Don't Stop Us Now! Podcast

Ever had a boss who made life difficult? We have good news as this week’s show is one of our regular ‘How To’ episodes where we focus on a common career challenge; and our episode this week is all about How to Manage Up. Many of us have been there, that experience of frustration with a manager who just doesn't seem to get it for whatever reason. Maybe they're a little too hands-off and leave you floundering for direction, or maybe they're the complete opposite, a controlling micromanager who wants to be across every tiny detail.We certainly know what that feels like, and if you’re in that position right now, we feel for you. More importantly, this episode is especially for you! In this episode you’ll hear how to:Influence your manager: We'll share strategies on how to effectively communicate your ideas and get buy-in for your projectsGet the credit you deserve:  No more feeling like your contributions are going unnoticed! You’ll learn actionable tips to ensure your hard work gets the

If you’ve got a dream but don’t think you’re qualified to get there, think again. Our amazing guest today, venture capitalist Marisa Warren, is best described as a driven woman in a hurry. She’s never let a lack of experience stop her from chasing her goals. Marisa is co-founder and Managing Partner of a unique venture capital firm called Aliavia. Aliavia is a California based firm focused on early stage investments backing female founders in both the U.S. and Australia. Marisa has grown up in tech, spending the first 18 years of her career in enterprise software sales. She was in such a hurry to start working she ignored her parents’ urging to go to university and struck out to make her own path, starting in Sydney. In this episode you’ll hear how:How Marisa survives challenging times including being made redundant from big corporates on 3 separate occasions  What happened in a New York elevator when she met the Australian voice behind Siri Marisa’s advice to female founders to

We are back!! Yes, we know, we’ve had a long and awesome holiday :-)!  We hope your year has got off to a great start too. We have a blockbuster episode to leap into 2024 and it’s all about someone who stewards equally blockbusting brands. Ellie Norman runs marketing, communications and fan engagement at one of the world’s biggest sporting brands, the famed football club, Manchester United. Our minds were officially blown when Ellie told us she has to market to 1.1 billion fans around the world. That’s an incredible audience for any marketer. It’s not just the iconic Man United sporting brand that Ellie has experience with; she’s also been Global Director for Marketing and Communications at Formula One where she helped popularise the franchise. In fact, Ellie’s career has featured a lot of male-dominated industries and sectors as she also spent six years in marketing roles with Honda Motors in Europe. Her take on how to thrive and succeed in these environments is uplifting.  

And just like that… 2023 is coming to a close! We hope everyone’s enjoying the Holiday season.In our final episode for the year, we reflect on the best and most loved books, experiences, and habits and hacks we’re taking away from this year. We made a deliberate choice to focus on all things positive and constructive to help counter all the negative news in the world. We send our love and thoughts to anyone who’s doing it tough right now . . . it can be a difficult time for many people. In this episode you’ll hear about: Our top fiction books as well as our favourite two non fiction books and whyOur favourite podcast memories and experiences from the year Cultural moments that really resonated with each of us; and The top habits and hacks we’ve learnt (often from our guests) that have worked brilliantly for us. So as the final days for 2023 come to a close. We wish all of you a chance to rest and recuperate and all the very best for a happy, healthy and purposeful 2024. We’re taking t

Our guest this week is someone who’s never been one to sit around and rest on her laurels. What’s more, Sarah Davis is not what you’d describe as your everyday lawyer.Sarah’s high profile career in the UK has seen her garner much recognition for her legal career including being shortlisted for the Black British Business Awards and the UK’s Hot 100 Lawyers to name a few. London-based Sarah, has a broad non executive board career these days and also advises other organisations as a General Counsel. During her executive career she spent more than 15 years as General Counsel at The Guardian Media Group. That meant she was there in the thick of it when The Guardian was publishing the first Wikileaks stories, the Edward Snowdon stories, and of course so much more, which we’ll hear about. We think you can tell from Sarah’s Board career which includes Unicef UK and the Women’s Prize Trust (which awards the highly regarded Women's Prize for Fiction)  that Sarah has a huge heart and clearly a love of the

If you’re anything like us and fed up with all the bleak news, then this week’s episode may be just what you need; a guaranteed dose of positivity, progress and inspiration!We're joined by the humble and impressive Dr Lineo Thahane. Lineo is a paediatrician and is Executive Director of a major medical clinic in the Kingdom of Lesotho called the Baylor College of Medicine Children's Foundation Lesotho. Lesotho, a tiny country in southern Africa, is ranked number two in terms of the countries with the highest proportion of its adult population living with HIV in the world. Nearly one in 4 adults is HIV positive and many children are too.Lineo was born and raised in the US but her parents were both from Lesotho and so Lineo spent summer holidays back in Lesotho with her extended family. There, she was able to experience what it was like to live in her parents’ country of birth and, as she grew older, she felt a deep sense of unfairness at the differences in the standard of living in the US versus that of Le

We’re super excited this week to share a conversation with the globally known best selling author, TED speaker, social psychologist, and incredible roller skater, Amy Cuddy. Amy’s TED talk on body language, the benefits of power poses and holding an expansive body posture is the second most viewed TED talk of all time. In this special episode where Greta met with Amy in Sydney, they focus on the work and writing that has kept Amy busy since she shot to fame with her TED talk and her follow-on best selling book on body language and power called: ‘Presence: Bringing your boldest self to your biggest challenges’.  Amy’s new work is all about bullying, particularly bullying in the workplace. This is something Amy unfortunately has had some pretty extreme first hand experience with. Amy’s new book on dealing with bullying will be released next year (Bullies, Bystanders, and Bravehearts) and in this episode we’re super fortunate to get a sneak preview of some of her well-researched advice o

Burning Out? Top Tips from Claire’s Health ‘Intervention’Feeling burnt out? Wondering how you’ll get to the end of the year? Well that’s exactly how Claire was feeling a few weeks ago. . . until she decided an intervention was needed. A gruelling work schedule for ten months plus a second bout of Covid earlier this year left Claire wondering if she’d ever feel 100% again. So, realising she had a short window of time, she did what any self-respecting woman lucky enough to be in a position to do: she booked herself into a health retreat! The good news is that you don’t have to go anywhere to learn what Claire learnt during her retreat because we’re sharing all the goodies here. In this episode you’ll hear:What made Claire choose the retreat she didThe massive insight she had about her behaviours in the past two years How she survived without her mobile or wifi Fun facts about the gut, and Her key takeaway habits and rituals - that you can easily do too. Plus you’ll hear w

If you’re thinking the title of this week’s episode sounds distinctly like it’s describing modern day espionage and intelligence agencies you would be right! We are super excited to share this exclusive conversation with Cyber Security leader, Abigail Bradshaw. Abi is Head of the Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC) which is part of the national Foreign Intelligence agency known as the Australian Signals Directorate. Abi describes her job as “revealing other peoples’ secrets whilst protecting our own”. The agency she heads, the ACSC, is tasked with protecting Australia’s communications and technology networks, and all Australians, from malicious cyber activity. That includes threats from both sovereign nations and cyber criminals.Suffice to say, Abi is a very busy person! Abi has had a fascinating career and is passionate about serving her country. She’s also really passionate about seeing more women in leadership roles and is proud of the number of women who are working with her at the agen

We’ve all been there, sitting in that meeting trying to get our point across and becoming infuriated because someone we work with repeatedly ignores what we say in meetings. Being heard at work isn’t as simple as just speaking up. Research shows that particularly if you’re a woman or a minority it’s harder to have your ideas, your comments and contributions acknowledged and accepted.But there are things we can do to help overcome the challenges we sometimes face and in this episode Claire and Greta take you through numerous ways you can improve your influence at work and ensure your messages and communications are landing as well as they can. They look at tactics and tools you can use before, during and after important meetings, plus share stories from some of the most senior guests we’ve had on the show including a member of the House of Lords in the UK and the President of a large global health business.In this episode you’ll learn:When, and with whom, Claire typically finds it difficult to be hea

Our guest on the show this week is Anna Rafferty who runs a global team of more than a thousand people at Lego, the company with play at the heart of its DNA. Based in London, Anna and her large team oversee Lego’s consumer relationships including digital and social engagement, apps, websites, memberships, magazines, community management, digital safety, and events. Phew!  Anna’s had a remarkable career journey starting out of university with early dotcom ‘rocket ship’ Last Minute.com, where she worked for one of our former guests, Martha Lane Fox.Her career has also seen her work with Penguin Books, the BBC and blockbuster author JK Rowling’s company, Pottermore. To this day she retains her links to the publishing world as Chair of the Women’s Prize for Fiction. Suffice to say, Anna is one busy woman! In this episode you’ll hear how:She had a career epiphany at 23 years of ageWhat working for author JK Rowling was likeHow one question helped her deal with overwhelm; and  The 3 b

If you’re inspired by people who have a worthy and clear purpose or mission then you’re going to love our episode this week. Our guest is Lina Xu, co-founder of a Medtech startup called Telecare which offers under-served people living in regional and rural areas virtual access to specialists and other healthcare professionals.When Chinese born and raised Lina moved to Australia seven years ago and became a mum shortly after, she felt very isolated, out of touch with her new country and alone. Whilst still breastfeeding her second son four years ago, Lina realised she needed to make a change and do something more in her new country and so this quietly spoken and determined woman, along with her husband, co-founded Telecare. Two doctors joined them as co-founders and all were inspired by the potential of Telecare to fill a vital healthcare gap by enabling regionally based patients to have affordable access to city based specialists and allied healthcare professionals. As luck would have it,

We have a truly incredible guest in this week’s episode. We don’t think we’ve ever met someone with so much drive and conviction as serial entrepreneur, Sue Fennessy. Sue’s vision for her latest, purpose-led-business ‘WeAre8’ is absolutely epic. So large is the vision, that she’s spent the past 8 years building the technology platform required to take on the social media giants of the world. Yes, this one woman ‘tour de force’ is taking on the goliaths of social media with a determination to make social media better for all. She’s also invested more than $11 million of her own money to get WeAre8 to where it is today. She’s been able to do this because of her phenomenal track record building and exiting businesses. To date, she’s scaled and sold three previous businesses. The last business that Sue co-founded and then sold in 2022, the global Standard Media Index, was bought for $200million. SMI, as it’s also known, was a pioneering data and technology business recording global media spends acr

We’re really excited about the wonderful guest we have for you on episode 169 this week: Sally-Ann Williams. Sally-Ann (aka Sally) is CEO of Cicada Innovations, Australia’s leading deep tech incubator for startups and scaleups with everything from quantum computing to life sciences, ag-tech, space and hydrogen startups. Cicada provides office space, custom labs, specialised equipment and training. Over the years, Cicada has helped its resident companies raise 1.7 billion dollars in funding and they’ve also had 1.4 billion dollars in successful exits. And right at the heart of the Cicada ecosystem is Sally. Before joining Cicada, Sally spent nearly 13 years at Google in diverse roles mostly in the engineering team. There she was responsible, amongst many other things, for bringing street view to Australia and influencing school curriculum to ensure better teaching of technology and STEM subjects. She’s also always been a huge proponent for the start up ecosystem and women in particular.In t

Blow out the candles and sing a merry tune for Don’t Stop Us Now! is 5 years old!  A lot has happened in the past 5 years and we’re so grateful to have had some incredible conversations with incredibly inspiring women. So in this special birthday episode, we take a step back and reflect on the key insights and lessons our guests have shared over more than 165 episodes. What we find is that there are common themes that keep cropping up again and again.Whether it’s a female leader and innovator in London, Bangkok, Silicon Valley or Costa Rica or Sydney, it turns out there are universal challenges our amazing guests have faced. We’ve also faced them and we’re pretty sure these are challenges that you’ve likely had, or may be facing too, they’re that universal. It’s not that our stellar guests are in a different league to the rest of us, it’s simply that they’ve found a way to work through these challenges en route to their success. And you can too. In this episode you’ll hear:The 5

If you’re like us and have been playing a lot with Generative AI models such as Chat GPT or Bard lately then you’ll be fascinated by today’s episode on all things Artificial Intelligence and particularly Generative AI. Today, we’re joined by a world class AI expert in what will be the first of a series of occasional episodes we’re doing on different aspects of AI and machine learning. In this episode, we explore the hype surrounding Generative AI and explore its positives as well as issues and shortcomings. Listen in as we speak with AI expert and entrepreneur, Asaf Somekh. Asaf is Founder and CEO of Israeli-based AI company called Iguazio, which management consultancy McKinsey has recently acquired because of its prowess in helping companies successfully adopt and scale AI.Asaf has been working with Artificial Intelligence since the 1990’s and his take on all the recent hype is fascinating. In this episode you’ll hear:How most businesses have struggled to operationalise AI to dateExactly

Today we have a big ‘first’ for this podcast, our first Olympic medallist!  However Zali Steggall, Olympian, barrister and now an independent member of parliament in Australia is so much more than these labels!Last year, Zali was re-elected to Federal Parliament after a stunning and, for some, an astonishing victory in the same seat at the previous election, three years earlier. Zali really is a pioneer (and winner) in so many fields: she was Australia’s first ever individual medallist and first Australian female medallist at a Winter Olympic Games. Plus, when she won the World Championship slalom skiing event a year later in 1999, she became the first ever person from the southern hemisphere ever to win that event. Not one to do anything by halves, when Zali was first elected as a member of Parliament in 2019 she defeated a former Prime Minister! What’s more, she did all this as an independent candidate with no big political party to support her, however she had an army of enthusiastic su

Our fabulous guest this week is Kerry James, CEO and co-founder of not one, not two, but three different businesses! Not so remarkable you may be thinking if these businesses came one after the other, but no, Kerry is doing this all simultaneously. After spending many years successfully running and co-owning a high end real estate business in Singapore, Kerry is now building two other businesses in completely different industries.  The first new venture is in the flower delivery and subscription business, and the second business is filling a niche she spotted more recently in online and corporate gifting. Now while Kerry knew everything about real estate in Singapore after building that business for more than twenty years, she and her friend, turned co-founder, Sandi Sadek, knew nothing about the flower industry, delivery logistics or e-commerce prior to launching their online flower business, Flower Addict. What’s more they both still retain their big full time work roles.Despite these no

Our guest this week is founder and author, Natalie Yan-Chatonsky. Natalie founded her start up Full Time Lives some years ago and she’s just launched a book, called ‘The Art of Full Time Living’ which is a guide to help turn women’s mid-life transitions into fulfilling and rewarding transformations for their second half of life.Natalie is on a pioneering quest to ensure mid-life women take the time to think proactively about living fulfilled and connected lives in the decades ahead, whether that’s post kids leaving home or stepping back from a full time career. We know Natalie well and she’s bowled us over in the past few years with her dedication and commitment to making a difference to women's lives, particularly the second half of their lives. In this episode you’ll hear how: Natalie has carefully navigated her various career transitionsShe originally started researching big life changes ahead of her father’s potential retirement but it’s ended up being her life that’s changed the most&

Job interviews can certainly be intimidating and nerve-wracking, yet how we use that finite window of time that can really make a huge difference to our careers and sometimes even our lives. Whether it’s your dream job at stake or one you’re not so sure about, make no mistake, you owe it to yourself to perform to the best of your ability. And this week’s ‘How To’ episode explains why. The people we work with around the world regularly ask us for advice and support going through their interview process. So we decided it’s time to share some of our tried and tested tips and frameworks, as well as share special ‘insider’ contacts and content, with you now as well in this episode.  Not only will we walk through our key interview tips, you’ll also hear invaluable insider advice from leading Russell Reynolds executive search consultant and Managing Director in Australia, Nick Fletcher. Plus we also bring you Caitriona Staunton who’s Improbable’s Director for People Ops, responsible for recr