The Digital Forge Podcast

Welcome to The Digital Forge Podcast - where expertise and ideas collide.Hosted by David Richards MBE, this is not another polite chat. It is raw, unscripted debate with the investors, technologists and industry leaders who are shaping the new industrial age.If you want platitudes, look elsewhere. If you want to know where technology and manufacturing are really headed, step into the Forge.Find out more at www.forgedforgrowth.com

The Digital Forge Podcast is a business podcast hosted by The Digital Forge, with 22 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80. PitchCentric scores this show on Booking Probability, Listen Score, and live audience signals refreshed every 24 hours.

The Digital Forge hosts The Digital Forge Podcast, a business show with 22 episodes published.

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  Episode #22

  She Proved Them Wrong. Then She Changed the System. Pam Liversidge, Part Two

  Aug 10, 202640 minS1

  In Part One, Pam Liversidge proved that women belonged in engineering. In Part Two, she changes the institutions that once excluded them. In 1997, Pam became the first female President of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers in its 150-year history. She did not treat the position as a ceremonial prize. She used it to challenge an organisation she believed had become too academic, too elitist and too distant from the practical engineers who founded it. Her Moving Forward programme opened the institution to people from vocational and non-traditional routes and created a strategy that guided it for the next decade. But that was only one glass ceiling. In this episode of The Digital Forge , David Richards MBE follows Pam through medical engineering, the creation of a new forum bringing engineers and clinicians together, her year as High Sheriff of South Yorkshire and the moment she became the first female Master Cutler in the Cutlers’ Company’s 387-year history. Pam reflects on the pressure of being the first woman, knowing that any mistake might be used against those who came after her. She also reveals how it felt to move from President of an international engineering institution to Mistress Cutler during Doug’s year in office, before the roles were reversed and he became her Consort. This is not simply a story about breaking glass ceilings. It is about what Pam did after breaking them. She widened access. Modernised institutions. Championed women through WISE. Helped young people see engineering as a career. And became such an important figure in Sheffield that the University named an engineering building after her. Looking back at the young woman who entered a lecture theatre as the only female engineering student among 120 men, Pam’s advice is strikingly simple: “Don’t worry so much.” Follow The Digital Forge on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or YouTube so you never miss an episode. Meet speakers like Pam at our live events and join the community at ForgedForGrowth.com . For more essays and commentary from David Richards MBE, subscribe to The Sunday Signal at TheSundaySignal.ai .

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  Episode #21

  They Told Her Girls Don’t Do Engineering. Pam Liversidge Proved Them Wrong, Part One

  Jul 27, 20261h 17mS1

  In 1967, Pam Liversidge walked into an engineering lecture at Aston University and found around 120 students. She was the only woman. For weeks, many of the men barely spoke to her. An Army recruiter had already dismissed her ambitions with five words: “Girls don’t do engineering.” Pam stayed. In Part One of The Digital Forge , David Richards MBE traces her journey from a practical, working-class family in Shropshire to the factory floors and boardrooms of British industry. Pam talks candidly about the isolation of being the only woman on her course, the determination it took to complete her degree, and the reality of entering engineering at a time when women were rarely expected, welcomed or rewarded equally. At one company, a male colleague doing the same job was paid roughly twice her salary. The explanation was blunt: he had a family, while Pam’s husband worked. At another, she was told there would never be a woman manager in the business. Each time, she voted with her feet and moved forward. Her career took her through GKN, some of Sheffield’s toughest industrial workplaces, aerospace forging, compressor blades for Rolls-Royce engines, technical sales and the transformation of Britain’s electricity industry. Along the way, she learned that engineering is not only about machinery, materials and mathematics. It is about people. Pam also tells the other side of her first encounter with Doug Liversidge. She was late to his first management meeting because she was trying to keep a 1,000-ton press working. He greeted her by demanding to know who the hell she was. It was not an obvious beginning to a marriage and industrial partnership lasting more than four decades. Part One closes with Doug presenting Pam with another of his ambitious ideas and an offer she describes as impossible to refuse. In Part Two, that decision leads to entrepreneurship, medical technology, institutional reform and two historic firsts: President of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers and Master Cutler of Sheffield. Follow The Digital Forge on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or YouTube so you never miss an episode. Meet speakers like Pam at our live events and join the community at ForgedForGrowth.com .

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  Episode #20

  They Sacked Him at 57. Then Buckingham Palace Called. Doug Liversidge CBE, Part Two

  Jul 13, 20261h 14mS1

  Doug Liversidge had transformed a struggling Sheffield engineering company into a £17 million business, taken it public and delivered a remarkable return for its shareholders. Then the company was sold. Three weeks later, he was told to leave. He was 57 years old and suddenly unemployed. That same evening, Buckingham Palace called. Prince Charles wanted to visit the factory within days. Doug agreed to return, put on what he calls his “marathon smile” and guide the Prince around the company that had consumed 17 years of his life, without revealing that he had just been forced out. It could have been the end of his career. Instead, it became another beginning. In Part Two of The Digital Forge , David Richards MBE continues Doug’s extraordinary story. He explains how he and Pam moved from an awkward first meeting to a marriage and business partnership lasting more than four decades. He recalls turning around Thornton Precision Engineering, increasing the price of a Rolls-Royce component from £1.50 to £20, taking the business public, buying and selling technology companies, and navigating some of the hardest negotiations of his career. After losing his executive role, Doug reinvented himself again. He helped commercialise research at the University of Sheffield, created Fusion IP , chaired Surgical Innovations , backed medical technology and helped build the regional innovation infrastructure that Sheffield benefits from today. He also reflects on becoming Master Cutler , watching Pam later break a centuries-old glass ceiling as the first woman to hold the role, fighting to establish Longley Park Sixth Form College , leading Sheffield’s World Cup host-city bid, and writing the story he wanted to leave for his grandchildren. Part One was about how Doug Liversidge found his way into industry. Part Two is about what he did when success, dismissal and reinvention collided. Subscribe to The Digital Forge on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or YouTube for conversations with the founders, innovators and leaders who helped shape modern Britain.

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  Episode #19

  He Left School at 15. They Told Him He Wasn’t Good Enough.

  Jun 29, 202654 minS1

  Doug Liversidge CBE grew up on a Sheffield council estate, left school at 15, and was told he wasn’t good enough for the company’s graduate programme. It could have been the end of the story. Instead, it became the beginning. In this first episode of The Digital Forge , Doug reflects on growing up in post-war Sheffield, the teacher who changed his life, his early years at English Steel, winning a scholarship to the University of Sheffield, and the National Service that transformed a shy teenager into a confident leader. Along the way he shares remarkable stories of navigating the Libyan desert with nothing more than a compass and a watch, returning to Sheffield to build a career in Britain’s steel industry, and the lessons that shaped one of the city’s most influential industrial leaders. The episode closes with an unforgettable first meeting in 1979 with a young production engineer called Pam, a woman Doug initially believed wasn’t right for his team. He couldn’t have been more wrong. Subscribe to The Digital Forge on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or YouTube for conversations with the founders, innovators and leaders shaping the future of Britain.

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  Episode #18

  Health Is the New Wealth. Richard Stubbs on the NHS, AI and Britain’s £278 Billion Opportunity

  Jun 15, 20261 hourS1

  Richard Stubbs believes Britain has been looking at health the wrong way. Not as an economic engine. Not as productivity infrastructure. Not as one of the great determinants of national prosperity. Too often, we treat the NHS as a cost to be managed rather than a platform for growth, prevention and human potential. In Part Two of this conversation with David Richards MBE, Richard argues that poor health is now one of Britain’s biggest economic problems. He explains why prevention, workplace wellbeing, AI, data and regional innovation could unlock enormous productivity gains, keep more people in work and help rebuild communities too often left behind. The conversation moves from the NHS to the workplace, from mental health to musculoskeletal disease, from Yorkshire’s life sciences strengths to the failure of Britain to commercialise its own research. Richard also speaks candidly about race, leadership and institutional power. He explains why diversity in healthcare innovation is not a slogan, but a matter of life and death, including the shocking example of pulse oximeters that did not work properly on darker skin. This is a conversation about the future of the NHS, but also about something bigger: whether Britain can build a healthier, fairer and more productive country. You can also meet speakers like Richard Stubbs live at The Digital Forge , where founders, investors, policymakers and industry leaders come together to explore the future of technology, innovation and regional growth. Find upcoming events and join the community at ForgedForGrowth.com . For more essays, analysis and commentary from David Richards MBE on AI, technology, work and society, subscribe to The Sunday Signal at thesundaysignal.ai .

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