Ilana Lever

My guest today is Ilana Lever. Ilana is the Co-Founder of jewellery brand Motley. Motley collaborates with some of the world’s most talented designers on exclusive pieces at affordable prices. Their vision is to disrupt the jewellery industry through quality, sustainable design and fair pricing for the designer and the customer. Ilana started her career as a management consultant working for top consumer and retail brands such as Argos and Innocence. After facing redundancy, she began consulting for startup brands. That’s when Cecily, her future Co-Founder at Motley, reached out with an idea that she knew Ilana could help with. In 2018, Ilana and Cecily launched Motley and began their journey in disrupting the archaic jewellery industry. Two years later they have a team of ten employees, collaborate with multiple designers and have been coined as the jewellery ‘Holy Grail’. In this episode Ilana and I discuss her transition from employee to entrepreneur - a role she never envisioned for herself and how every job will teach you something for your future self.

In the third episode of Your Basket Is Empty, I sit down with Ilana Lever (co-founder of Motley). We touch on the UK's DTC funding scene, meeting her business partner in a tutorial about witchcraft and a mutual fondness of Melvyn Bragg. 

For our second episode, we're joined by Co-Founder of Motley Ilana Lever. Cecily and Ilana, met at university way back when - looked at the jewellery industry, and thought it needed fixing. Cecily, who worked in the rather niche sector of art-jewellery for many years, saw that the leading jewellery designers – sculptors, engineers and artists all in one - weren’t being recognised for their brilliance. Ilana was frustrated by the ‘buy this and she will love you’ antiquated marketing of heritage brands. And we were both were fed up of settling for good looking jewellery that broke, or uninspiring commercial design.  We wanted to buy truly great jewellery for themselves – while trying to avoid their overdraft. So we made Motley.A bit about SistrSistr's, a dedicated platform for women to connect, share and learn. On Sistr, professionals gain access to a network of qualified female experts covering a whole range of industries and skills, to help them grow their business.Sistrs can chat with other Sistrs via the platform on a variety of business topics, find out about and attend a carefully curated events schedule and choose to work together beyond the platform, hand-picking from a network of Sistrs to create their own advisory board and build out a team of elite female professionals to move their business forward. Qualified in their respective fields with proven evidence-based experience, Sistrs can chat, participate in forum discussions or commit to mentoring for just one hour per month which they do so with no expectations in return.  However, they’re aware that their consultancy can lead to forming beneficial relationships beyond the initial hour. Creating real opportunities Sistr to Sistr. 

“Manufacturers are your first investor” with Ilana Lever In this episode I had the pleasure of chatting with Ilana Lever, the co-founder of Motley London. After working for many years as a Management Consultant, Ilana grew increasingly frustrated by the limited choices available for women who wanted stylish jewelry of good quality that didn’t break the bank. With that frustration, Ilana teamed up with Cecily Motley who spent her early career working for an art jewelry dealer. The two have created a brilliant brand in Motley, where they find the best jewellery designers and makers in the world to create unique jewellery collections. Motley have since been featured in The New York Times, The Sunday Times and Vogue! Ilana gives a great insight into building and running a product based company, and some of the pitfalls you can avoid. We also talk about ‘Female Founders’ and some of the challenges they can face in comparison with their male counterparts, particularly when it comes to raising funds. We really enjoyed chatting with Ilana and hope you will too, give it a listen and let me know what you think! In this episode we discuss: Manufacturing and launching a product Female founders and the stereotypes faced Internationalisation Fundraising Personal wellbeing when running a company And as always, plenty more…

Fundraising expert Julia Elliott Brown, the CEO of Enter The Arena, talks with Cecily Motley and Ilana Lever, co-founders of Motley London, about raising £365,000 of angel investment to fuel the growth of their design-led jewellery business. Questioning the traditional fundraising narrative they discuss the pros and cons of VC investment, financial planning and networking close to home. Motley London is disrupting the jewellery market with exclusive yet affordable designs marketed to and for a dynamic female audience. In this episode you’ll discover… Why female founders are pushing back against traditional VC funding structures How networking close to home could be your secret to success An insight into financial planning – the positives and negatives of cutting your budget For the full video interview, go to http://www.enterthearena.co.uk/Fundraising-Stories/