By Steven Bartlett’s own admission, Amy Golding is already smarter than he is.
Golding’s LinkedIn blog – ‘The truth about being a CEO – with kids’ – is a must-read and she’s returned from her third maternity leave to become CEO of Bartlett’s expanding private office, working across his growing list of companies and investments.
It’s a statement appointment and comes days after the 32-year-old announced his intention to produce a TV documentary about the growing crisis facing boys and young men.
Bartlett said he was moved to do something after reading a report by The Centre For Social Justice entitled ‘Lost Boys’.
Whisper it quietly but both announcements appear to show a change of approach from Bartlett after a 2024 he would probably choose to forget.
Controversy
In December 2024, a BBC investigation claimed guests on his Diary of a CEO podcast were making an average of 14 harmful health claims on each episode.
The controversy came only months after the Advertising Standards Authority banned two adverts he featured in for brands Huel and Zoe after ruling they were ‘misleading’.
Now Bartlett, fresh from picking up the Best International Podcast award at the 2025 iHeartPodcast Awards, has appointed Amy Golding to oversee his burgeoning private office, which now consists of more than 50 companies.
“It looks like Steven is introducing a bit of rigour and governance into his affairs,” is how one person described it to me.
Bartlett said of his new CEO: “Amy is one of the most accomplished and forward-thinking leaders I’ve met. Her ability to scale businesses, develop talent, and drive meaningful change is exceptional.
“I’m thrilled to have her on board as CEO of my private office, where she’ll play a crucial role in shaping the future of our investments and ventures.”
The former co-founder of Social Chain has been no stranger to a bit of hyperbole in the past but his confidence in Golding appears to be well founded.
After taking her A-Levels at Eltham College she took an English Literature degree at Cambridge University between 2005-2008, where her interests included netball, football, volleyball and drama.
The yoga enthusiast spent six months as assistant editor at the English-speaking magazine Shanghai Talk before working as a strategy consultant at Deloitte for four years.
She was headhunted to work for former Dragon, James Caan CBE, before she founded Recruitment Entrepreneur in 2014, growing the company to £17m revenue and 130 staff within three years.
In 2017 she made history as the youngest female CEO of a $100m turnover company when she took the helm at Opus Talent Solutions, culminating in a high-value private equity sale in 2021.
Unsurprisingly, she came to the attention of the media and as well as featuring in the Daily Mail she appeared on BBC’s Women’s Hour in 2018.
“I always did what I loved,” she said explaining her career choices. “I never expected to be able to be an entrepreneur because growing up I always associated the word entrepreneur with being an inventor, creating something completely new.”
After Opus, Golding founded _nology.io, an innovative tech training and talent hub to boost diversity in the UK’s technology sector.
In 2024 she become a board director of Bartlett’s media and investment company FlightStory and shared an insight into Bartlett to her LinkedIn network.
Dragons’ Den – Steven Bartlett, Touker Suleyman, Deborah Meaden, Sara Davies, Peter Jones. (Credit BBC)
“Chatting to Steven one day in an empty pub in Heathrow airport at 8am, (the glamorous life of an entrepreneur…) I mentioned I was pregnant with my third child, assuming perhaps we might pick up our conversations next year,” she said.
“But if I needed confirmation that ‘disruption for good’ was a genuine business mantra at Flight, not a PR slogan, the fact that a week later, I had been offered a role overseeing Steven’s entire business empire as group managing director (starting six months pregnant and with generous maternity pay) was a pretty strong indication.”
This week Bartlett announced she’d be returning from her third maternity leave as the CEO of his private office.
In her role she will be responsible for overseeing the investment strategy across the portfolio, leveraging her expertise in tech, talent, and investment to drive sustainable growth.
You don’t have to look very far to see the personality that Bartlett has hired.
Her hilariously honest blog – ‘The truth about being a CEO – with kids’ – is the best thing I’ve read on LinkedIn for ages and has had around 5,500 likes
“Today I go back to work from (my third) maternity leave,” she started. “It seems like serendipity that it’s also the Monday after International Women’s Day. Very symbolic. Very ‘Girl Boss’. Which is funny really, because yesterday I spent 28 minutes searching for my keys. Which I eventually found, in my actual hand. I say ‘funny’, more like deeply anxiety inducing. But I’m British, so we’ll go with ‘funny’.”
She continued: “When I start work on Monday morning, I will have already lived a whole day. My husband is away on his eighth work trip of the year. I was up three times in the night with the baby. I then woke at dawn to the screams of three people who demand that I spring into action before I’ve even had time to check my sleep scores on Whoop (they’re bad, thanks for asking).
Licking the toilet brush
“I have barricaded everyone into the bathroom with me so I can shower (with my head sticking out the side to make sure no one is licking the toilet brush). I’ve got four people dressed with one hand while holding a screaming baby in the other (and then dressed again after the porridge throwing incident).
“I’ve breastfed from one boob and pumped from the other so that someone else can keep the baby alive whilst I’m in meetings.”
In terms of how parenthood has changed her approach to work she said: “Since becoming a Mum, I enjoy my job even more and I am 10x better at it because I realise that it isn’t life and death. (Female surgeons can stop reading here I’m not talking to you, you’re excused – doffs hat).
“Every day I make the active choice to leave the most important job I will ever have (keeping my children alive and happy and safe) and come to do something else that I adore. And that’s a privilege for which I am so grateful, and will try my hardest to never take for granted.”
Amy Golding could turn out to be Bartlett’s best ever appointment.