Scaling Up: Lessons From The World's Best CEOs and Founders

My guest today is Kristo Käärmann, the co-Founder and CEO of Wise, the fintech   £ 10b powerhouse that's fixing one of the most broken systems in the global economy: how money moves across borders. Wise simply started as a personal workaround, with Kristo trying to move money between Estonia and the UK, where he soon realised that international payments weren't just slow and expensive by accident....

Grant Hackett is a three-time Olympic gold medallist and undoubtedly one of the greatest distance swimmers of all time. Since stepping out of the pool more than 15years ago, he’s crafted a second chapter as an executive and now as CEO of Generation Development Group (ASX:GDG), a diversified financial services business that has grown fifteen-fold under his leadership to become an ASX 200 company. G...

We last sat down with Bruce Buchanan in late 2019 — at the time, Rokt was in hyper-growth, having just raced through the US$100 million revenue mark. The business was laser-focused on the transaction moment — unlocking its potential for merchants, advertisers, and consumers alike. In the six years since, Rokt’s revenue has grown more than eightfold. The company is now strongly profitable and has b...

We’re reaching back into the archive  for the second time this season to revisit a conversation from 2019 with Bruce Buchanan, the co founder and CEO of Rokt. I will be sitting down with Bruce again soon for a follow-up episode covering everything that’s happened since 2019. Even if you have heard this episode before or if  are new to Scaling Up since then,  this is a must listen.  It serves not o...

Owen Jennings, the head of product at Block Inc(NYSE:XYZ) and a key person around the executive table of what is now by market cap, one of the largest 500 companies in the world. Block (formerly known as Square) is really several powerful ecosystems under one roof: Square serving millions of merchants; Cash App, the consumer super app that's become the financial home for tens of millions of people...

From a kitchen table in Liverpool, England, to the dressing rooms of some of the world's biggest sports teams, Castore is one of the fastest growing premium sportswear brands on the planet. Founded in 2015 by brothers Tom and Phil Beahon, both former professional athletes. Castore was built on grit, obsession and a bit of a chip on the shoulder. With no fashion experience, no contacts, no outside...

“What does it take to scale one of the most trusted brands in Australia without losing its soul?” Today’s guest is Michael Schneider , Managing Director of Bunnings since 2016 and a 20-year veteran of the business. Bunnings is more than a retailer. It’s a cultural institution. With more than 380 stores, $18b in revenue and  55,000 team members, it’s hard to imagine a time when Bunnings wasn’t the...

When Steven first joined us in 2019, GYG was already making noise—130 stores, a cult-like customer base, and a founder who was across every detail of the business from avocado sourcing to store design. That episode became one of our most replayed for good reason: it was raw, passionate, and incredibly insightful. But so much has changed since then. GYG has nearlydoubled its footprint, gone public,...

We are reaching back into the archive to revisit a conversation from 2019 with Steven Marks, the co-founder and CEO of Guzman y Gomez. This was one of the most electric conversations of the early years of the show. Steven shared his passion for food, brand, technology, and most of all, people—with a clarity and energy that defined him as a founder on a mission. At the time of this recording, GYG h...

Tim Doyle is the co-founder and CEO of Eucalyptus , a digital healthcare business that in just a few short years has redefined what 'patient first care' can look like in this country and abroad. If you haven't heard of Eucalyptus, you might know it via its house of Brands, Pilot, Kin, Software, Juniper, each delivering vertically integrated care in everything from men'shealth to fertility to weigh...

Silvija Martincevic, the Croatian born, San Francisco based CEO of Australian founded Unicorn Deputy. Silvija's executive career has been immense in the world of fast-growing technology, as the COO of Group On, and then the chief commercial officer of Affirm, that scaled annual revenue through the billion-dollar ceiling and beyond IPO. Silvija grew up in Croatia and while she didn't learn...

Very rarely do you get to tell the story of a wildly successful entrepreneur that is largely unknown beyond the immediate circle of influence. Today on Scaling Up, Greg Boorer, the CEO and Founder of CDC, formally Canberra Data Centres, which is in some rarefied air among companies globally, having compounded earnings at over 30% for the last 15 years. It's now valued well in excess of $10 bil...

Bill Beament grew up in a working class family out of Esperance in Western Australia. He dreamed of being a general manager of a mine one day. Instilled at a young age with a deep work ethic and an acute commercial sense, he achieved much, much more than this as CEO and Executive Chair of Northern Star. Bill reshaped the underground gold mining industry and built from scratch a $16b, ASX 50 behemo...

Hiroki Takeuchi, the co-founder and CEO of GoCardless started in 2011. GoCardless is a star of the blossoming UK FinTech scene- last valued at $2.1b, the business is on a mission to take the pain out of payments for businesses of all shapes and sizes – from your local gym collecting monthly membership right through to the Uk’s biggest utility companies. Payment collection is a problem as old as ti...

What is a high-performing culture? It's a question some think as straightforward as it is philosophical. In these special episodes, we explore high performing cultures;  what they are, how to create them, and most importantly how to not just maintain them, but scale them. By drawing upon the wisdom of the previous CEOs, founders, leaders who I have had the pleasure of interviewing over the las...

What is a high-performing culture? It's a question some think as straightforward as it is philosophical. In these special episodes, we explore high performing cultures;  what they are, how to create them, and most importantly how to not just maintain them, but scale them. By drawing upon the wisdom of the previous CEOs, founders, leaders who I have had the pleasure of interviewing over the las...

Adam Schwab is our guest on Scaling Up, the CEO and co-founder of Luxury Escapes – a travel marketplace with almost $1b in bookings annually. Adam’s story is that of a quintessential and accomplished entrepreneur – one of trial and error, learning from mistakes and applying it to the next chapter as is always required. Luxury escapes and its coming to being is exactly this – the twist and turns of...

Reggie Aggarwal is the co-founder of Cvent , a $600m revenue Software company, that is listed on the Nasdaq (ticker CVT ). Cvent is allows organizations to  more efficiently run, manage and host all formats of events from virtual to in-person and hybrid. If you have been to a large conference recently, chances are it hasa been powered by Cvent. Reggie is in a very unique position, having founded t...

Ruslan Kogan, the CEO and co-founder of Kogan.com ( ASX:KGN ) is the guest on this episode of 'Scaling Up'. Kogan.com is Australia’s largest pure play online retailer with over $1b in sales. Many listeners over the years would have no doubt been introduced to Kogan.com via their incredibly successful own brand electronics business that catapulted the business to a size and scale that has allowed t...

After a mini hiatus, 'Scaling Up' is back, and we have some incredible guests lined up in the coming months, none more so than this episode. Alex Vynokur came to Australia as a 16 year old from Soviet Ukraine, not speaking a work of English, but with a steely determination to make something of himself. And that is an understatement as to what he has achieved since – in the midst of the GFC, he co-...

Joel Montaniel is the Co-founder, and CEO of SevenRooms , a private software company devoted to improving the way hospitality operators leverage their data to enhance business operations, build better direct relationships with customers and deliver an unforgettable customer experience. In their own words, SevenRooms allows ‘the big to feel small and the small to feel big’ when it comes to customer...

Hugh Williams probably isn't a name that pops to the front of mind when talking Australia's greatest technology exports - but it should. His career leading huge teams on cutting edge projects at global tech giants Google, Microsoft and eBay have fundamentally changed the way we live our lives. Globally, few possess the depth of domain expertise as Hugh.  This episode dives into 'what great lo...

Our guest today on scaling up is Jenn Hyman, co-founder and CEO of Rent the Runway ( Nasdaq:RENT ). From a thought bubble to ringing the bell on the Nasdaq and being the first business to do so with a female CEO, CFO and COO, Jenn has been at the helm of a business that is a classic two-sided network case study. We dive into this, and the scaling challenges of growing both sides of the network in...

Mike Serbinis is the CEO and co-founder of League – a healthcare platform on a mission to empower people to live the lives that they want to lead; happier, healthier and longer.  League started on the premise that the future of healthcare and its delivery was going to be less bureaucratic, less institutional, and consumer first. This simple insight came about both from personal interactions w...

Series 6 of Scaling Up kicks off with Tim Brown & Joey Zwillinger, the co-founders and co-CEOs of AllBirds . From a Kickstarter campaign, to listing on the NASDAQ (NASDAQ:BIRD) in a little over six years, this is an insane scaling story of one of the fastest growing brands in history.  Originally born out of hustle and grit and then of thoughtful growth and innovation, Allbirds’ brand has...