The Evolution Partners

Customer service expert Monique Richardson argues that exceptional service starts long before a customer interaction. It begins with leadership, culture and how people inside the organisation are treated. Monique is an author, speaker and consultant, for more than two decades, she has helped organisations across Australia create customer experiences that build loyalty, trust and lasting relationsh...

The biggest barrier to growth is often not a lack of talent, effort or ideas. It is the complexity that quietly accumulates inside organisations, consuming time, energy and attention. Lisa Bodell believes that when leaders focus on removing unnecessary work, rather than adding more, they create the space for better thinking, stronger performance and more meaningful results.  Lisa is a futuris...

Honesty is not a value to put on the wall. It is a behaviour, a skill and a choice leaders must practise every day. Dom Thurbon is an entrepreneur, researcher, writer and speaker who has spent nearly 20 years helping leaders and organisations change behaviour through disruption. He has built and sold two global businesses, worked as a partner at EY, co-founded Alchemy Labs and written several publ...

Senior leaders do not get ownership from their leaders simply by setting expectations. According to leadership coach and author Kylie Paatsch, ownership grows when people feel known, trusted, supported and clear about what matters.  Kylie is a leadership coach and speaker who has spent more than 30 years leading at every level and more than 20 years coaching and facilitating senior leaders fr...

Entrepreneurs often build the business they want, then try to fit their life around it. The better path is to define the life you want first, then build a business that supports it. That’s according to Brian Brault, a seasoned entrepreneur, leadership educator and former global chair of Entrepreneurs’ Organisation.  Brian built and scaled multiple companies, including Advanced Fac...

Great leadership is not about having all the answers. It is about creating clarity, communicating with empathy and helping people perform at their best under pressure. Leadership expert Leah Mether argues that the “soft skills” of communication, accountability and psychological safety are now the hardest and most valuable skills in business, especially in a world increasingly shaped by...

Feeling stuck is not always a warning sign. Often, the discomfort, uncertainty and challenge people try to avoid are the very conditions that produce growth.  Performance consultant, speaker and author Andrew Horsfield discusses why so many capable people mistake struggle for failure. Drawing on his work with leaders in business, elite sport and education, Andrew explains the difference betwe...

The future is not something technology decides for us. According to applied futurist Brian David Johnson, leaders must keep humans at the centre, retain their agency, and actively shape what comes next.  Brian David Johnson is an applied futurist who helps governments, militaries, corporations and startups build actionable visions of the future. He was the first futurist at Intel Corporation,...

In the second of this two-part series Andres Zylberberg, Richard Peake and I continue to answer the rest of the 25 questions entrepreneurs must answer to build an enduring great company.  After exploring vision and strategy in part one, this conversation moves into leadership, execution and the economic engine. We discuss why second-level leaders matter, why accountability must be documented...

For this special 100th episode, I’m joined by Andres Zylberberg and Richard Peake. We unpack the 25 questions every entrepreneur must answer. It is a framework designed to help business owners assess where growth is happening, where it is stalling, and what may be holding the business back.  In part one of this two-part series, we focus on two of the five disciplines in the Compounding...

The true test of leadership is not what a person knows, but how they behave when the pressure is on. That’s according to behavioural risk strategist Preetie Boler, who insists that many workplace problems commonly seen as technical are, in fact, behavioural.  With 30+ years’ experience in legal and commercial roles across construction and facilities management, Preetie explains wh...

Your results in negotiation are shaped long before you enter the room – the internal dialogue you carry determines whether you ask, hold firm, or settle early. That’s according to negotiation specialist Glin Bailey, whose background in commercial finance and two decades in multinational organisations brings a distinctive lens to negotiation.  Glin shares her belief that every nego...

Sustained performance is not built on willpower alone. Leaders who ignore sleep, recovery and the biological effects of stress eventually compromise decision-making, energy and long-term health.  Camilla Thompson is one of Australia’s leading biohacking experts and executive wellness coaches, working with high-performing leaders to optimise health, performance, and longevity. After expe...

If you want the best out of your team, you can’t bludgeon them with data and expect it to stick. Numbers inform, but stories are what people remember, repeat and act on. Gabrielle Dolan is a leading expert on business storytelling, having worked with organisations including Australia Post, National Australia Bank and Accenture. She is the author of six books on leadership communication.&nbsp...

Artificial intelligence is no longer a peripheral experiment; it is becoming a defining force in how organisations operate, compete and grow. Leaders who treat it as a simple software upgrade risk missing the far deeper transformation already underway.   That’s according to Steve Brown, futurist, author, and former Intel and Google DeepMind executive, who examines what practical AI adop...

Peptides are rapidly emerging as one of the most discussed frontiers in modern medicine and longevity science. Yet alongside the promise sits significant confusion, misinformation and regulatory complexity. Understanding where peptides genuinely fit within evidence-based healthcare is becoming increasingly important for clinicians, entrepreneurs and high-performing professionals seeking better hea...

A strong leadership team is not built by accident. It comes from clarity, trust, high standards and the courage to stop tolerating mediocrity. That’s according to Dominic Monkhouse, a UK-based business coach who works with founder CEOs growing through the complexity of scale.  Dominic explains why A-teams matter, how great coaches help people see potential they cannot yet see in themsel...

Steve Stanley is a former education CEO and Army Reserve Lieutenant Colonel who has spent decades building leaders in high-stakes environments. Now a Director at the CEO Institute WA and Team Smart, he designs strengths-based leadership and change programs across business, government and elite sport, including BHP, Chevron, the West Coast Eagles and the WA Institute of Sport. Steve shares 39 hard-...

AI can lift performance fast, but only if you guard the thinking, the standards, and the trust behind it. That’s according to Leanne Shelton, founder and CEO of Human Edge AI Training. Leanne shares her journey from copywriting to AI training and keynote speaking after early shifts in client behaviour signalled that AI was changing the nature of knowledge work.  She explains the risks o...

Best-selling author Mike Michalowicz returns to explore what sits beneath financial systems: psychology, habits, and the personal behaviours that drive money stress. Mike explains why successful entrepreneurs often struggle with money despite strong businesses, highlighting the tension between business and personal finances.  He discusses lifestyle inflation, the myth that growth fixes everyt...

Australia is entering a period of long-term labour scarcity and rapid demographic change driven by ageing, low fertility, and migration-led population growth. Hari Hara Priya Kannan, Chief Data Scientist at The Demographics Group, explains why these shifts matter for business and the economy. She outlines how population trends influence workforce availability, consumer behaviour, and long-term pla...

Robert Glazer is a bestselling author, podcast host, and founder of Acceleration Partners, a global partner marketing agency known for its remote-first approach, values-based culture, and commitment to developing talent. Known for blending strategy with practical leadership, Robert brings a grounded, real-world perspective to conversations about work and life.  He explores why so many people...

Mark Butler is an expert working at the intersection of psychology and performance. Mark helps leaders and teams perform under pressure while reducing the mental-health risks that quietly undermine results. He’s known for turning complex psychological insights into practical tools leaders can use immediately. His work sits at the forefront of burnout prevention, psychosocial hazard complianc...

Germany’s Mittelstand is the quiet engine of its economy, and Australian mid-market leaders can learn a lot from it. In this last of the summer series Andres Zylberberg, Richard Peake and I examine how these often family-owned firms dominate narrow global niches by focusing on being the best in the world at one thing.  They think in decades, not quarters, and build deep capability throu...

Many leaders avoid pricing decisions due to fear of losing volume, yet pricing has the greatest impact on profitability. Andres Zylberberg, Richard Peake and I continue our summer series on why pricing must be treated as a core business function rather than an ad hoc reaction when profits decline.  A critical factor is pricing elasticity: different products and services respond differently to...