18/05/2026
What does it really take to build a disruptive brand today?
It’s something I found myself thinking deeply about last Thursday and Friday while attending DISRUPT 3.0 in London - an exclusive high-level business, branding and networking event hosted by the brilliant .
Across two days of powerful conversations, exceptional speakers and an incredible room of ambitious women, one theme surfaced again and again:
The brands that will thrive over the next decade will not necessarily be the loudest, the most polished or even the most visible.
They will be the ones BRAVE enough to think differently, cut through the noise and stand powerfully for something.
Increasingly, we are sinking in a sea of sameness.
The same positioning. The same messaging. The same aesthetic. The same predictable content repackaged in slightly different ways.
Entire categories have become so focused on trying to “get it right” that they’ve unintentionally lost the very thing that makes brands distinctive in the first place.
Originality. Humanity. Creativity.
Perhaps that’s why disruptive brands matter now more than ever, particularly for female founders.
Because when women-led businesses still receive only a fraction of available investment and visibility, we cannot afford to build brands that quietly disappear into the background.
We have to build brands people remember. Brands that are meaningful, magnetic and emotionally resonant.
One conversation I kept reflecting on afterwards was how often founders focus on visibility before distinctiveness - something I speak about frequently with clients.
If you’re ready to build a more disruptive brand, here are three important shifts to consider:
1. Stop building from the outside in. A disruptive brand begins with identity, belief, conviction and the deeper truth of what you are really here to change.
2. Challenge the conventions of your category. Question what everyone in your space is saying, selling and repeating.
3. Develop a bold point of view people can feel. Stand for something. Challenge conventional thinking and become known for a perspective people remember.