Curveball

Staring down a board coup when they’re baying for your scalp. Taking back control when you’ve sold a stake in your company. Trusting your vision when you’ve lost it all before.   Curveball is back and the stakes have never been higher.  Join host  Kellie Riordan  as she navigates her own start-up journey and learns from other leaders about how they thrive when the chips are down.  Richmond Tigers...

Everyone has the same 24 hours in a day and yet somehow titans of industry seem to cram more in and squeeze more out.  How do they do it? How to entrepreneurs and leaders streamline their processes for maximum productivity?  If you love  Curveball , chances are you’ll enjoy  How I Work , hosted by organisational psychologist Dr Amantha Imber. Each episode provides you with the trusted tips and hac...

There’s no 101 at business school on making the right call when you’re under fire.    But once you’ve assessed all the information and consulted the right people, you need to make the call. And even though it might not be a popular decision, if it’s the right one for your organisation, you need to see it through.  Whether it’s making a decision to keep people safe in the face of media outrage, dis...

Losing a parent, watching your kid suffer, or battling a serious illness yourself – the personal adversity many of the country’s top leaders have been through will surprise you.  Just because you’re dodging curveballs in your work life, doesn’t mean you’re immune to crises in your personal life.  But you know what? The Kate Morrises, Andrew Starks and Briony Scotts of the world dig deep and strate...

Working 9 to 5 might be Dolly Parton’s way to make a living, but these days work schedules look riskier and less structured for most.  Whether it’s starting a new company, fast-tracking your business, or taking the plunge into the unknown, we’ve been learning about bravery on Curveball.   How do you move from that moment of fear and take a courageous step towards the unknown?  Be brave! Go on, we...

Leaders were once paid the big bucks to come up with a long-term vision, a strategy that could carry a company for years.  Now? The most successful leaders are those who can question assumptions, challenge the status quo, and completely reinvent a strategy on the run.  World leading organisational psychologist Adam Grant once trained as a magician. He wants you to be equipped to pull a rabbit out...

Borders shut? Planes unable to land? Quarantine bubbles needed in record-time? Duuuuude! No worries!  The very future of the world surf pro is on Andrew Stark’s shoulders. He needs to pull off a record number of events and land a charter plane full of international surfers in Australia, so it’s going to take every ounce of his leadership capability to pull this off.  Can he do it?  If you’ve liste...

With his wetsuit zippers blown open, his flotation vest filling fast with water, and his diaphragm heaving, Andrew Stark thought his time was up.  But a monster wave on one of Hawaii’s most feared breaks was no match for Stark, a leader who thrives when faced with a threatening swell.  Whether it’s mounting world-renowned events at Bell’s Beach or Sunset, or convincing the world that surfing is pr...

When Covid restrictions meant an immediate intermission for anyone working in live entertainment, Jeremy Fleming made a phone call no 40-something likes to make. He called his parents to say the shutdown spelt the end for his business and he’d be moving his family of four in with his parents.  Staging company Stagekings lost millions in revenue overnight, when client after client called to cancel ...

There’s a scene in  Sex and the City  where Sarah Jessica Parker gets to ring the famed opening bell on the New York Stock Exchange. Naturally, she’s wearing Jimmy Choos and a Chanel lipstick.  Kate Morris dreamt that one day her company Adore Beauty would float on the stock exchange. She got there, but ringing the bell over Zoom from her lounge room? Well that wasn’t  quite  what she’d imagined. ...

When Mother Cricket calls, Justin Langer answers.  With Australian cricket in crisis, imploding amid the ‘sandpaper scandal’, Langer was offered a leadership role many considered a poisoned chalice, but the lure of rebuilding the sport he loved was too strong.  His tough-love leadership style doesn’t always win him friends, but the former batsman is determined to see his vision through.  Still, no...

Have you had days when you’ve wanted to shut yourself off on a deserted island, where you could happily work and eat coconuts and speak to no one? Hell yes! Good. It’s not just me then!  But truly great leaders understand that without a solid team, without developing and investing in your people, it’s going to get pretty tough to achieve anything. (Also, there’d be no office cakes... and that woul...

“FAIL AND FAIL FAST” – it's the catch-cry currently echoing from Silicon Valley to entrepreneurial kids trying to make a buck with their latest dance routines on TikTok. But as the great philosophers Chumbawamba sang, if you get knocked down, you can get back up again. How do you fail, but more importantly, recover? Curveball ’s the podcast where leaders tell you how they’ve dealt with huge challe...

As a new year dawns, are you feeling ready to tackle the year head on? Want a little fresh perspective to help you get ahead?  If there’s one thing that sets the greatest leaders above the pack, it’s the mindset they carry through challenging times.  Curveball’s  the podcast where you learn how to thrive when you’ve been thrown a curly one. But how exactly do you  cultivate  a positive mindset? Ho...

Pivot. Adapt. Resilience. There's a reason we've heard those words so often in 2020. Curveball  is the podcast that gives you an inside look into how top leaders cope with unexpected challenges.  And as we settle up the books on a year that’s brought so much risk and uncertainty, those lessons on how to deal with change have never been more welcome!  In this special festive season  Curveball  bonu...

Start-up life sounds glamorous. The thrill of chasing an idea that could land you some coin, securing serious dollars from venture capitalists, and that's before you get to the office ping-pong tables and free candy. But behind the scenes, it's both thrilling and gut-wrenchingly scary. Entrepreneur Michael Fox took his first digital fashion start-up Shoes of Prey from humble beginnings in a lounge...

When COVID-19 first hit Australia, many of us managed to hold it together quite well… until we were asked to sit down and explain year seven algebra.    Dr Briony Scott, Principal of Wenona School in Sydney, knows all about the trials and tribulations of solving an unknown value.    While Dr Scott was overseeing the closure of her school and helping her students, teachers and parents manage the mo...

Just weeks out from Australia’s biggest live comedy event of the year, the entertainment industry fell victim to the greatest showstopper of the century: a global pandemic.   Australia’s biggest comedy agent,  Token Group  and Guesswork Television  boss Kevin Whyte tells you what it was like shifting comedy from stages to zoom screens in record time.  But this isn’t the first time Kevin’s put it a...

Watching panicked consumers clear the supermarket shelves ignited an idea for  Carolyn Creswell .   If toilet paper was flying off the shelves in aisle eight, would muesli bars in aisle three be the next must-have item?  The Carman’s founder made the decision to increase her stock holdings in the face of huge uncertainty.  Will the risky decision pay dividends for the muesli mogul this time?  Caro...

How exactly does a CEO negotiate their exit from a company? Is it like getting a divorce... where it might be publicly amicable for the sake of the kids but really everyone’s secretly shirty with each other?  Outgoing Virgin Australia CEO Paul Scurrah joins host Kellie Riordan in her make-shift home studio to discuss how he handled the final curveball thrown at him as he was replaced by a former Q...

Fasten your seatbelt and switch your phone to airplane mode, because host Kellie Riordan is taking you for a ride into Virgin Australia’s headquarters during the worst crisis in aviation history.  CEO Paul Scurrah springs into action as COVID-19 hits, the international borders slam shut, and then days later, domestic flights are grounded too.  The airline loses access to $6 billion in revenue almo...

We’ve all been thrown curveballs this year. But how do you pull yourself through the fear? How do you cope with things you didn’t see coming?  Host Kellie Riordan goes in search of our boldest and bravest leaders to ask them how they've tackled the toughest moments of their careers — and lives.  And she's not just asking for a friend... Kellie has been dealt a few curveballs this year too. Keep up...