Career Stories

How do you keep growing in your career when you feel like you've hit a ceiling? In this episode of Career Stories, Michelle Gander and Luella Forbes explore the habits, mindset shifts, and everyday practices that help professionals stay curious, motivated, and engaged, no matter where they are in their career. In this episode, we cover:  What a growth mindset actually looks like in practice (it's...

This week's guest is Dr Annelen Schär, Head of Omnichannel Portfolio Management at Mercedes-Benz in Stuttgart — a digital leader working at the intersection of e-commerce, customer experience and business architecture in one of the world's most iconic car brands. Annelen has spent almost 15 years at Mercedes-Benz, completing a Doctorate of Business Administration along the way, all while raising t...

This week's guest is Elizabeth Shaw, Partner responsible for diversity, equity and inclusion consulting at PwC Australia. Elizabeth has spent her career at the intersection of gender equality, workplace culture and social impact, from chairing UN Women Australia in her early thirties to advising the Prime Minister and representing Australia at the UN Commission on the Status of Women. She is one o...

This week's guest is Jo Lindsay, Managing Director at Reed Talent Solutions, a part of Reed, the world's largest family-run recruitment business. Jo joined Reed on a graduate scheme in 1997 and has built her entire career there, moving through project management, sales, consultancy and leadership without ever needing to look elsewhere. Hers is a career story about what happens when an organisation...

This month on Career Stories, Dr Luella Forbes and Associate Professor Michelle Gander reflect on the career stories of Steve Price, Dr Mia Carbon, and Dinda Timperon — three very different people with some surprisingly connected threads running through their careers. In this episode: Why the people who say they don't have a career strategy often turn out to be the most strategic of all — and what...

This week's guest is Dinda Timperon, Head of Cybersecurity Engineering at one of Australia's largest wealth management organisations, and founder of Perth Women's Circle, a community of over 10,000 women focused on growth and development. Dinda's career spans the Royal Australian Air Force, aerospace engineering, flight test, a stint writing stage plays, and now leading national teams in financial...

This week's guest is Dr Mia Carbon, Deputy Director General of Biosecurity and Emergency Management for Western Australia — or, as she describes it, part of the team responsible for protecting one of the world's most unique environments. From training as a vet and working in rural Victoria and the UK, to a pivotal move into public policy, to leading one of WA's most complex government roles, Mia's...

This week's guest is Steve Price, General Manager of Financial Services at David Jones — the world's oldest department store. Having spent his career across banking, SaaS and retail in both the UK and Australia, Steve has specialised in building innovative products and customer experiences, from launching one of the UK's first internet banking services in the late 90s, to bringing Apple Pay to Aus...

This week's episode is our first monthly career advice conversation, where Dr Luella Forbes and co-host Michelle Gander — Associate Professor and specialist in Career Development — reflect on the themes and insights from this month's guest interviews with Mehdi Langroudi and Kelly Shay. In this episode: What purpose actually means at work — and why the research uses different language than the bus...

This week's guest is Kelly Shay, Retirement and Retention Leader at Mercer Australia — someone who has spent her career working to improve outcomes for people who can't always speak for themselves. From student politics at Murdoch University, to organising aged care and disability workers in Australia and the US, to superannuation — Kelly's career has been anything but conventional, and entirely o...

This week's guest is Mehdi Langroudi, Executive Director of Network Operations for Main Roads Western Australia — or, in his son's words, "the guy who fixes traffic"! With a global career spanning Scotland, London, Dubai, Qatar and now Perth, Mehdi shares how he accidentally fell into traffic engineering, what he's learned about leading diverse technical teams, and why career choices don't need to...

Introducing Career Stories, the podcast that shares other people's career stories to help you with yours. New episodes on a Wednesday, where Dr Luella Forbes interviews leaders, entrepreneurs or experts about their career story, and in the last week of the month, a discussion with Associate Professor Michelle Gander on what we've learned from those conversations. We'd love to hear from you.  Share...

Introducing Career Stories, the podcast that shares other people's career stories to help you with yours. New episodes on a Wednesday, where Dr Luella Forbes interviews leaders, entrepreneurs or experts on their career story, and in the last week of the month, a discussion with Associate Professor Michelle Gander on what we've learned from those conversations. We'd love to hear from you.  Share yo...