FLIP the Script with… Us!

A reflection on what we’ve learnt so far

Over the past 2 and a half years, The FLIP has been through some pretty incredible times. From winning multiple awards between us to sell-out events, meeting our community in person and speaking on panels, it’s been an absolute privilege to be part of a platform that has so much positive impact in our industry - so we thought we’d share a little bit more about what we’ve learnt so far.

Written by The FLIP

You can find out more about The FLIP’s mission and each of the co-directors here.

1) Open communication is the best basis for getting stuff done.

One of the biggest lessons we’ve learnt is that prioritising honesty and openness in how we communicate forms the most important foundation for everything we do. Because we are a non-for-profit and the time and energy we put into The FLIP is voluntary, it’s even more important so that we can fit working on the platform around our actual jobs, our hobbies and our lives.

On a grand scale, we plan out our year in advance at team days, discussing what we want to achieve over the next year or so every January, where we anticipate any hiccups and how to get ahead of them. We have a meeting every two months, where we check in on our action plan, spearheaded by Omara, that allows us to stick to the internal deadlines so that we all know who is responsible for what - whether that’s reaching out to an interviewee, getting a transcript over the line or putting things on the website and email platforms ready to go live. Because that level of trust in each other is underpinned in everything we do, it doesn’t feel so daunting to speak up in the group chat when one of us is struggling to hit a deadline or we have differing views on how to tackle a certain issue.

This, and all the endless memes we send each other at all hours, means that we actually genuinely do, despite the work it takes to run The FLIP, have a lot of fun! We’ve always said that one of the biggest privileges of working on The FLIP is getting to do it as a team with women we deeply admire. It’s not uncommon to turn your phone away for 5 mins and come back to 100+ messages on the group chat as we hit the time we affectionately call ‘FLIP o’clock’, which is where all of us are working on different parts of FLIP-related stuff at the same time.

2) We’re delighted to help each other in tough times. 

This is something that Polly Osborn said on our panel, ‘Talk Flex-y To Me’, which we hosted in November 2024 with Hachette’s Gender Balance Network. Polly was talking about the ways in which her team stepped up to help her during a difficult time for her and her family, and it really stuck with us because that’s exactly how we feel at The FLIP too. There have been, over the course of the last 2 and a half years, a lot of moments that have meant one (or more!) of us have had limited mental bandwidth to dedicate to The FLIP and we are always so ready to jump in to take over the final bits of an interview or getting a FLIPside ready. Occasionally, it’s things we’d rather each other didn’t have to go through but hold space for so that they can process, and sometimes, it’s happy things like going on a well-deserved break or hitting a life milestone. It really is a privilege to have people in your corner who would do that for you, and equally, a privilege to be able to do the same for those people whilst they might be running on empty.

3) Stop apologising for speaking and taking up space.

This one leads on nicely from our second point, because as much as we always try and remind each other of the above, we still end up apologising to each other for it copiously. It’s gotten so bad that Yan (who is definitely the major culprit for this) has banned it in the group chat - but it still does creep in, and it’s easy to understand why. We want to give the best to the people who believe in us, especially in spaces we want to be held in high esteem in, and so we end up apologising when we don’t feel like we’ve set the high standard for ourselves, even if other people don’t see it that way. However, it was Lee Newman, who we interviewed in January 2024, who put it so perfectly: ‘Stop apologising before you speak. Don’t apologise for talking. You’re negating everything you're about to say before you've even said it… I think apologising is contagious: once one person does it, other people start doing it as well. It’s not good for any of us.’ This is one of the things that has stayed with Cassie the most too, who has gone on to quote it in almost every panel and interview since!

4) It’s always worth asking for help.

As Production and Design Director Sarah Wasley says in her November 2022 interview, ‘asking for help is fundamentally a brave thing to do’, and one of the biggest things we had to tackle in the first year of running The FLIP when we were asking for funding.

Purely being set up to receive funding meant an arduous process of setting up a business bank account, which we were able to get thanks to the Publishers Association, and then becoming incorporated on Companies House. That then started the process of fundraising and pitching, and that really challenged us to put ourselves out there and to ask candidly for generosity from other organisations in the industry. It did feel a little bit awkward at first, but as more partners started pledging their support, the more we felt comfortable doing so - and the more we felt like we deserved it, as we started to get more and more recognition for our work. 

Ultimately the fundraising grind never stops, and we have to prioritise and seek funding to continue The FLIP’s work.  Without it, we wouldn’t be able to run our website or email platform, nor would we be able to host sell-out events like the one for our survey last year (see below). Equally, we would also have struggled without the kindness and generosity of senior leaders in the industry who lent their time and expertise, such as Becca Sinclair, without whom we would not have a cohesive brand identity, and so many others besides. It really goes to prove that what we found in our surveys is true - it’s the people that make our industry great, worthwhile and fulfilling to work in.

5) Our core mission has - and always will - stay the same.

When we first pitched to Ella and Helena that we wanted to take over The FLIP, we wanted to amplify the voices from more marginalised communities on topics that are less openly discussed in our workplaces. As Syima Aslam so brilliantly put it in her 2022 interview: ‘People often talk about “hard to reach”, but I think about it as “easy to ignore”’. That’s why our most recent survey included additional sections on neurodiversity and disability, caring responsibilities and the use of AI in the workplace - we not only took onboard your comments from 2024’s survey to inform the events we ran, but also incorporated them into 2025’s survey. It’s also why, although we look at improving the industry specifically through the lens of women in leadership roles, we are committed to supporting trans and non-binary voices in the conversation in a way that feels safe and authentic to them.

Ultimately, we are continuing the vision that the founders started The FLIP with, which is the belief that it’s much more powerful to define our lives by who we want to lift up with us, and that’s the only way to making lasting and positive change for everyone.

Thank you for reading our first ‘FLIP the script’ blog piece - we hope you’ve enjoyed a little insight into how this platform has helped us to grow too. If you’d be interested in writing something for us, please head on over to our briefing document first to reach out with your pitch.