interview Archives - Page 2 of 8

Building an Autonomous Business – Alexa Stathakis

December 1, 2024December 1, 2024
by Claire

Welcome to our very first episode of Don’t Stop Us Now AI Edition!

Have you heard about the possibility of building a one person billion dollar company? Many experts believe it’s only a matter of time for a founder to harness AI and automation to be able to scale their business to unicorn status.

Our guest today is well on her way to building an automated company. 29 year old Alexa Stathakis is co-founder of iced tea drinks business, Tea Industries, and we’re blown away by her focus and savviness at using AI to deliver massive impact.

As you’ll hear in this fascinating episode, after trying numerous other ways to scale her sales calls, Alexa decided to invest in building an AI sales consultant. And in just a month she and her software engineer had nailed the training with incredible results.

And what’s more, you’ll also get to listen in to one of these AI sales calls.

This technology is here today and while Alexa may be a savvy early adopter, we agree with her view that it’s going to be used in many more businesses very soon.

Enjoy this episode with the entrepreneurial and focused Alexa Stathakis.

Useful Links:

Alexa on LinkedIn

Tea Industries website

Interview

Purpose Powered Pioneer – Annie Crawford

October 10, 2024October 10, 2024
by Claire

Few people can say they’ve founded a non-profit that raises millions while creating a community that helps supporters achieve extraordinary physical challenges. Annie Crawford is one of those rare individuals.

As the founder of CanToo, a high-profile Australian charity running for nearly two decades, Annie has revolutionised fundraising for cancer research. CanToo organises physical challenges like ocean swims and half marathons, where participants receive months of professional coaching in exchange for fundraising commitments.

As a result, more than 20,000 people to date have achieved impressive physical challenges, and more than AUD$33 million has been raised to fund cancer research.

Aside from CanToo, Annie’s had some fascinating career experience including helping to build a very successful Biotech startup in San Francisco.

In this episode you’ll hear how:

How a Kombi van trip around Europe with her parents and 6 siblings impacted Annie’s world view (can you imagine 9 people in a Kombi van?!)
How Annie places values at the heart of what she does and how she built CanToo
Her ingredients for building a sustainable and successful organisation, and
How Annie learnt to overcome an almost paralysing fear of public speaking

Annie is a very down to earth and modest person and you can tell that her life and priorities have been shaped by family tragedy. With CanToo she’s built an incredible and fitting legacy.

Enjoy this episode with the inspiring and values-driven Annie Crawford.

Useful Links

CanToo website – check out their latest physical challenges

Interview

Pursuing the Unknown – Jill Heinerth

September 19, 2024September 19, 2024
by Claire

Our guest this week is the most pioneering woman we’ve ever had on the show.

Canadian Jill Heinerth is arguably the world’s greatest cave diver and underwater explorer. She’s also a writer, photographer and filmmaker.

Jill literally goes places no human has ever gone before. She’s swum past the graves of more than 100 of her friends, as well as having some pretty close calls herself.

Jill is the first Explorer in Residence for the Royal Canadian Geographical Society, she’s also a recipient of Canada’s prestigious Polar Medal, and a Fellow of the International Scuba Divers Hall of Fame.

To put it simply, Jill’s life story is extraordinary.

In this episode you’ll hear:

Why Jill chooses to chase fear not run from it
How Jill has learnt to develop and combine different skills in order to make her cave diving and exploring career sustainable
What happened after she dived in the crevices of an iceberg in Antarctica
How Jill thinks about putting a team for a new expedition together, and
How she feels being the star of a new, award-winning documentary about her career, called Diving Into The Darkness.*

Jill Heinerth is an amazing storyteller so enjoy this fascinating conversation with the intrepid and eloquent Jill Heinerth.

* P.S. If you’re in Sydney don’t miss the chance to see screenings of the documentary during the first week of October with Jill attending in person along with Director Nays Baghai.

Useful Links

Jill’s website – https://www.intotheplanet.com/

The Documentary – Diving into the Darkness

Official Website: https://divingintothedarkness.com/

Australian Screening Dates with Jill Heinerth & Director Nays Baghai: https://divingintothedarkness.com/ditd-week/

Instagram: https://www.facebook.com/divingintothedarkness/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/divingintothedarkness/

Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@divingintothedarkness

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@DivingIntoTheDarkness

Watch the Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIjdVAdpTnQ&t=139s

Interview

Menopause Trailblazer – Dr Louise Newson

August 21, 2024
by Claire

Our guest this week is known globally for kickstarting a menopause revolution.

UK-based Dr Louise Newson is a physician, menopause specialist, businesswoman, educator and author. Not only that, she’s the founder of the award-winning Balance menopause app which has had more than one million downloads, and she hosts a weekly podcast as well!

As you’ll hear, Dr Newson is also making big inroads into educating the medical profession about menopause and perimenopause, with more than 30,000 clinicians globally downloading her online program. And believe us it’s needed!

In this fascinating episode that every woman should listen to you’ll hear:

How Louise missed identifying her own menopause symptoms for months
What keeps her keep going despite attacks and criticism from some in the medical world
How even today, many Doctors are never taught anything about women’s hormone health, and
How hard this passionate campaigner has found running her medical clinics business.

We were so impressed speaking with Louise, and it really is incredible that today, in 2024, there is still so much misinformation about hormone replacement therapy (HRT) out there.

As you’ll hear, her work has also had a direct and positive impact on our own lives and health.

Enjoy this episode with the determined and passionate Dr Louise Newson …

Useful Links:

Dr Louise Newson’s website

Louise’s UK theatre tour dates (Sept to Nov 2024)

Balance app info

Interview

Recipe for Resilience and Growth – Dr Jacinta Jiménez

July 22, 2024July 22, 2024
by Claire

Here we are halfway through the year and if you’re anything like the amazing people we work with in our programs and coaching, many of you are feeling like it’s been a real slog.

Combine that with what’s going on in the world, and with the fact that hybrid working can make you feel more isolated and alone, we thought it timely to invite back on the show a very popular guest who happens to be a Stanford-trained psychologist, burnout expert, award winning author, and an amazing executive leadership coach, Dr Jacinta Jiménez.

We last featured Dr Jacinta on the show shortly after her award winning book, The Burnout Fix was published. Because we’re now seeing more, not less, burnout these days we’re so happy we were able to secure a window in Jacinta’s diary to hear the latest on wellbeing and taking care of ourselves and our teams at work.

You’ll hear:

How Dr Jacinta herself has had to come back from multiple operations including neurosurgery just last December which led to her having an unplanned stint in ICU
Her take on the importance of giving ourselves time to reflect, integrate and recuperate, whether we’ve been sick or not
How you’re not alone in feeling isolated as Dr Jacinta calls out a ‘Connection Crisis’ happening to us all,
And the practical things you can do if you’re feeling stretched too thin or burnt out

Enjoy this enriching conversation with the wise and compassionate Dr Jacinta Jiminez.

Useful Links

Our first interview with Jacinta – Fixing Burnout

Jacinta’s website

Jacinta on Linkedin

Interview

Stewarding the Man United Brand – Ellie Norman

February 14, 2024February 14, 2024
by Claire

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.

We were struck by Ellie’s refreshing and inspiring way of thinking about her work on the global stage and, as you’ll hear, she shares: . . .

How not going to University has driven her career choices in a good way
How Ellie makes big decisions about her career
Why sports marketing flips the traditional marketing model on its head
How she helped popularise the Formula 1 brand and make it less elitist
And how she handles the Man United brand and its legion of distraught fans when the team isn’t performing on the field.

We think you’ll love this inspiring conversation with the positive and gutsy Ellie Norman.

Useful Links

Ellie on LinkedIn

Manchester United website

Manchester United on Youtube

Manchester United on Instagram

Manchester United on Facebook

Manchester United on Tiktok

Manchester United on X

And if you loved this podcast, you might like our interview with Lucinda Barlow, Head of International Marketing at Uber

Interview

Compassion + Contribution – Dr Lineo Thahane

November 17, 2023November 17, 2023
by Claire

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 Lesotho.

As you will hear, this convinced Lineo to follow in her mother’s footsteps and become a doctor so that she could return to Lesotho and help make a difference to the quality of healthcare the average person could receive there.

In this episode you’ll learn:

How nearly 10% of Lesotho’s children are orphans
How Lineo stays positive despite the sometimes confronting experiences and challenges she has faced treating sick babies and children
Why she continues to work in Lesotho when she could be living comfortably in the US,
And what Lineo has learnt about the challenges of transitioning from being a specialist doctor to becoming a leader of a large organisation with nearly 800 employees.

This is a fascinating, moving and uplifting conversation. Don’t miss this episode with the compassionate and dedicated Dr Lineo Thahane.

Useful Links:

Baylor College of Medicine Children’s Foundation website

Texas Children’s Global Health – Lesotho

World AIDS Day 2023

Interview

Taking on Goliath – Sue Fennessy

July 11, 2023July 11, 2023
by Claire

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 across different advertising channels. It required years of persistence and serious influence skills to get all the world’s largest media agencies on board to have access to all that data. Sue has these in spades!

These days, after numerous years living in New York, Sue is based in London where we visited her at her HQ in central London.

In this epic conversation you’ll learn :

How Sue thinks about her Purpose in life
How she plans to transform the worlds of social media AND digital advertising
The high personal cost of Sue’s single minded focus on making WeAre8 a success; and
The crazy and sexist things Venture Capitalists have said to her.

In short, this is a truly memorable conversation so please enjoy this episode with the purposeful and driven, Sue Fennessy.

Useful Links

WeAre8: https://www.weare8.com/

Sue on LInkedIn : https://www.linkedin.com/in/sue-fennessy/

Interview

Deep Tech Community Builder – Sally-Ann Williams

June 26, 2023June 26, 2023
by Claire

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 this episode you’ll hear how

Sally coped working with Google’s tech engineers without any technology background
How she goes about building or harnessing diverse systems to deliver positive long term change
The biggest challenge Sally faces running a deep tech incubator
Why she thinks seaweed is actually more exciting than generative AI; and
Her strategies for coping with chronic imposter syndrome.

Sally definitely sits in the box seat of what’s happening at the forefront of tech so we’re confident that you’ll find this conversation with her super interesting.

Enjoy this episode with deep tech and community champion, Sally-Ann Williams.

Useful Links

Sally-Ann on Linkedin

Cicada Innovations website

Bonus Episode

Decoding Generative AI and all its Hype

May 24, 2023May 24, 2023
by Claire

(Image created using DALL-E)

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 Co-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 date
Exactly what Generative AI is and where it falls short§
How Chat GPT compares to the professionals when it comes to humour; and
How important ‘explainability’ is going forward.

Plus, we share some of our favourite resources to help you keep abreast of all that’s happening in this fast-moving world of AI.

Enjoy this episode! And if you do, why not share it with a friend?

Useful Links and Resources

– Neat Prompts – AI newsletter

– Hard Fork Podcast – Tech podcast

– Chat GPT– AI chatbot by OpenAI

– Google Bard – AI chatbot by Google

– Hey Pi – AI chatbot by Reid Hoffman

To receive a list of additional AI resources and links, email hello@dontstopusnow.co.

P.S.

Join us next time for a special fifth birthday episode and an interview with one of this year’s award winners from the global Cartier Women’s Initiative.