Hard Yards in Leadership

In previous episodes we had Annabelle Chauncy, the founder of School For Life on to talk about her journey and challenges with the foundation. This time we are going a step further and talking to Janepher Nansunga, one of the other founding team members of School For life. Jan’s story is not just hard yards in leadership but also hard yards in life. Jan is the feet on the ground person in Uganda w...

To book an exclusive spot in our High Performance Leadership summit head here: https://www.trialtitudeperformance.com.au/registration1660014924140 This week we have possibly our smartest guest on the podcast. Tamara Davis is a Sydney born and bred Astrophysicist and someone I have personally known since childhood. She has skyrocketed through the fields of academia and has experienced leadership in...

This year I am joining some incredible coaches and guest speakers in hosting a 3 day High Performance Leadership Summit from March 8th to 10th. We'll be empowering elite leaders through an immersive 3-day transformational journey, our mission is to provide a multi-disciplinary approach to High Performance leadership. In an exclusive and intimate setting, we unlock unparalleled insights from milita...

To book an exclusive spot in our High Performance Leadership summit head here: https://www.trialtitudeperformance.com.au/registration1660014924140   For this weeks we are taking a look at the hard yards and lessons that come from competing in the highest levels of Olympic sport. While this episode doesn’t focus on leadership challenges, the hard yards and lessons will be ones that can help many of...

This year I am joining some incredible coaches and guest speakers in hosting a 3 day High Performance Leadership Summit from March 8th to 10th. We'll be empowering elite leaders through an immersive 3-day transformational journey, our mission is to provide a multi-disciplinary approach to High Performance leadership. In an exclusive and intimate setting, we unlock unparalleled insights from milita...

For this week’s episode we are joined by JC or Juan Carlos Aragon. He is a long term 30+ year veteran of the global optical industry. He has been my colleague and my boss in the past and he is truly one of the most experienced and wise leaders that I have had the pleasure to work with. He is a proven successful global business and people leader with over 39 years of multi-functional experience in...

Trigger warning: terminal cancer and depression   We’ve discussed how hard it can be to lead when battling personal illness on this podcast before. But how do you handle things when you have a terminal illness? That is a question that Dane O’Connor has absolutely answered. Dane is a Senior Business manager for the Department of Regional NSW and he is also a member liaison Officer for the Cancer Co...

This episode’s guest is a leader who radiates approachability and kindness, but that doesn’t mean he hasn’t faced his fair share of hard yards. Jonathon (Jono) Peatfield is CEO of Life Ed NSW/ACT. He manages a team of 80 people delivering health and wellbeing programs to around 280,000 children right across NSW and the ACT, with support from the infamous mascot Healthy Harold.  After graduating in...

We often compare leading a workplace to coaching a sports team because there are so many similarities to be drawn. So many in fact that for this episode we are picking the brain of a truly great Australian sports coach for his leadership wisdom. John Buchanan is renowned for his remarkable success as an international sports coach for the Australian men’s cricket team Now, he utilises his extensive...

People management can be one of the hardest challenges for leaders and that is no different for this episode’s guest Steve Johnston. In fact he even admits it himself in this episode. Repeatedly. And that’s saying a lot, because if Steve can find this a challenge, the rest of us surely will as well. Steve has an extensive career and is a seasoned and experienced non-executive director and CEO. He’...

Trigger warning: suicide Our guest for the episode is my incredibly dear friend Jess Lawton She has over 17 years of experience in human resources and organisational development, is passionate about working with people and teams and her goal is to challenge status quo and use her experience in change management, strategy, business design and development to hone in on organisational leaders and tea...

Every leadership role has it’s own hard yards or challenges and in this episode we’ll be delving into what exactly it’s like to found and run a non for profit organisation in a country like Uganda. In this episode I’ll be speaking with Annabelle Chauncy OAM. While Annabelle grew in up in rural New South Wales and completed a Bachelor of Arts/Law at Sydney University. Her passion lies in developing...

For some time I’ve been grappling with other sorts of leaders who would add different experiences for us to learn from. I’ve wanted to hear from some younger leaders and their hard yards, so that’s what we will be doing in this episode with our guest Elly Wright. Her story is pretty straight forward, she was in the travel industry, she got her first break into management right as the covid restric...

Today’s guest is David Neal. David is a leader, strategist, founder, project and change manager, as well as a practical consultant for clients such as the ADA NSW, University of Sydney, Australian Defence Force, Prescare, RSL Queensland, MedReleaf, and KPMG. ​He is one of the authors of ‘Growing Good Leaders’ which focuses on developing high performing teams and running projects. He travels throug...

In this podcast we are trying to learn lessons from leaders with different backgrounds. From corporate to military and beyond. This episode’s guest is Dina Coppel who started as a high flying lawyer who decided to follow her passion and took a hard left turn and became an entrepreneur and a founder. As life progressed she became a parent and a partner and found herself living in different parts of...

For this episode we are joined by Ali Flynn who has a truly remarkable story. After studying and working as a psychologist, the shift to motherhood left Ali with uncertainty around her future career. A suggestion from a friend prompted her to try her hand at personal training but before things could get too far disaster struck when she had a stroke and was hospitalised with a long road to recovery...

For this episode we are joined by Mike Williamson, a person with a fascinating career. He started in management consulting in London, he moved to the education sector where he rose to become a senior leader in the schooling system.  then he morphed his career to the not for profit sector where he went on to hold senior leadership roles in organisations such as Bicycle network Victoria, The Brother...

For this episode we are joined by Clifford Morgan, an endorsed organisational psychologist and leadership expert with over fifteen years of service with the Royal Australian Air Force. His years of service leading and coaching people – both in uniform and out – bring a wealth of experience that provides a unique perspective to assist his clients. As a coach Clifford has worked with CEOs, military...

This episode’s guest is founder and director of DHaRCO, Mandy Davis. Davis is a downhill rider and racer who calls Sydney’s Northern Beaches home. Like many founders she created the brand after finding there wasn’t something that suited her needs. When she couldn’t find any clothing that suited what she was after in terms of comfort and style she founded DHaRCO, but well before that she has had a...

This week’s episode we are joined by someone I had heard so many connections rave about before I ever met him. Neil Luo is one of those rare people who is such a wonderful leader that he has built a massive following. In his early days he was a consultant with Boston Consulting Group, and since then has worked with Expedia, hotels.com and seek and moved to Airwallex during their hyper growth perio...

This episode’s guest is Ron Gottlieb, the owner of Ricky Richards (Sales) Pty Ltd. Originally founded by Ron’s late brother Norman and then joining him shortly thereafter, the company has specialised in the development and distribution of commercial and industrial textiles for the last 40 years. Since its inception, Ricky has grown to become the industry leading distributor and supplier of choice...

This episode’s guest is Chris Simon. Chris is the technical co-founder of  https://www.inloop.com.au , home of Australian Fintech success stories  https://www.flexischools.com.au  and  https://www.lanternpay.com  (Recently acquired by NAB). Since 2021 he has been coaching startup CTOs through Dev Cycles Technology Advisory ( https://devcycles.io/page/consulting/ ) as well as supporting executives...

This episode’s guest is Steve Melhuish, a tech entrepreneur, investor and board advisor based in Asia for the last 18 years. He’s founded 4 companies, scaled teams from zero to 1,500 staff, built a tech platform used by 40+ million monthly consumers, raised $400M+ funding, executed 5 M&A deals, took a company IPO on NYSE, launched a climatetech venture fund and invested in/mentoring ~25 greent...

This episode’s guest is Natalie Ashdown. Natalie is one of Australia’s most senior and experienced coaches and a recognised speaker and author. Her passion, vision, creativity and commitment assists and supports individuals, teams and companies to create lasting cultural change using coaching skills. Natalie is one of just 18 coaches in Australia to hold the  International Coach Federation  Master...

This episode’s guest is Tim Rossanis, the Managing Director of Turo Australia, the world’s largest peer-to-peer car sharing marketplace. He oversaw Turo’s launch into the Australian market, which is the company’s second international expansion in 2022 and the first in the APAC region. In this role, he leads Turo’s operations in Australia which span across Operations, Marketing, Claims/Protection,...