Spilling the Beans

In conversation with Bold Bean Co founder, Amelia Christie-Miller on ambition, motherhood and redefining success

There’s something fascinating about hearing from women who become mothers while also running companies, especially when they’re honest about how messy and occasionally absurd that combination can be.

This week I spoke to Amelia Christie-Miller, the genius behind one of the most talked about (and my favourite) food brands, Bold Bean Co. Her daughter Olive is five months old, she’s slowly returning to work, and she talks about ambition, identity and motherhood with a level of candour that’s both funny and reassuring.

We talk about the strange moving target of success, the invisible shift that happens after having a baby and her anger towards the systems that make the mental load imbalance almost inevitable.

What I loved about this interview was its lack of performance. There’s ambition and business meetings at the same time as blowing raspberries, 2am spirals and leaking milk. It’s about building a company and a family but also about the quieter, sometimes harder work of figuring out what matters most once your life changes overnight.

I hope you enjoy her perspective as much as I do.

P.S. If you haven’t tried Bold Beans you haven’t lived.

What’s been the most surprising part of building Bold Bean - either on the business side or personally?

That it worked! I started Bold Bean five years ago and my entire ambition was to get into one supermarket. That was the dream. And then we got into Waitrose, and then every major supermarket, and I kept waiting for the feeling that we’d arrived. But you’re always onto the next thing and redefining your view of success - I think it says something either about ambition or about me - I’m not entirely sure which.

Do you feel like motherhood has made you more focused as a founder, or does it feel like you’re being pulled in different directions?

I have to caveat that I’m still very early days - Olive is only five months old and I’m only just starting to dial back into work now, so I’m probably not the most qualified person to answer this yet. But by taking maternity leave I forced myself out of business meetings which now I’ve realised I no longer need to go to. That’s bought me so much time back to think about what the business really needs - and where I can actually add value (which I’m still working out).

Olive is of course a giant distraction - I often run down to where she is for some emphatic raspberries on her belly and a bit of chatter but I’m trying to reframe that as a sort of “meditation” - time to be properly present and recharge.

How has becoming a mum changed the way you think about ambition, if at all?

It’s absolutely prompted me to think about the future in a way I never did before. Before Olive, ambition and the business were basically the same thing - growing it was the point. Now I find myself thinking about ambition in a broader way: what kind of life do I want, what kind of mother, what kind of company are we building and for what end.

Is there anything you miss about life before becoming a mum?

Lying in and not wearing a bra to bed to stop my milk from spilling all over the duvet!

What habits or routines have you found most helpful in juggling work and family life?

Online shopping - my god, life changing. I don’t know how people did this before.

Opal to block social media for most of the day. Instagram does not serve parents.

I listen to my Spanish practice while playing with Olive - she finds me talking Spanish to her hilarious, and I feel like I’m ticking off talking to her and getting better at a language all in one go.

A transcriber for all meetings. It means I can watch back meetings I wasn’t in to catch up on decisions, and I don’t need to write notes during calls - which means I can breastfeed while on them without anyone being any the wiser.

And this is a slightly niche one - I’ve built projects in Claude around Olive. Our sleep trainer has a course, and I’ve essentially uploaded it so I have an always-available sleep consultant at my fingertips at 2am when I’m spiralling about nap schedules.

Do you think there’s still a quiet expectation that women should scale things back professionally once they have children?

Yes, and it makes me angry. But my issue isn’t really with the expectation itself - it’s with where it comes from. I think the mental load imbalance between mothers and fathers is largely built during maternity leave. You’re at home, you’re absorbing every responsibility, you’re becoming the default parent - and your partner is at work, unchanged. That dynamic has a lasting legacy. Women don’t deprioritize their careers because they want to. They do it because by the time they come back, the weight is already unevenly distributed and it feels impossible to do both.

But I don’t think the solution is to change what’s available for women. It’s to change what’s available for men! Men don’t feel they can ask for part-time. They don’t get meaningful parental leave. They’re not given the structures to share the load from the start. Fix that, and a lot of the rest follows.

What advice would you give to someone trying to build something while also navigating early motherhood?

Do what you can - therapists, coaches, whatever works for you - to leave work at the door so it doesn’t seep into your family life and how you show up for the people you love.

And invest in your culture early, because it will pay you back in ways you can’t predict. The reason I’ve been able to find any balance at all is my team. We’re fully remote, we’re flexible - especially for the mums already in the business - and that’s created something which has given ME the best chance of thriving in motherhood and work. They’ve championed my maternity leave, they’ve kept the business thriving in my absence, and they’ve shown me that building something doesn’t have to come at the cost of everything else!

What’s your favourite way with Bold Beans at the moment?

I’ve been completely besotted with our new Masala Baked Beans. I have them with some toasted sourdough from my local bakery, a dollop of cottage cheese and some pickled red onions and can’t get enough of this combination. The cottage cheese melding with the spiced masala gives a paneer meets raita vibe which just really hits the spot - plus I feel like I’m being a wellness warrior!

And on the subject of cottage cheese, it doesn’t get better than this. Think I know what I’m having for lunch.

Until next week, happy Sunday!

Gx