podcast Archives - Page 3 of 11

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

Bonus Episode

What We Loved in 2023

December 27, 2023
by Claire

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 why
Our 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 the Australian summer to rest and relax so we’ll be back in February.

Happy Holidays and enjoy this unique ‘What we loved’ episode.

Useful Links:

WeAre8 app: Apple

WeAre8 app: Android

Future Crunch’s end of 2023 newsletter

Thursday Murder Club Series by Richard Osman

Elton John – Me

Tina Turner – Love Story

Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus

A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles

Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman

Effortless by Greg McKeown

Episodes we mention:

Amy Cuddy

Sue Fennessy

Claire’s Eden Health Retreat

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.

Interview

Together We Can Make History – Navyn Salem

December 23, 2022December 23, 2022
by Claire

Our guest this week made such a big impression on us and listeners when she was on the show more than 4 years ago that we’re really excited to welcome her back for our last episode of the year.

Navyn Salem is Founder and CEO of a non-profit social enterprise called Edesia. Navyn founded Edesia more than ten years ago to help end global malnutrition and set about building a factory in Rhode Island in the USA to produce lifesaving nutritional products for humanitarian agencies. Edesia has already reached over 17 million children in 62 countries.

An email Navyn sent this past week really caught our attention. Despite outlining the unprecedented food crisis happening around the world, it also was filled with hope and a historic path forward.

Right now, governments have granted more funds to support the many millions facing hunger. Historically the world has the opportunity to move from helping 25% of the world’s malnourished to reaching and supporting 50%. Currently 3 million children under 5 die every year from malnutrition that is completely preventable.

Edesia, as one of the major producers of a lifesaving supplement called Plumpy Nut, has one problem . . . it can’t make their life saving product fast enough to meet the orders of humanitarian agencies tasked with spending the increased funding. So Navyn, in her true entrepreneurial and unstoppable style, is seeking to urgently scale her factory and increase its output dramatically by moving to 24 hours a day, 7 days a week production. To do that she needs help to buy $12 million worth of equipment.

We think you’ll be truly inspired by Navyn as so many others have been before. She’s a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network and was awarded the major global McNulty Prize this year for leadership and vision in addressing some of the world’s toughest problems. Navyn was voted EY Entrepreneur of the year for New England in 2018, and New Englander of the Year in 2017.

Without further ado, to end the year enjoy our hope-filled conversation with the inspiring Navyn Salem.

Useful Links:

Edesia website

Donate on the Edesia website

Interview

Marching to Her Own Beat – Dot Bustelo

December 8, 2022December 23, 2022
by Claire

Our guest on the show today pivoted away from a long standing career in the music industry to found a venture focused on the visual arts.

Dot Bustello is founder and CEO of a business called Loupe, which streams and sells art from around the world and in doing so helps make all those black TV screens in our daily lives way more interesting and appealing.

Not only that, Loupe is ranked number one lifestyle app in 73 countries on Apple TV.

Dot founded Loupe seven years ago after spending nearly ten years at Apple as well as being a music producer.

Never one to believe in having a conventional career, in this episode you’ll hear Dot explain:

How she came up with the idea for Loupe and why she couldn’t believe it hadn’t already been done
The key thing she learnt after nearly a decade working at Apple
Why she thinks NFTs (non fungible tokens) are so revolutionary
Dot’s firm belief that we all have more control over what we do in our careers than most people think; and
The number 1 habit Dot relies on to stay focussed and centred.

Enjoy this fascinating conversation with the uniquely creative and entrepreneurial Dot Bustelo.

Useful Links

Loupe website – stream for free and buy art here

Loupe Insta

Dot on LinkedIn

Interview

Become Boss of Your Brain – Professor Selena Bartlett

November 23, 2022November 23, 2022
by Claire

Our guest on the podcast this week is Professor Selena Bartlett, an Australian neuroscientist who’s life’s work is all about understanding how our brains work.

Selena has held senior roles with leading research institutes in the US and Australia and she’s currently leading pioneering research into addiction and obesity at the Queensland University of Technology.

What drew us to Selena’s story is not only her passion to understand how our brains work but also her mission to educate us non-neuroscientists about the things we can do to improve our brain’s health and even completely change our lives.

In this episode you’ll hear:

The very personal reason Selena switched her career path away from pharmacy towards neuroscience as a young woman
Selena’s fascinating explanation of what causes mental illnesses such as schizophrenia
How she overcame her sugar addiction when she realised the impact it has on the brain
Some radically simple things we can all do to improve our brain’s health; and
Why Selena thinks becoming ‘boss of your brain’ can completely change the direction of your life.

Enjoy this fascinating conversation with the passionate and pioneering Professor – Selena Bartlett.

Useful Links:

Selena’s website: https://www.profselenabartlett.com/

Selena’s podcast: Thriving Minds

Selena on LinkedIn

Interview

A Rare CFO – Madeline Ling

November 8, 2022November 8, 2022
by Claire

Our episode this week features the first Chief Financial Officer we’ve had on the show, however Madeline Ling is not your ‘ordinary’ CFO.

We don’t think we’ve met a CFO who values diversity and building relationships the way Madeline does, not to mention the articulate and creative way she speaks about the stories the numbers can tell her.

Madeline has held multiple CFO roles throughout her 20-plus year career to date which has seen her work far and wide, including in the U.S., China, Mexico, Europe, and Thailand. A tech-company veteran, these days she is CFO of US-based Boomi, a fast-growing global SaaS company, focussed on easy software integration, now owned by two blue chip private equity firms.

Before taking on CFO roles, Madeline spent twelve years consulting including the Boston Consulting Group where she was a Principal. She also has an MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business.

In this episode you’ll hear:

What Madeline learnt as an impressionable teenager when she moved to the US not speaking a word of English
How she thinks about leveraging her differences to add value
Madeline’s recipe for building awesome working relationships; and
The two questions she asks herself before changing roles or company.

In short, this was a fabulous conversation and you’ll really be inspired by the thoughtful and articulate Madeline Ling.

Useful Link

Boomi website

Below you can see how the cake turned out that Madeline talked about in the interview (top right) – looks delicious!