Business Beyond Borders

In this episode, I chat to Bryan Santos, an investment banker with a difference. He helps businesses grow - at home and abroad, by taking a holistic approach to solving the challenges faced by individual companies. Bryan and his team at the National Diversified Funding Corporation specialise in mergers and acquisitions, strategic alliances and capital raising, but they don’t use a cookie-cutter ap...

Everybody’s talking about the Libra, a new cryptocurrency proposed by Facebook, which advocates claim could transform the businesses and the lives of billions of people around the world. So … what’s it all about? I caught up with Heath Behncke, the Founder and Managing Director of Holon Global Investments, and the Executive Chair of the Libra Association, to get his thoughts on why we need Libra,...

In Episode 43, I talk to Alan Oppenheim, CEO of Ego Pharmaceuticals, an Australian company that exists to improve people’s lives through the science of healthy skin and sells its products around the world including the Middle East, Asia Pacific and the UK. Ego has won numerous awards for it performance in the export space and it is one of Australia’s great international success stories. Join Alan...

For many companies looking to scale internationally, funding the expansion is one of the biggest challenges they face. Without a strong track record, it can be hard to convince banks and financial institutions to back an international venture and in lots of places, finance is just downright hard to come by, especially if you’re small. In Episode ?? of Business Beyond Borders, I talk to Les Szekely...

It looks as though Brexit is nearly upon us … and there are still loads of unanswered questions and lots of uncertainty. I checked in with our London-based Senior Advisor, Michael Barron, to get his take on what’s likely to happen next and what it will mean for the UK and for companies looking to do business in Britain.

What do you do when you uncover fraud at your workplace? Do you speak up, or brush it under the carpet and hope it will go away? That was the question that faced Sylvain Mansotte, the day he uncovered one of Australia’s largest-ever corporate frauds. Sylvain didn’t hide what he knew and went on to found Whispli, a platform that enables anonymous trusted conversations. A few years on and Whispli is...

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’re probably aware that the US and China are locked in a bitter trade battle. Over the past year, the world’s two largest economies have imposed tariffs on billions of dollars worth of one another’s goods. US President Donald Trump has long accused China of unfair trading practices and intellectual property theft. In China, there is a perception that the...

Brexit is getting weirder by the day … so what are the causes and what is the likely impact on businesses selling to Britain, or using the UK as using as a springboard to Europe? Join my colleague, Gary Garner and I as we chat about the latest Brexit developments, the Northern Ireland backstop, what sorts of opportunities Brexit is likely to generate … and what it might mean for your business.

How would it be if you could jump online, find a business partner and launch a global business - just like that! ….. Well, that’s what my guest today did. Wayne Richard is the Director of Global Operations at Bean Ninjas, a company that provides Xero bookkeeping, financial reporting, and training for digital entrepreneurs and online businesses. He spent most of his career as a corporate accountant...

After 14 consecutive weeks of civil unrest, Hong Kong is in a state of turmoil - if you believe the mainstream media. But what’s it actually like on the ground? And what do the ongoing protests mean for international businesses operating in Hong Kong, or considering opening there? In Episode 36 of Business Beyond Borders, I talk to our Associate, Callan Anderson, Executive Director at Hong Kong Co...

Your business is successful at home, so is there really any reason to consider going global? Why expose yourself to all that risk? In this episode, I highlight three global trends that are reshaping the global business landscape, and why there’s never been a better time to look to internationally for growth opportunities. Tune in to find out: • Why even micro-business are playing in global markets...

For most companies ‘going global’, geopolitics is just background noise - it doesn’t affect how international business plays out day-to-day. But occasionally, big things happen on the international stage and companies have to take notice. In this episode, I talk to Gary Garner, our Senior China Advisor at Dearin about how to decide which geopolitical events to pay attention to and what the ongoing...

In this episode of Business Beyond Borders I chat to Dai Williams, Chief Growth Officer at SiteMinder. Siteminder started as a two-person operation working out of a rental home on Sydney’s northern beaches. Just over a decade later it employs more than 800 people and services more than 35,000 hotels around the world. Today, SiteMinder generates more than AU$100 million in annual recurring revenue...

Lee Hackett is CEO of BluprintX, a company which helps CMOs, CROs and CEOs of mid-to-large-sized businesses to grow revenue by using data and technology. Lee set up the firm in the UK 2013 and has expanded its footprint to four countries. Before Bluprint X, Lee played a leading role in creating and scaling seven startups in four continents over the last decade. Several of these startups became mar...

Today, we’re doing something a little different. I’m talking to my colleague, Zach Selch, the Global Sales Mentor. Zach is the VP Global Sales for a high tech medical company and has spent his career solving international sales challenges that CEOs can’t fix. He’s passionate about driving incremental improvement across every inch of the sales process and every nut and bolt in the sales organizatio...

In this episode of the Business Beyond Borders podcast, I caught up with Vanessa Garrard who has been ranked in Australia’s Top 30 Female Entrepreneur list every year since 2010. Vanessa’s entrepreneurial journey started by selling lollies and sweets at the ripe old age of 12 to now establishing Adventure Operations, a group consisting of 17 companies providing consumer products to retailers all o...

This week Cynthia Interviews Angus Raine, leading real estate commentator and fourth generation member of the family that created the Raine & Horne Group. After starting his career outside the company Angus came back, joined the family business and has been instrumental in expanding the company’s vision and taking it overseas. At 135 years old, Raine & Horne is one of the oldest privately-...

It’s all too easy to get carried away with new ideas and menial tasks when building your international business. We see it all the time with our clients. In the second part of a series dedicated to Time Excellence, Cynthia talks about the three things you need to do to get the most out of your time, improve your productivity and start getting results: 1. Prioritise 2. Delegate 3. Organise With cle...

In this week’s episode of Business Beyond Borders, Cynthia talks about Time Excellence, an area that many business owners and entrepreneurs struggle with as they start to take on international expansion. Having the skill to use time to your advantage and maximise your productivity is key to running a successful international business. In the first of a number of episodes around Time Excellence and...

In this episode of the Business Beyond Borders podcast, I had the pleasure of speaking with Tim Hughes, Founder of Digital Leadership Associates. In a previous life, Tim was a corporate star who was responsible for adding $100 million value to Oracle. Seeing the potential of talking to customers and building relationships through social media, he wrote his first book, Social Selling as a practical...

It’s that time of year where people get excited about making resolutions and have high hopes for the year to come. Unfortunately, many business owners don’t realise their dreams, because they set their goals and go on with business as usual, without taking the steps to make them a reality. In the first episode of 2019, Cynthia speaks about goal-setting, why people get it so wrong and what you can...

In this episode of Business Beyond Borders, Cynthia interviews Lee Featherby, Founder of Powerful Points. From a Perth boy with hopes to join the family business, to starting his own business helping companies share their message effectively, Lee’s story is a perfect example of how you don’t need to know everything to get started or become an international success. With a background in marketing a...

In this episode of Business Beyond Borders, Cynthia interviews Chris Jankulovski, Founder of Remote Staff™. Established in 2007 after a visit to the Philippines, Remote Staff™ provides offshore recruiting solutions to a variety of SME’s and has expanded to a team of 70 in-house staff. The company has placed 8000+ professionals and helped support the growth of more than 2000 businesses all over the...

In this episode of the Business Beyond Borders podcast, I interview Justin Dry, Founder of Vinomofo. Justin is an entrepreneur, business owner, mentor, public speaker, and co-founder and joint CEO of Vinomofo, one of Australia’s fastest-growing companies. Launched in April 2011 from a garage in Adelaide, Vinomofo has expanded quickly and profitably to a run rate of more than $50m revenue, 500,000...

In the last of this four-part series, Cynthia Dearin reveals the checklist that she provides small to midsize businesses when looking to take their business overseas and how it has helped business owners and entrepreneurs avoid costly and fatal mistakes. The checklist covers every aspect of the expansion process and Cynthia discusses the key points that all businesses should consider before diving...