The High Flyers Podcast with Vidit Agarwal

Matt Kean is the Chair of the Climate Change Authority in the Australian Government, appointed in 2024 after a distinguished 13-year career in NSW politics. Matt held senior roles including Treasurer and Energy Minister, he led groundbreaking initiatives like the Electricity Infrastructure Roadmap, which boosted renewable energy investment while reducing power bills. Matt was also Deputy Leader of...

Dr. Kate Cornick is the CEO of LaunchVic, leading efforts to build Victoria’s startup ecosystem and she has been in the role since 2016, and her impact has been incredible in funding and supporting numerous Venture Capital firms, angel networks, accelerators and more. With a Ph. D. in telecommunications engineering, she has held key roles at NBN Co and the University of Melbourne. Recently appoint...

Paul Bassat is a visionary leader in venture capital, technology, and community impact. As Co-founder and Partner at Square Peg, a top venture capital firm spanning Australia, Israel, and Southeast Asia -- Paul champions founders building transformative global startups. His portfolio includes investments in icons like Canva, Airwallex, and Rokt. In 1997, Paul co-founded SEEK, pioneering one of Aus...

In this interview, hear from Mike Schneider, Managing Director (MD) at Bunnings. As MD of Bunnings, Mike leads nearly 53,000 team members and drives one of Australia’s most trusted brands that is recognised globally. Since joining in 2005, Mike has worked his way up through various roles to lead a business that reported $18.97 billion in revenue in 2024. Beyond Bunnings, Mike gives back through bo...

In this rare public interview, hear from Hartley Pike, Co-founder and CEO of Sitemate. Sitemate builds software products for the built world, with over 2000 customers and 150 employees across both remote roles as well as five offices in Melbourne, Sydney, London, Vancouver and Toronto. Sitemate is the 8th most valuable startup to come out of accelerator Startmate since it started in 2011. It was v...

Osher Günsberg is one of the most recognisable media personalities. He first came to attention as the face of Australian Idol and the voice of Australia's largest weekly radio countdown, Take 40 Australia.  He was recently host of The Bachelor and The Bachelorette on Channel Ten.  Osher was also part of the Breakfast Team and co-host of Hit105's radio brekky show alongside Abby Coleman and Stav Da...

This is a rare public interview with Jean-Michel Lemieux, a highly acclaimed technology leader who was CTO at Shopify, where he grew the engineering team from 50 to 4,000. Prior to that, he served as VP of Engineering at Atlassian working very closely with the world renowned Founders, Mike-Cannon Brookes and Scott Farquhar. He recently co-founded SeaPeople, owns/runs the Arlo Wine and Restaurant i...

“Man who tries to create impact, and take a charitable and social enterprise movement to a forever movement. We are immediate responders.” is how Shaun describes his work today. Shaun Christie-David is a visionary leader transforming the way we think about food and social impact. As the founder of the Plate It Forward movement, he has created a network of socially driven restaurants and initiative...

Stevie case is the Chief Revenue Officer at Vanta, a leading cloud-based security and compliance company that has surpassed $100 million in annual recurring revenue and serves over 8,000 customers globally. In her role, she leads Vanta's go-to-market team, driving initiatives that support the company's rapid growth. And Stevie has an all-star resume to back this up.  She was previously vice presid...

Bill is the Co-founder and Managing Partner of Main Sequence, Asia Pacific's largest dedicated deep tech VC fund backed by the Australian National Science Agency, CSIRO, the Australian Federal Government, and private investors including Temasek in Singapore.  Bill is a prominent voice in the Technology, Venture Capital and Startup ecosystem. Prior to Main Sequence, he co-founded Blackbird Ventures...

Sam and Jack are Co-Founders and Co-CEOs of Cuttable. Sam co-founded A Cloud Guru, which revolutionised cloud education and sold for $2 billion. Jack has 20 years in advertising. He co-founded Sunday Gravy in 2021, quickly becoming a leading creative agency in Australia, and he comes from a highly credential family lineage of creative excellence. Cuttable is an ad creation platform, that combines...

Dom Price has a diverse career spanning Europe, the US, and Asia Pacific. As Work Futurist at Atlassian for 11+ years, he helps teams maximise their potential and navigate transformation. A renowned global speaker and avid traveler, Dom has visited over 53 countries but has called Australia home for 21 years. Hosted by Vidit Agarwal, Founder of Curiosity Center and The High Flyers Podcast. It’s no...

We're joined by Sam Sicilia in a very rare public interview appearance. Sam is the Chief Investment Officer for the multi-billion dollar superannuation Fund (Retirement savings) Hostplus, often referred to as a 'giant' in the industry with around 1.7 million members and over $100b funds under management. Hostplus were pioneers in laying the foundations of various VC funds including Blackbird, Squa...

In another edition of our Round Table and Provocation series, hear from Justin Lipman and Henry Innis in their first ever public interview together (and a particularly rare appearance for Justin in the public domain)! Justin has been with EVP since 2015 and has developed a reputation as a leading software investor and is actively involved in the Fund’s portfolio management activities. He is a Boar...

Will Davies was the co-founder and CEO of Australia’s biggest peer-to-peer car sharing platform, Car Next Door.  Founded in 2012, they grew to over one million trips taken through the platform. In January 2022 Car Next Door was acquired by Uber for an estimated $105M. Will was born in Regional NSW and now lives in Sydney, Australia. Hosted by Vidit Agarwal, Founder of Curiosity Center and The High...

James is a General Partner at Airtree Ventures and this is a very rare public interview with him, we understand his first since 2018.  James has a particular interest in software, infrastructure and fintech and led Airtree's investments in A Cloud Guru, Constantinople, DroneDeploy, Zepto, Buildkite and Secure Code Warrior. Prior to joining Airtree, James spent 15 years working in the US, UK and As...

Sarah is the co-founder and Managing Partner of Tenacious Ventures - Australia's first AgTech venture firm. Their $35M first fund was backed by Grok Ventures, the Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC) with investors including primary producers, and agribusiness executives. Tenacious Ventures has so far backed 14 startups building a more sustainable and resilient agri-food system.   To confirm he...

Scott served as the recent Head of Innovation for Customer Engineering at Google. He worked at the company from 2015 through 2024 in the Ads Data Platforms, Analytics and Google Cloud product areas in ANZ and APAC. Before Google, Scott worked with Adobe on digital strategy and transformation. Scott is a also recent graduate of the VC catalyst program delivered by The Wade Institute of Entrepreneur...

In this special conversation, hear from three relatable role models: Adam Milgrom, Partner at Giant Leap; Jacqui Purcell, Operating Advisor at TDM Growth Partners (She's also ex CFO of two leading tech companies in Culture Amp + Deputy) and Ashleigh Camm, Board Course Director/VP of Labs at LUNA about how exactly Founders and Investors should build 'zero to great' relationships, a key ingredient i...

Steve Baxter is a Tech entrepreneur and Investor. He co-founded the Investing Platform, TEN13 and recently a VC Fund, Beaten Zone Venture Partners focused on DefenseTech. He has built and sold two startups: SE Net and PIPE Networks (for $373M). He was a 'Shark' on the hit TV series, Shark Tank for four seasons, showcasing his business expertise. This episode is hosted by Vidit Agarwal, Founder of...

Phoebe is a Partner in Blackbird’s NZ team with investments in Tracksuit, VeVe and Carepatron. Prior to joining Blackbird, she was a Director in the Growth Equity fund at Generation (Al Gore's Growth Equity Fund). David is an Entrepreneur in Residence at Blackbird NZ and previously an early employee at Angel List, Carta, and 500 Startups. He then built and led the global education startup + founde...

Craig Blair is the Co-Founder and Partner at Airtree, a globally recognised Venture Capital firm with $1B+ funds under management. Before AirTree, he was a partner at Netus, a venture fund with a global top decile track record. He has also been a founder of three software businesses -- two of which were successful and one of which was a painful learning experience. Craig was born in Ontario, Canad...

Welcome to installment #25 of the Investment Memo series and overall episode #167 on the show.  Submit this EOI for your company to be considered in future episodes of this special series! *** Adam Jones and Ringo Thomas are the Co-Founders of CLT Toolbox, a software company building solutions for structural engineers and architects that radically simplifies the process for designing with zero- an...

Alasdair is Executive Chairman of Macdoch, a private investment company with offices in Sydney and London. Macdoch comprises of Macdoch Ventures, investing in early stage tech startups, Macdoch Agriculture using capital to drive global climate solutions and the Macdoch foundation. Al was previously a senior leader at Newscorp for over 20 years and fun fact: he is married to one of Rupert Murdoch’s...

Jillian Broadbent is one of the leading Business and Industry minds, with extensive investment banking industry knowledge and markets expertise, including a deep knowledge of risk management and regulation. She has served on the boards of many organisations, encompassing finance, the arts, and other sectors. She is currently a Member of the Board of Macquarie Group, and previously Coca Cola, Qanta...