{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","provider_name":"Transistor","provider_url":"https://transistor.fm","author_name":"Wild, Wise & Working","title":"From glamour agent to hair and beauty founder: Judy Koloko's incredible second act","html":"","width":"100%","height":180,"duration":3115,"description":"You've had decades of experience, built a network, and always known there was something bigger waiting. But what does it actually take to step into that gap, build a business from scratch, and raise nearly £1 million on little more than belief and a brilliant idea?In this episode of Wild, Wise & Working, Jackie is joined by Judy Koloko, founder of The Steam Bar, a premium scalp and hair care brand built for people with natural, curly, coily and afro-textured hair. After nearly three decades working her way through the fashion industry, from glamour agencies to managing talent for the world's top creative houses, Judy spotted a gap that no one else was filling, and decided she was the one to fill it.The conversation travels the full arc of Judy's journey: the graft of building a career from a two-week internship, the early entrepreneurial instincts that surfaced in a handbag line nearly stocked by Harvey Nichols, and the personal reckoning in her forties that made her look beneath the wig and finally honour her crown. Jackie and Judy explore what it means to turn lived experience into a business idea, how to raise money on conviction alone, and why the network you have built over decades is one of the most valuable assets you will ever own. This is an honest, energising conversation about resilience, reinvention and why midlife really is the moment your experience becomes your competitive advantage.Covered in this episode:How Judy got her first break by sending a speculative CV to a glamour agency and turned a two-week work experience placement into a career that eventually put her in rooms with the world's top supermodels and creative talentThe handbag line called Just Judy that nearly made it to Harvey Nichols, and why pregnancy and bandwidth forced her to let it go, but left her with the taste for building something of her ownThe personal wake-up call in her forties: taking her wig off and seeing the damage that years of chemicals, relaxers and traction had...","thumbnail_url":"https://img.transistorcdn.com/4zXlrEmq0Y4Q3AmmXMf5WyFguFCjgPl5ddlys_lODM0/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:400/h:400/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS8yNzEy/OTM3YWU1OGNiMGEw/NzEwZWJmMzQ2YmMw/MWU2Yi5wbmc.webp","thumbnail_width":300,"thumbnail_height":300}