Leanne Davies is a marketing and visibility strategist, ICF certified life coach, published author, and founder of Run Mummy Run, the online community that grew to over 100,000 women through connection, inspiration, and mutual support. Through Leanne Davies Marketing, she now helps female founders build clear, sustainable visibility through strong foundations, clear messaging, and personal branding, so they can show up confidently, grow their business, and become impossible to overlook.

Leanne is also someone I'm lucky enough to be collaborating with on our upcoming one-day workshop, Unmistakable.

Can you share the moment you realised your voice truly mattered?

I have a community called Run Mummy Run, and for a period of time, when I wasn't very confident and didn't believe in myself, I wasn't really showing up in the way I should have been. I was having a conversation with some of my team behind the scenes, asking how I could connect more with my audience. One of them said to me: Leanne, you've just got to show up and talk to your audience. It's not just about writing a post and putting it out. They want to hear from you.

That was the moment things started to change. When I began actually showing up and talking to my community - that's when it all shifted.

Was there one opportunity that gave you a real pinch-me moment?

I think it would have been when I was asked to go on Sky Sports to talk about the community. That was a huge moment and incredibly nerve-wracking. I had awful imposter syndrome. But I went on, and watching myself on live TV talking about something I'd built from nothing - I still have the photo I took of the telly. That was a moment I'll never forget.

Tell us about the inspiration behind Run Mummy Run.

I became a mum for the second time and I'd been a keen runner for 20 years. But with two little ones, I couldn't get to my running club as often as I wanted to. I was missing the connection - meeting other women runners and mums. It was quite a lonely period.

A running friend suggested I set something up so I could still connect, even when I couldn't get out. So I went home and created a Facebook group for me and two friends. I thought that was all it would ever be. Then I came back after Christmas and people had started joining. Friends brought friends. We got 20 women. Then it grew into Surrey. Then a friend in Newcastle joined and it went nationwide.

At the time, there was nothing quite like it and Facebook groups weren't really a thing yet. It just grew exponentially. It was a place that didn't exist before, and it became exactly what women needed.

What was the ethos behind it?

Honestly, I never meant to start a business. It was born from a personal need - I was a mum who felt lonely, loved running, and wanted to talk about it. The women who joined felt the same. It was about conversation, connection, support, and empowering each other to achieve great things with like-minded women around them.

And pretty much up to today, that's still the ethos. Supporting women to lead healthy, happy lives through running.

You've always seemed so confident on social media - it's hard to imagine you ever struggling with that. What was the fear behind it, and how did you overcome it?

The fear was always about what other people thought. Past colleagues, distant friends, family I wasn't in close contact with. That thought - who does she think she is? - kept coming into my head. And because Run Mummy Run started as a hobby, it felt alien to suddenly be stepping into the world of business - a world I'd never planned to enter.

But the more the community grew, the more I found myself being pulled towards the opportunities rather than away from them. My purpose became bigger than the fear. I needed to be the founder my community wanted me to be - visible, leading, present. And that purpose is what eventually pulled me over the line.

If you go back to my very early posts, I wouldn't even show my face. But I grew into it - pictures first, then video, then media opportunities - slowly stepping over the worry each time.

What kinds of media opportunities did your role as founder bring and how did you find them?

I was asked onto podcasts, panel discussions, the London Marathon stage - which was enormous - and charity campaigns for the RNIB and This Girl Can. Fantastic opportunities, all of them. But I really had to work on my mindset and my strategies for staying calm before each one. I wasn't perfect. I was learning as I went.

One of my mantras that carried me through was simply: I am human. We're not all perfect. We trip up, we make mistakes, and the people who matter will accept that. Keeping that in my head made it possible to keep saying yes.

You were actually put on the spot once - handed a microphone with no preparation at all. How did that go?

That was terrifying. Someone rushed over to me and said: we want you on the stage, can you come now? I was scurried along and had to answer questions I hadn't prepared for at all. I thought: this really is just going to be me.

And it went brilliantly. I came off buzzing. But it was one of the moments that really taught me to trust myself, because I had no choice but to. There was no script, no preparation. Just me.

You're also a published author. Tell us about that.

I co-authored a book with Lucy Waterlow, launched in 2018. It covers everything from beginner running to elite - everything to do with women's running. Since then it's sold internationally - it's been spotted on shelves in Abu Dhabi and Vietnam and it's now available as an Audible book too.

My husband came through Waterloo station one day and spotted it in one of the bookshops there. When he sent me the photo, it was such a moment. We came in at number two on Amazon - beaten by Gordon Ramsay, who had a book out at the same time. But the reviews were fantastic, and it's still finding new readers through the community today.

Tell us about how you came to launch Leanne Davies Marketing.

Throughout Run Mummy Run, some of the biggest conversations happening in the community were around mental health, confidence, and showing up as yourself. I was so passionate about that side of things that in 2022 I trained as a coach - I wanted a deeper understanding of how to genuinely help women in that space. It was a transformational period for me.

At the same time, I was being asked more and more questions about social media, visibility, and marketing. I realised I could blend the practical - helping women with the how of showing up - with the coaching side: the mindset, the confidence, the emotional barriers that stop women from being visible in the first place. That blend is exactly what I offer now.

Your website describes your mission as helping female founders become ‘clear, confident, and impossible to overlook.’ What does working with you actually look like?

I'm really focused on helping women find a way to be visible that is completely connected to who they actually are. Not performative. Not over-polished. Not hidden behind a professional mask that creates distance between them and the people they're trying to reach.

And crucially - sustainable. A lot of the women I work with are mums, they're busy, they're juggling everything. They don't have time to post daily, follow every trend, or do the singing, the miming, the pointing. And they don't have to. There are simple, sustainable ways to show up - online, in person, or a blend of both - that don't lead to burnout and don't require you to be someone you're not.

I want to help women find their thing. The way of showing up that feels natural, true to them, and genuinely manageable alongside everything else they're doing.

What's one tip you'd give someone who knows they need to be more visible but doesn't know where to start?

Confidence comes from taking action - not from waiting until you feel ready.

If you're nervous about video, start with just 20 seconds. Once a week, on the same day, talk to the camera for 20 seconds. That's it. My guess is that 20 seconds won't feel like enough by week two. But start there. By week three or four, it will start to feel normal and normal is what you're working towards. The consistency of doing it again and again is what builds confidence over time.

You've said yes to seven speaking events this year. That's remarkable. Tell us about that journey.

Public speaking has been my nemesis my whole life. So I decided this year that the only way to build confidence was to actually do it. I started saying yes to speaking opportunities and I've done seven so far, which is more than I'd done in the previous decade.

At the beginning I was nervous, not sleeping well and preparing obsessively. By last week, I was trusting in my knowledge and not over-preparing. One of the women at the most recent event, who'd seen me speak a few months earlier, said: you have come so far in such a short time. It was lovely to hear, but more importantly, I felt it myself. The repetition, the consistency - that's what got me there.

To close - can you fill in the blank: listeners should speak with...

Belief in who you are. That comes from trusting yourself - trusting your quirks, trusting your uniqueness, not shying away from what makes you different. Who you are is what makes you special. It's what makes you unlike anyone else. So speak with absolute belief in that.

Leanne can be found on Instagram @leannedaviesmarketing, on LinkedIn as Leanne Davies, and at Leannedaviesmarketing.co.uk. She'd love to hear from you.

Leanne and I are also hosting Unmistakable - a one-day workshop for female founders on Tuesday 30th June at the DeVere Horsley Estate, Surrey. You'll leave with the tools to show up, be heard, and be remembered for being unmistakably you. Find out more and grab your ticket here.

Prefer Audio?

You can also listen to this episode on my podcast: She Speaks to Scale.

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How To Work With Me

I'm Sarah Collins - Media trainer, Communication Coach, and former Senior Television Producer for ITV & ITN. I work with ambitious founders and spokespeople in businesses to help them communicate with clarity, confidence, and composure in the moments that matter most. If you've got a podcast, interview, or speaking opportunity coming up and you want to feel truly ready for it, this is how we can work together:

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