Discover How Branding Can Help Purpose-Led SMEs Shine with Maylene Seah, award-winning brand strategist. She is founder of Studio Noor Anisa, and winner of a Special Recognition Award at the 2025 Best Business Women Awards.
Maylene’s journey is a fascinating one. She started out in design agencies in London, and then created a thriving Islamic products business she built and sold. Today, she helps purpose driven women founders create brands that truly stand out.
In this episode we dig into what brand strategy actually means in practice. Additionally, Maylene discusses why 97% of purchasing decisions are made subconsciously, and how to find the thing that makes your business genuinely different. There is also a brilliant conversation about colour psychology and why breaking away from predictable industry colours can be such a powerful move.
We delve into Maylene’s wonderful response to winning the Special Recognition Award. She explains that she felt she was representing her whole community, and that doors were opening for women previously unseen as a result.
Maylene also shares some hard won business advice. This includes why trusting yourself matters more than getting everything perfect, and the importance of building your brand in public alongside your audience. Perhaps most importantly, she tells us why boundaries are non negotiable if you want to avoid burnout.
A brilliant listen for any business owner who wants to be not just seen, but chosen.
About Maylene
Maylene Seah is a multi-award-winning brand strategist, mentor, and speaker helping values-led women founders, particularly Muslim women and women of colour, own their difference and build brands people recognise, remember, and choose.
Her work is shaped by having lived every side of branding: from pulling shots as a Starbucks barista, to leading design teams for global brands like Unilever and P&G, to founding and selling her own faith-led children’s brand, Poppetry. It was in building her own business (and working closely with women founders doing the same) that she noticed a recurring pattern: brands didn’t stall because the work wasn’t good, but because the woman behind it was still second-guessing herself.
Through her proprietary framework, The Brilliance Blueprint™, Maylene helps multi-passionate founders articulate what they stand behind, and the line they’re no longer willing to blur, so their brand becomes coherent, irresistible, and the only choice.
Fresh from receiving a Special Recognition Award at the Best Business Women Awards 2025, Maylene is known for creating spaces where women feel seen, confident, and unapologetically themselves; proving that faith, identity, and belonging can walk hand in hand.
{2:01} Maylene’s passion for branding and how she started her business.
{5:21} Where the Studio Noor Anisa originated from.
{6:18} The challenges for Muslim women in business.
{8:06} Assessing brand strategy for small businesses.
{12:43} Creating a brand strategy that stands out.
{15:05} The role awards played in maylene’s journey.
{21:33} Winning a Special Recognition Award at the 2025 BBWAs.
{24:17} Maylene’s business tips.
Connect with Debbie at: https://thebusinessawardsshow.co.uk
Connect with Maylene: https://nooranisa.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maylene-seah-a41wwwb3a23/?originalSubdomain=uk
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/maylene.seah/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/studio.nooranisa/
Pinterest: https://uk.pinterest.com/mayleneseah/
