From being raised by an alcoholic mother to fighting off a sex pest and coming out as gay at the age of 30, Sam White has faced more challenges than most.
She is the award-winning CEO of female-focused motor insurance business Stella Insurance, which has offices in Manchester and Australia, and is the latest guest on The Naked Founder Podcast.
White brings a new meaning to the phrase ‘straight talking’ and has appeared on BBC Morning Live, Wake Up To Money and Sky News.
A passionate advocate for levelling the playing field for women, she ultimately wants to create a fund for female founders.
“I do genuinely believe that anything is possible and my life has taught me that to be true,” she told The Naked Founder Podcast. “I’ve had lots of adventures and experiences.”
Tough childhood
Growing up in a ‘dysfunctional’ family in Manchester, White’s mother was an entrepreneur who struggled with alcohol.
White credits her tough upbringing for her resilience and showed her entrepreneurial flair from an early age by washing cars.
At the age of 24, she launched a claims business called Action 365 from her sister’s conservatory.
She grew it to 220 people before it eventually went into administration.
White was in her early 20s when she suffered her first anxiety attack, which she links to her traumatic childhood.
“The first one I had caught me completely out of the blue,” she said. “I wasn’t expecting it at all. The feeling that you get is you can’t breathe.
“Your immediate assumption is that you’re dying. The sensation of a panic attack is absolute terror. The kind of terror that you’ve never experienced.
“Scary movies don’t frighten me. Rollercoasters don’t frighten me but this feeling was just abject terror and an absolute belief that I was about to die.”
Tackling sex pest
White has also spoken about the sexism and misogyny she experienced at the start of her career.
One of the worst incidents came when a married man claimed he wanted to invest in her business and booked adjoining hotel rooms.
“(After) a few drinks in the nightclub he just suddenly lurched for me in the club and tried to get me to kiss him,” she recalled. “I just kneed him really hard in the balls.”
At the age of 30, White came out as gay after two long-term relationships with men.
Stella White, founder, Stella Insurance
She transformed her health by quitting smoking and drinking and losing several stone in weight.
White has also spoken openly about working with therapists.
“If you want to grow as a human being the idea that you can do that without any help from anybody else is frankly ludicrous,” she said.
In 2020, she founded Stella Insurance in Australia before launching it in the UK in 2022.
White has since grown Stella into a multi-million-pound business employing around 50 people.
Today, she is a mother-of-two and happily married to Jennie, a children’s book author and divorce coach, who is currently making a documentary on the rape reporting process in the UK.
For now, White is focused on growing Stella but also wants to continue helping female founders.
“My big passion is the idea that I could set up a fund for female entrepreneurs,” she said.
“I like engaging with other female founders and I genuinely believe that the country and business in general would be far better if there were more women in senior roles and founding more businesses.”
The Naked Founder podcast was sponsored by Financielle and produced by Dan Brown.
You cam listen to the episode here