A Stranger, a Suitcase and a Story

He shipped 200 bottles of single malt to Australia — and paid more in duty than they were worth. Then opened his home every month and shared every single one. Within a year he had a network. Within a decade he had built a $3 billion business. None of it was an accident. Alan Greenstein didn't leave South Africa because things got hard. He left because he saw exactly where things were going, an...

He arrived in Australia in 1982 - one of the first wave of South Africans to leave. He brought Mango Groove on tour. Helped raise the first $1 billion philanthropy campaign in Australian history. And is now rebuilding a university's connection to its diaspora, from the outside. Oh, and he never even went to that university. Some people don't follow a plan. They follow a thread. Lawrence Ja...

She filled out a university application form for fun.   Got accepted.   Moved to Australia.   Got rejected by every law firm she applied to.   Went home. Came back. Got rejected again.   Today she's a partner at one of Australia's top tier law firms.   Some stories don't follow a plan. This is one of them.    Sanushka Seomangal  grew up in Durban on the North Coast, one of the youngest...

He spent two and a half years waking up at midnight to work Australian hours from South Africa. He got divorced three weeks before he boarded the plane. He landed in Melbourne — alone — with a golf bag that cost him R19,000 just to check in. Was it worth it?   This is one of those episodes that stays with you. Dan Nel is not someone who moved to Australia years ago and has it all figured out. He&#...

80 enquiries a day. From people dreaming of leaving South Africa. Less than 10% actually make it happen. What separates the ones who do... from the ones who don't?  Anton and Ben sat down with someone who's seen it all, not as someone who emigrated, but as the person sitting across the desk when families take the biggest decision of their lives. Sean Kupferberg is the Managing Director of...

Tim did not just build mines in some of the most remote parts of the world…he built something far more lasting.  Tim Netscher’s story stretches across continents, industries and decades, but what emerges from this conversation is not simply a career in mining. It is something far more human, and far more enduring.  Growing up in South Africa, moving from one mining town to another, Tim learned ear...

You don’t realise who you are…until you arrive somewhere you have to learn how to belong  In Episode 25 of A Stranger, A Suitcase, and A Story, Anton and Ben are joined by Paul Hanley - a story that moves well beyond finance and into something far more human.  Born and raised in Johannesburg, Paul built his career in one of South Africa’s most dynamic financial environments before making the decis...

  What does it feel like to arrive just in time to witness an extinction?  In Episode 24 of A Stranger, A Suitcase, and A Story, Anton and Ben are joined by Dr Jenny Gray AM, Chief Executive Officer of Zoos Victoria, whose journey spans Johannesburg, Durban and Melbourne, and whose leadership has reshaped conservation in Australia.  Jenny grew up between Johannesburg and Durban, immersed in storyt...

What if the advantage isn’t being the smartest person in the room… but being willing to break things until they work? Anton speak to Dawid Naudé , whose story moves back and forth between Australia and South Africa with five years of childhood in Australia, then back to the Eastern Cape, and later a deliberate return to Australia on his own terms.   This episode starts in the real places that shap...

What happens when a career built on facts, figures, and investigations collides with the very human question of where, and how you want to raise a family?   Anton and Ben sit down with Paul Fontanot , whose journey spans forensic accounting, partnership, migration, and a surprisingly memorable introduction to Australian wine. Paul grew up in Germiston and built his career in forensic accounting, w...

What happens when your big adventure finally arrives… fourteen years late and just weeks before the world shuts down?  Anton and Ben sit down with Kevin and Romaine Mackenzie , a Johannesburg-born couple whose migration story is as much about partnership as it is about place. After waiting 14 years for a US visa to come through, they packed up their lives and arrived in Chicago in January 2020 , d...

What if success is not measured by what you accumulate, but by what lets you sleep at night?  Anton and Ben sit down with Dr Manny Pohl in Episode 20 of A Stranger, A Suitcase, and A Story . Our first episode of 2026, and a fitting one to begin the year.  Manny’s story starts on the Blyvooruitzicht gold mine near Carletonville, a place defined by hard work, hierarchy, and deep community. It’s wher...

What if the thing you thought made you different… is the very thing that connects you to everyone else?   Anton and Ben did not set out to make a podcast. They started with a conversation. Two migrants comparing notes over a glass of wine, asking a simple question: “Why did no one tell us this before we came?” What followed became A Stranger, A Suitcase, and A Story .   Episode 19 is our Season On...

She didn’t wait for permission, she built a table, pulled up chairs, and told women, “Your voice belongs here.”   Anton and Ben sit down with MD (Margaret Dreyer), whose default setting is “How can I help?” and whose north star is growing women’s talent wherever she stands. From becoming South Africa’s first female audit partner to serving on Deloitte Australia’s board, her through-line is the sam...

When everything familiar fell away, did he double down on bitterness or choose a frame that let him move forward?   He thought getting knocked down was the headline. It wasn’t. The story is how he keeps standing. Anton and Ben sit down with Grant Parkin, who grew up in East London, migrated to Brisbane, and learned, sometimes the hardest way, how to turn pain into perspective without pretending it...

Anton and Ben sit down with Andrew Reitzer, and this onestays with you. Born in Johannesburg to Holocaust survivor parents. Raisedin Cape Town. A life that arcs from a small family glove factory to the CEO seat of Metcash, turning a $240 million loss into a thriving ASX Top 100 company… and yet, that’s not the real story. The real story starts when he’s a teenager and his motherquietly hands him a...

“We landed with two suitcases, a toddler, and no idea wherewe were going after the airport.”  In this powerful new episode of A Stranger, A Suitcase,and A Story , Anton and Ben sit down with Kaveer Soni, a Durban-born lawyer whose life has been a tapestry of faith, grit, heartbreak, and reinvention.  Kaveer's story begins in Durban, born into a Hindu household,yet his early years unfold inside...

The gun clicked against his temple—and didn’t fire. Ten years later, Munro packed a suitcase for Sydney.   In Episode 14 of A Stranger, A Suitcase, and A Story , Anton and Ben sit down with Munro Donen . He grew up in Houghton, Johannesburg, in a close, bookish home where neighbours popped in for tea—including Nelson Mandela, who’d later spot Munro across an airport cordon and ask, “How’s your fat...

What if the journey that changed your life wasn’t just about a new country, but about finding the courage to finally tell the truth? You can’t outrun your past. It always finds a way into your suitcase.” – Tania Wilson In Episode 13 of A Stranger, A Suitcase, and A Story , Anton and Ben sit down with Tania Wilson — author of The Secrets We Keep: Spilling the Beans , whose migration story stretches...

“In my first month here, I told myself: just Look, Listen, and Learn .”   But what if the very skills that helped you survive back home… became the very edges you needed to soften to belong somewhere new?   In Episode 12 of A Stranger, A Suitcase, and A Story , Anton and Ben sit down with Pierre De Villiers , whose journey has taken him from ironing school shorts in Durban, to boardrooms across th...

“Ali’s on the plane… and Chris Hani’s been assassinated.”   The tour Mark helped organise became a peace mission before the wheels hit the tarmac.  Back in Durban, Mark’s legal career was rising when 1993 rewrote the script. Muhammad Ali arrived; the country erupted. Overnight, logistics turned to triage: townships in flames, cathedral meetings, a balcony plea for calm. Ali’s humanity cut through—...

In 1984 he nominated Nelson Mandela for Chancellor, when “terrorist” was still the word echoing down campus corridors.   Mark Stanbridge’s beginnings read like a paradox: a carefree Free State childhood and a country split by curfews and colour lines. Around a dinner table of books and debate, he formed a stubborn belief in the dignity of the individual—long before law school gave it language. At...

“Immigration is not for sissies. If anyone tells you it’s easy, they’re lying.”  What do you do when life hands you a choice between comfort and calling?  For Ryan Walker, it meant leaving behind his beloved grandmother, a young daughter, and the familiar rhythms of Johannesburg to answer something bigger. In this episode of A Stranger, A Suitcase, and A Story , Anton and Ben sit down with Ryan, a...

Everything around him had settled—but inside, he still feltlost. He had the house. His kids were thriving. His wife had embraced the new life. But John Chan couldn’t shake the feeling: “I was the only one who hadn’tarrived.” In Episode 8 of A Stranger, A Suitcase & A Story ,John shares the quiet but deeply personal journey of starting over—not just ina new country, but in his own sense of iden...

He arrived in Australia with no job, no backup plan, and noguarantee it would work. But Francois Scheepers had already made the decision: “I’m going to make thiswork.” In Episode 7 of A Stranger, A Suitcase & A Story ,Francois Scheepers shares the raw, real journey of building a life from scratch in a place where no one knows you, and no one owes you anything. He speaks openly about what it wa...