 19th Sept. 2025)!
Dr Kathryn Chapman, Executive Director of Innovate Cambridge will be telling us about the huge importance of this moment and the vote of confidence it represents for the city.  
And then! Chair of Innovate Cambridge, Prof. Andy Neely and Michelle Lamprecht of Cambridge Innovation Capital join Mike to talk through the branding campaign for the Cambridge Innovation Study, just how widely it's being spread, and the power of a unified ecosystem to make a huge difference for everyone.  
To find out more about the Cambridge Innovation story, including the film introducing the story, click here.
To listen to the Eastern Promise podcast back catalogue, or to contatct us, click here.   
Eastern Promise is proud to be supported by Mills & Reeve.

Episode 142: Health Innovation East, with Piers Ricketts

This Week: We are at one of the most important locations in the East of England for furthering, supporting and unleashing our region's innovative and entrepreneurial spirits in all manners health-related.  Yes!  Mike Rigby is heading to Health Innovation East!  
The key reason Health Innovation East exists is to translate early-stage scientific discover and research into actual medicines, processes, practices and devices.  My guest, Health Innovation East's (HIE) CEO Piers Ricketts, tells your host Mike Rigby (and, therefore, you!) about the manifold ways in which HIE helps the NHS, plus academia and the private sector, to do precisely that. 
For more information on Health Innovation East, visit: https://healthinnovationeast.co.uk/
To listen to our back catalogue, or to find out more about Eastern Promise click here.
Eastern Promise is proud to be supported by Mills & Reeve.