No slides. No filters. No corporate buzzwords. Just four women on stage, spilling it exactly how it is.

At HEXPO 2025, “Spill the Tea” brought together four powerhouse founders and leaders, Paloma Newton (Elita), Samar Mcheileh (Scale Investors), Jessica Christensen-Franks (Wade Institute), and Frances Goh (OneRoof),  for a conversation that was equal parts caffeine, candour, and courage.

They didn’t come to play nice. They came to tell the truth.

The Pour

When you get four women who’ve built businesses, raised capital, and led teams in industries that still underestimate them, you don’t get polite advice, you get lived experience.

The panel jumped right into the hard stuff: what it really takes to start, scale, and sustain yourself in a world that often expects founders (especially women) to do it all.

They talked openly about rejection, imposter syndrome, leadership fatigue, and the myth of “balance.” They laughed, they vented, and they made every aspiring founder in the room feel seen.

And in between the jokes and the real talk, there were golden lessons about what leadership looks like when you stop trying to make it look perfect.

Truth, Served Hot

Paloma Newton spoke about building Elita and redefining what sustainable leadership means, not just in business, but in life. Her message was simple: take up space, but take care of yourself while you do it.

Samar Mcheileh from Scale Investors got real about the investment world and the barriers that still exist for women founders. Her callout to the crowd was crystal clear, “We don’t need permission to be here. We’re already changing the room.”

Jessica Christensen-Franks from Wade Institute added the data and the drive, sharing how ecosystems can evolve when we stop seeing gender as a talking point and start treating diversity as infrastructure.

And Frances Goh, representing OneRoof, grounded the conversation in community, reminding everyone that behind every successful woman is usually a network of others cheering her on (and occasionally bringing the snacks).

Stirring Change

The beauty of “Spill the Tea” wasn’t just in what was said, it was in how it felt.
It wasn’t another panel of polite applause and PR-friendly soundbites. It was raw, real, and refreshingly unpolished.

There was vulnerability, there was swearing, and there was laughter that filled the room like music. It was the kind of talk that sticks with you because it’s honest, and honesty is what this generation of founders is built on.

The Aftertaste

By the end of the session, the takeaway wasn’t just inspiration, it was permission. Permission to stop pretending. Permission to rest. Permission to own your story, even when it’s messy.

As the crowd dispersed, people weren’t whispering about how “empowering” it was, they were talking about what they were going to change next.

Because “Spill the Tea” wasn’t about motivation. It was about movement.

And at HEXPO 2025, that’s exactly the kind of heat we came for.