Diary of a UK CEO with Leanne Rothwell, Not On The High Street

Writer Alyssa Jaffer spent time with Leanne Rothwell, CEO of online marketplace and gifting site Not On The High Street to find out her daily routine — from her early morning wake-up to what she achieves in an average day as chief executive.
Have you ever wondered what it really takes to run a multi-million-pound company in the UK? We got to know Leanne Rothwell, the chief executive of Not On The High Street, a leading online marketplace which connects 5.2 million customers with more than 5,500 small businesses selling hundreds of thousands of products.
Rothwell joined Not On The High Street 12 years ago as an account manager and rose up the ranks with roles supporting the small business partners and category propositions. She most recently served as the company’s chief commercial officer until taking on the CEO role in 2022. With Rothwell at the helm, the business has seen a 500% growth in its fleet of small business partners. She has also led the brand through a technical transformation and strategic review to drive sustainable growth for the business.
Rothwell has passions outside of retail as well — she’s a member of the IMRG Retail Advisory Board and an advisor to Stress Matters, a female-founded, mission-driven B-Corp organisation to support workplace wellbeing.

Here Leanne Rothwell shares what a typical day in her life as a CEO is like:
6 – 6:30 am: Out of bed and ready for the day ahead. I’m an early person, so when I wake up my brain kicks into gear pretty quickly.
I typically check the numbers from the night before to see if anything urgent has come in overnight and then flick through the news headlines. My usuals are Bloomberg, BBC and a few retail trade publications.
7 am: Then it’s a case of preparing breakfast for my 10-year-old cockapoo Bernie before leaving the house for a morning walk together — you can’t teach him new tricks.
My daily morning walk is a must to get some fresh air and set myself out for the day before I really start work, particularly in a remote-first environment.
We’re fortunate to live in Wimbledon, which is full of green spaces and has an excellent selection of coffee shops, so after taking Bernie for a loop around the park, my husband and I stop at a coffee shop to get us kick-started. Now I’m energised for another day at the desk.
8 am: With a hot oat cappuccino in hand, I’m in my home office sorting through emails and preparing for a day chock-full of meetings. I usually spend 75-100% of my time in meetings and calls, whether that’s 1-2-1s catching up with my senior leadership team, hearing about business performance and delivery, strategic planning or time with our investors.
8:30 am – 12 pm: I’m dedicating my morning to discussing our tech stack transformation. Along with our VP of Technology Dan, he and I run a crucial board meeting to align on upcoming strategic initiatives for Not On The High Street.
Board meetings are a core part of the role of CEO as you work closely with your investors and focus on how to create value for your shareholders. Understanding the questions behind the questions and taking the cues from the Board in order to refine plans and leave with their endorsement is really valuable.
For me, this alignment comes through continuous, open communication to ensure I have a strong understanding of the Board’s motivations and desired outcomes. Open dialogue also fosters greater trust between the executive management team and the board of investors, which is key to getting that endorsement.
It’s so important to take the board on the journey with me as my thinking evolves. This provides them with the right level of context to make decisions and means our discussions are productive and arrive at the right outcome.
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12:30 pm: Time for some much-needed focus time. I book 10-minute walks throughout the day in my diary, to spark ideas and solutions to problems. I tend to think in slides, so during a solo walk near home, or with my exec team, if we’re working from our Shoreditch office, my brain forms a slide deck to strategise a project or work through a specific challenge. A flat white in hand definitely helps, too.
1 pm: For lunch, I grab whatever is most convenient from the kitchen – leftovers or an easy snack. My favourite is the chicken salad from Garbanzo’s near the office when my team and I catch up together over lunch.
2 – 5 pm: More meetings this afternoon and responding to the odd message when I get a moment. One of the shifts I’ve seen more recently is that email is a far less utilised form of communication in business. So much of what we do at Not On The High Street is on Slack for that more instant, short form, and informal communication. It enables us to move a lot faster and gives greater visibility of people’s availability.
My favourite Slack channel is #random — everyone in the business uses it to share anything and everything, from interesting article links and recommendations for a good meal to holiday inspiration, travel plans, and photos of their pets. It’s one of the many amazing ways that our team organically builds camaraderie, in a remote-first business.
6 pm: At the end of the work day — although I’m plugged in pretty much until bedtime — I take a moment for reflection on the day’s progress and what’s coming up next.
Being a CEO is genuinely an honour, a privilege, and a great responsibility.
But it’s not always easy. My greatest annoyance as a CEO is having to be ruthless with our company’s focus and prioritisation. In an ecommerce business like Not On The High Street, we have the benefit of being agile enough to go after opportunities that many larger brands wouldn’t be able to, yet we have to be very mindful of our time and investments to ensure that we’re going after the things that will have the biggest impact for our customers and partners.
So it can be frustrating to say no to great opportunities or hit pause on a fantastic idea or great project. Sometimes it’s not a ‘no,’ but a ‘not right now.’
And the toughest thing about being a CEO — it will sound cliche — is that it can be lonely having to make tough calls in isolation, although I have an excellent support network.
My favourite moments as CEO are when I’m working closely with our small brand partners, like when we were invited to set up a pop-up shop at 10 Downing Street’s festive Christmas market and discussed small business needs with the government. Soaking up the entrepreneurial spirit together is one of my fondest memories in all of my years at Not On The High Street.
7 pm: My favourite way to end the day is getting a workout in at the gym, five times a week. I love weight training and cycling to get my heart rate up while blasting a mix of Linkin Park and Bob Marley in my headphones to keep me amped up.
10 pm: I’m not a late-night person and sleep is really important to me, so I try to give myself time to wind down before bed. I would be dishonest if I said that I do switch off. though — as a CEO, I think it comes with the territory.
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