13 Sept 2026
From Rock Bottom to Harrods: Toks Aroture on Luxury, Resilience and Technology - ep 36
What happens when the business you built is caught in a financial crisis — and you have to begin again?
In this episode of Talking Tech with Creatives, I speak with Toks Aroture, founder of The Baby Cot Shop, a luxury nursery and children’s interiors brand whose journey has taken her from Atlanta to London’s King’s Road, Harrods and international clients.
Toks shares how she survived the 2008 financial crisis, returned to the UK having lost almost everything, and rebuilt from the ground up — teaching herself web design and SEO, finding European craftspeople and eventually developing her own furniture collections.
We also talk about luxury, expertise in business, mentorship, resilience, entrepreneurship and her belief that there are many forms of currency beyond money.
And we get into technology: Toks explains how she is now using AI and digital tools across the business, from nursery design and marketing to HR, project management and productivity.
A conversation about losing, rebuilding, luxury and using technology to imagine what comes next.
Subscribe to Talking Tech with Creatives wherever you listen to podcasts, and visit talkingtechwithcreatives.com.
Reach to Toks on social media
@toksaroture
W: thebabycotshop.com
Showroom: 408 King’s Road, Chelsea, London SW10 0LJ
Harrods, 4th Floor, Knightsbridge, London
Stella Oni — Author | Speaker | Lecturer | Podcast Host
🌐 Website: StellaOni.com
🎤 Speaking: Speaking engagements
💼 LinkedIn: [Stella Oni on LinkedIn]
📸 Instagram: [@stellaoni_official]
🎵 TikTok: [@stellaoni_official]
X: [@soni_official2]
TRANSCRIPTION
Stella Oni in Conversation with Toks Aroture, Founder of The Baby Cot ShopSTELLA ONI:Hi, everyone. Welcome to Talking Tech with Creatives, the podcast where we talk about the intersection of technology and creativity. I always like to have different guests on the podcast, and you’ve seen quite a few from all kinds of backgrounds.I’m quite excited about my guest today. I’ve got Toks Aroture of The Baby Cot Shop.She’s a founder working in an area that fascinates me and that I really want to delve into: the luxury nursery space. The Baby Cot Shop creates bespoke nurseries for high-end clients.I deliberately didn’t want to know too much beforehand because I wanted to come to this fresh. I got the barest minimum, so we’re going to discover Toks and what she does together.The Baby Cot Shop serves high-end customers from a beautiful part of London, has a presence in Harrods, and has also worked on the Lindo Wing at St Mary’s Hospital. For those who follow the Royal Family, the Lindo Wing is where several members of the Royal Family have had their babies.So we’re in for a treat. This is a bit of a departure from some of my filmmakers and writers, because we’re looking at luxury spaces, which I love, particularly because I’ve got my own fiction series coming that is very much about luxury.Toks, welcome to Talking Tech with Creatives.First of all, tell us about yourself and your background, and then we’ll start delving deeper.TOKS AROTURE:Amazing. Thank you so much for having me, Stella. I am super excited. It has been such a long time coming.STELLA:It has been.TOKS:Our schedules just haven’t aligned, but here we are finally.I was born in Scotland, but I didn’t grow up there. I grew up in Nigeria, specifically Benin City.STELLA:Like me.TOKS:Yes. We share that in common.I had the most wonderful childhood in Benin. Compared with somewhere like Lagos, which is more cosmopolitan, Benin is quieter even though it’s a city.I had this peaceful, beautiful, warm childhood surrounded by a lot of love, familiar faces and trust. I think that formed the foundation for who I am today because I was raised by parents who were very confident in their children.Whether they actually felt confident or not, they certainly told us they did.My dad would brag about me. He would say, “My daughter is going to win Miss Nigeria.”Then my mum would say, “Not my daught
