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

Welcome to Season 2 of Scaling Up!  My guest on this episode is Spencer Rascoff.  Spencer looms as a large figure in the US tech scene – twice he has co-founded billion dollar businesses. His first, the travel website HotWire was sold to Expedia, and it was there, he met Rich Barton – the Expedia and Glassdoor founder. Together, with several others, they then set off and co-founded Zillo...

Welcome to a bonus episode of Scaling Up season one – I recorded this while on the road recording season 2, but it feels like it has a natural home, with the other amazing Australian growth stories told in the previous season. Nick Stone is the CEO and founder of BlueStone Lane. This story starts in an underground coffee shop in New York City, where an ex AFL player, turned investment banker decid...

Unlike the other interviews in this series, this is a retrospective tale, recounting one of Australia’s greatest turnaround stories Guy Russo is one of Australia’s business masterminds. As CEO of McDonald's Australia and China for over a decade, both businesses excelled. His toughest assignment though was to salvage Kmart from the scrapheap. Under his guidance, he guided Kmart to retail supremacy...

This is the quintessential heroic founding tale. In 2001, with online retail in its infancy, Kate with just $12,000 of borrowed money in her back pocket, set out with a mission of empowering women to make better beauty decisions. At this point, everything was against her. No experience, no money, no brands wanting to join her platform. Fast forward 20 years and Adore Beauty will this year have ove...

Didier Elzinga is the co-founder and CEO of Culture Amp – a people and culture platform, with a mission of powering culture focused companies right around the world.  Culture Amp is a pin-up of the growing Australian technology scene, having recently  reached unicorn status – the coveted billion-dollar valuation. While on the periphery, this founding story could be seen to be that of a q...

Baby Bunting is Australia’s largest baby goods retailer, and this episode tracks the strategy & execution of what was a small, state-based, family-owned and operated business into the emergence of the leading national retailer in the category. Matt gives amazing insight into the playbook of how this all unfolded over the 10 years (and counting) of his time as CEO, driving revenue from $40m to...

Unknown to many, Bruce is one of Australia’s great entrepreneurs. As CEO, he scaled Jetstar to Asia’s largest low-cost carrier and then he co-founded ROKT, a global marketing technology business with over $100m in revenue that is growing rapidly. Bruce has seen everything from start-up land to billions in revenue and  so he is a great person to give insight into many of the key issues and pai...

Steven Marks is the founder and global CEO of Guzman y Gomez – Australia’s fastest-growing quick-service restaurant. Steven’s inspirational story is one of someone who has seen the full spectrum of both success and setback. His passion for his brand is undoubtedly palpable. The lessons Steven has learned on leadership while fighting the challenges of scaling a business of this complexity make...

"Scaling Up" is a new podcast series, hosted by Ed Cowan. Scaling a business is hard. Very few succeed to even navigate their way through startup land, and many that do hit a wall at some stage. Some companies though, find a way to continue to grow year on year, and in doing so become incredibly successful and durable businesses.  This podcast is on a mission to discover the secret sauce of t...