Empowering Leaders

This week we are thrilled to welcome the inimitable Nic Naitanui back to Empowering Leaders for this very special episode, recorded LIVE in his beautiful home country of Fiji. From humble beginnings, to one of Australian football's most celebrated players, Nic’s story is one of resilience, generosity and the power of human connection. In this conversation, Nic reflects on his upbringing, the...

This week’s guest on Empowering Leaders is acclaimed Australian musical theatre legend, author and breathwork and mindset coach, Josh Piterman. Josh’s career evolution is nothing short of extraordinary. From performing onstage in lead roles in The Phantom of the Opera and Les Miserables , to a coaching practice that helps athletes and high performers reconnect with themselves, Josh&rsq...

What if the key to better health isn't just treating symptoms, but understanding what's causing them in the first place? This week , world-renowned functional medicine expert and New York Times bestselling author Will Cole joins us to explore the connection between physical health, mental wellbeing and the pressures of modern life. In this episode, Will explains how chronic stress, unresolved trau...

This week we’re joined by Scott Parkinson, Head Assistant Coach at Seattle Reign FC in the US National Women’s Soccer League. In this episode, Scott reflects on his career in high performance sport, and the huge impact working in women’s football has had on his life, leadership, and the way he approaches feedback and communication. You’ll also hear about his passion for cha...

This week we’re joined by performance strategy and innovation advisor, founder of Heretic Performance and the current Head of Innovation at the WNBA’s New York Liberty, Keith D’Amelio, For over two decades, Keith has worked with some of the world’s top sporting teams and organisations, including the NBA’s Boston Celtics and Toronto Raptors, and Nike. In this episode,...

In a world designed to constantly capture our attention, learning how to focus has become one of the most valuable skills we can develop. This week, Luke Darcy sits down with Dandapani, a Hindu priest, entrepreneur, bestselling author, speaker and former monk who spent 10 years living and training in a monastery. In this episode, Dandapani explains the important distinction between the mind and aw...

This week’s guest is Jess Bala, the former Managing Director of General Motors Australia and New Zealand. In this deeply personal episode, Jess opens up about the devastating loss of her brother, beloved sports journalist Sam Landsberger. She shares how Sam’s passing has impacted her family, and shaped the way she approaches leadership, vulnerability and the relationship between work a...

This week, Luke Darcy sits down with one of Australia’s most respected investigative journalists and two-time Gold Walkley Award winner, Hedley Thomas. For over four decades, Hedley has been pursuing stories that matter, with a career that has taken him from the fall of the Berlin Wall, to the groundbreaking investigation into the disappearance of Lynette Dawson in The Teacher’s Pet po...

What does it take to build a winning culture, and then sustain it at the highest level? In this special live episode of Empowering Leaders , we sit down with NFL legend and San Francisco 49ers General Manager John Lynch during the team’s historic visit to Melbourne. John shares the lessons behind his extraordinary journey; from struggling to establish himself as an NFL player, to helping tra...

For best-selling author, life coach and sociologist Dr. Martha Beck, living a successful and meaningful life isn't found in status or other people's expectations. It's found by discovering your own truth, and having the courage to live it. In this episode of Empowering Leaders, Martha explores why so many highly successful people often feel empty, how social and cultural expectations can pull us a...

Chris Judd is one of the most decorated players in AFL history, but his second chapter is proving to be equally as compelling as his first. In this conversation, Chris discusses his transition from elite sport to the world of finance and investing, and the attributes and lessons he has carried across both careers. From the discipline required to think differently and stay calm under pressure, to w...

Nick Truelson's career has taken him from a university work experience placement at Cadbury Schweppes, to senior leadership roles at some of Australia's most iconic sporting organisations. He has played integral roles at the AFL’s Essendon and Western Bulldogs football clubs, and now, he serves as CEO of the NBL’s Melbourne United basketball team. During his time as CCO of the Western...

Ben Cousins and Scott Miller have both experienced the extraordinary highs that come with sporting greatness. However, behind the wins and accolades, they were both fighting personal battles that would eventually play out on a very public stage. In this conversation, Ben and Scott open up about their experiences with finding (and losing) their identity through sport, the terrifying spiral into add...

Dr Lucy Hone has spent her career researching resilience, wellbeing and human flourishing. But when her 12-year-old daughter Abi was tragically killed in a car accident, the science she had dedicated her life to suddenly became deeply personal. In this profoundly moving conversation, Lucy shares the lessons she has learned from both decades of research and her own experience of grief. She speaks a...

Tom Allen has spent more than 15 years at the highest level of professional football, including leadership roles at Aston Villa and Arsenal FC, where he helped shape one of the Premier League's most admired high-performance environments. Tom shares the leadership principles that transformed Arsenal from a club in turmoil, into Premier League champions under Mikel Arteta. You’ll hear some of...

Former professional footballer and Socceroo Bruce Djite knows what it takes to perform at the highest level on the field, but his most impressive achievement may be what came AFTER football. After retiring from a sporting career that saw him play across five countries, including representing Australia on the world stage, Bruce made the successful transition from elite sport into executive leadersh...

For more than two decades, Chris Lendrum has been immersed in the world of elite sport. A significant period of that time was spent leading the systems, culture and people behind one of the world's most successful high-performance sporting organisations, New Zealand Rugby, where he worked with the All Blacks, Black Ferns and the Olympic gold medal-winning sevens teams. In this episode of Empowerin...

As an intensive care paramedic, Sally Gould has spent over 15 years on the front lines of emergency medicine, witnessing both the chaos of life-and-death situations and the quiet resilience that defines her profession. In this episode of Empowering Leaders, Sally reveals how she stays calm in high-pressure situations, the role humour and humanity play in managing trauma, and why empathy is one of...

What happens to our relationships when the most available, most responsive, most patient listener in our lives is an AI? Bryony Cole has been sitting with that question longer than almost anyone. As the founder of the Future of Sex platform, she stepped into one of the most uncomfortable conversations a person could choose to have, more than a decade ago, and never looked back. What started as a c...

There's a moment in this conversation where Matt Wadewitz describes getting a phone call at 3am. He'd saved the name in his phone just in case - because he'd hoped it was coming. The voice on the other end had a beautiful Spanish accent. It was Mikel Arteta. That call is a good entry point into who Matt is and what he's built. Because Aleda Connect - the global leadership program he co-founded wit...

Brad Johnson holds the Western Bulldogs games record - 364 games. 558 goals, six All Australian selections, a Hall of Fame inductee. He is, by any measure, one of the greats of his generation. This is a beautiful conversation with a genuinely extraordinary person that still trains like he's trying to earn his spot - he drove an hour to be first at the track the morning this conversation was record...

Timmy Bristow was nine years old when he ruptured his pancreas playing footy at recess, crawled to the tap, and waited alone in a dark staffroom until his mum finished her shift. By the time she arrived he was blue. A few hours later he was on an ambulance plane to the Royal Children's Hospital in Melbourne with a thirty percent chance of surviving surgery.  While Timmy was in hospital, of th...

When Lexi Edmondson walked down to Bondi Beach to celebrate finishing her master's degree, she had no idea her life was about to change forever. What began as a summer evening by the water for hundreds of people became one of Australia's most devastating acts of violence - and Lexi ran towards it. In her most in-depth interview since the December attack, Lexi sits down with Luke Darcy to take us i...

Harry Moffitt spent decades inside one of the world's most demanding institutions - Australia's Special Air Service Regiment. He's served in conflict zones across the Middle East including Afghanistan, lost friends, mentored some of the country's most elite operators, and now works as a corporate psychologist helping leaders, athletes, and organisations perform under pressure. He's also the author...

What separates the leaders and athletes who perform under pressure from those who crack? According to Dr Phil Hopley, it comes down to one overlooked discipline: daily recovery. Phil is a consultant psychiatrist and one of the world's leading experts in mental performance. Through Cognacity - the specialist psychology organisation he leads - Phil has worked inside elite sport, global boardrooms an...