Former humanitarian worker, corporate negotiator and founder of Cheetah Stories, a conscious luxury high heel brand, Fiorella Erni hosts conversations with founders, leaders, creatives and changemakers who choose to stand tall. Together, they explore the defining moments, difficult decisions and values that shape who we become. Because standing tall isn't about being fearless. It's about living with intention, leading with integrity and inspiring others to do the same. New episodes every week.
visit cheetah-stories.com
She delayed her wedding for a shoe buying job. And she has absolutely no regrets.
Becky Leeson (https://www.linkedin.com/in/becky-leeson/) is the founder of Becky's Wardrobe (https://www.beckyswardrobe.com/), a personal styling, wardrobe rental and vintage shopping business based in Blackheath, London.
With nearly 30 years of experience at the highest levels of fashion — including Topshop, ASOS, Office, Nobody's Child and most recently as Global Product Director at Speedo — she has spent her career helping women feel confident, seen andcompletely themselves in what they wear.
Her route to founding Becky's Wardrobe was anything but straight. From growing up in Shropshire wearing her mum's heels with multiple pairs of socks tuffed inside, to becoming a shoe buyer at Topshop and ASOS — where she was famously known for pairing socks and heels with a dress — Becky has spent decades learning the deep relationship between what we wear, how we feel and who we allow ourselves to be.
In this conversation, she and Fiorella (https://www.linkedin.com/in/fiorella-larissa-erni/) explore what it means to leave a high-powered corporate career to build something entirely your own — and the very different kind of confidence that requires.
Becky talks about unlearning the need for external validation, the negotiations she had as a buyer quibbling over two pence with suppliers on two phones at once, and why she now refusesto compromise on her price, her value, or her presence.
She also shares the story of the six workshops she co-wrote during COVID called From the Inside Out — pairing internal confidence work with external style — and her loft full of heels she can't bring herself to part with, because every single pair holds a memory.
In this episode: from Topshop to personal styling · unlearning what others think · the confidence you need to go it alone · negotiating as a buyer vs. negotiating for yourself · conscious fashion choices · the women who shaped her · what a kitten heel says about you.
Stand Tall is a weekly podcast by Cheetah Stories (https://www.cheetah-stories.com/) — conversations with women who lead with confidence,creativity and conscious values. 🌐 cheetah-stories.com
8 Sept 2026
What if the most important negotiation you will ever have is the one with yourself?
Teresa Havvas (https://www.linkedin.com/in/teresahavvas/) — affectionately known as .T — is an Ideator, published Author, Higher-Education, Fellow (FHEA) and Founder of The Lifebeauty® Projects (https://thelifebeautyprojects.com/), a vocational collective and platform for visionary thinkers of the now generation.
A Thought Partner, Concept Strategist and Connector, sheserves as Independent Facilitator and Speaker at IED Firenze for "Thoughts in Progress" — a curated seminar series on inner development and future self design.
She is also Course Leader and Brand Collaboration Catalyst for Vogue College of Fashion' (https://www.voguecollege.com/)s short courses in Fashion Branding &Communication and the 5 Days of Fashion Business and Beauty Business programmes in London.
In this conversation, Fiorella (https://www.linkedin.com/in/fiorella-larissa-erni/)and Teresa explore the tension between the spiritual and the material, the difference between a creative and a creator, and what it truly means to wait for the invitation before speaking your vision aloud.
Teresa shares a deeply personal tribute to her late mentor Deirdre Rose Crowley — the woman who first saw her eccentricities as gifts — and reflects on why she oncerejected high heels, what that rejection was really about, and why she is finally ready to reclaim them on her own terms.
This episode is about fashion as identity.
About deconditioning.
About the quiet revolutionary movement happening underground while the noise carries on above.
In this episode: human design and the projector type · the creative vs. the creator · fashion as identity marker · the negotiation with yourself · non-negotiables and energy protection · losing a mentor · heels, authority and reclaiming the feminine.
Stand Tall is a weekly podcast by Cheetah Stories — conversations with women who lead with confidence,creativity and conscious values. 🌐 cheetah-stories.com (https://www.cheetah-stories.com/)
31 Aug 2026
Stand Tall Even When the Wind Goes Against You | Francesco Pagano, Investor & Author
This episode has a male guest. A senior investor, international business leader and author who spent decades in boardrooms where stock price ruled and values were a liability.
Stay with us. Because everything he says is something the women in this community already know. (https://www.linkedin.com/in/francesco-pagano-2a6179/)
Francesco Pagano (https://www.linkedin.com/in/francesco-pagano-2a6179/) — Frank — grew up in southern Italy, surrounded by family telling him "nah, you're not gonna do it." He built a career anyway. Decades of international experience across brand strategy, marketing, M&A, business development and operations. Books on AI, blockchain, money — and the biography of Giorgio Armani. Advisor and shareholder in brands across luxury, watches and innovation. Including Cheetah Stories.
He didn't follow a plan. He followed curiosity. And he did whatever was in front of him as well as he possibly could.
In this episode of Stand Tall, Frank talks about the moment he realised that working for a public company — where stock price is the only KPI — creates a specific kind of poison. About choosing values over a faster career, and what that choice actually costs. About the negotiation he lost that stayed with him longest — not a deal, but a person. About being underestimated by relatives who told him to go back and eat — and the quiet advantage of beating low expectations.
He talks about the women who shaped him: his mother, who raised four children alone; Rita McGrath, Professor of Strategy at Columbia and advisor to two US presidents; Mara Harvey, who is teaching young girls that finance was never a man's subject.
And he talks about his armour — an Armani suit and his parents' watches. He understood ours immediately.
He closes with the thing he's still practicing, decades in: standing tall on a bad day. Not because it's easy. Because life will surprise you if you let it.
Topics: choosing values over a faster career · stock price as a toxic KPI · unlearning 20 years of corporate marketing · the negotiation that costs most · being underestimated and beating expectations · financial education for young women · armour — suits, watches and what we wear to show up · standing tall on the bad days
Stand Tall is a weekly podcast by Cheetah Stories hosted by Fiorella Erni (https://www.linkedin.com/in/fiorella-larissa-erni/) — conversations with women who lead with confidence, creativity and conscious values.
🌐 cheetah-stories.com (https://www.cheetah-stories.com/)
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