Elizabeth Day

Elizabeth Day is an award-winning novelist, broadcaster and founder of Daylight Productions, a podcast company dedicated to elevating diverse voices through innovative audio storytelling. With nine published books including her latest novel One of Us, a Number 1 Sunday Times bestseller in Friendaholic, and the chart-topping How to Fail podcast that won the British Podcast Award for Rising Star, she has built a remarkable career exploring resilience, mental health and human connection. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and proud Samaritans ambassador, Elizabeth delivers talks and workshops that help audiences reframe failure, embrace vulnerability and build stronger relationships, equipping organisations with practical tools for fostering psychological safety and authentic leadership.

When Elizabeth Day launched her chart-topping podcast How to Fail in 2017, she created more than an award-winning show: she sparked a cultural conversation about resilience, vulnerability and the transformative power of setbacks. What began as intimate discussions about failure evolved into a movement that has drawn guests including Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Stanley Tucci, Malcolm Gladwell and Bernardine Evaristo, earning the British Podcast Award for Rising Star in 2019 and a Harper's Bazaar 'Women of the Year' award in 2020 for bringing solace to the nation with her sensitivity and wit. In 2024, she expanded this vision by founding Daylight Productions, a podcast company dedicated to elevating diverse voices through innovative audio storytelling, including the groundbreaking Podclass format that transforms masterclasses into limited series podcasts.

Elizabeth's career spans journalism, broadcasting and literature with equal distinction. She won the British Press Award for Young Journalist of the Year in 2004 and spent over two decades as a staff writer for The Sunday Telegraph and the Observer before going freelance in 2015. As a broadcaster, she co-hosts BBC Radio 4's Open Book and presents Sky Arts Book Club Live, whilst her second podcast, Best Friend Therapy, launched in 2022 with psychotherapist Emma Reed-Turrell, explores mental health challenges and therapeutic topics with warmth and accessibility. Her literary achievements are equally impressive: she has written nine books, including five novels that have garnered multiple awards and become bestsellers across Europe. Her fifth novel, Magpie, became an instant Sunday Times bestseller, whilst her non-fiction works How to Fail and Failosophy both reached the top five. Her most recent book, Friendaholic, became a Number 1 Sunday Times bestseller, and her latest novel, One of Us, published in September 2025. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, she has served as chair or judge for prestigious literary awards including the Women's Prize for Fiction and the BBC National Short Story Award.

Elizabeth's work as a speaker helps organisations understand that failure, when examined honestly, becomes the foundation for growth and innovation. Through talks and workshops delivered to companies including Google, Facebook and Netflix, she equips teams with practical tools for fostering psychological safety, reframing setbacks and building authentic workplace cultures. As a proud ambassador for Samaritans, she champions mental health awareness whilst demonstrating how vulnerability strengthens rather than weakens leadership. Audiences leave her sessions with renewed perspective on risk-taking, clearer frameworks for learning from mistakes, and the confidence to create environments where people feel safe to fail forward. Her insights resonate because they emerge from lived experience: she has navigated career pivots, personal upheaval and creative risks, transforming each challenge into wisdom that empowers others to embrace uncertainty as opportunity.