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Marc Orchard, Director of Startups at BDO, is often referred to as the “Godfather of startups” in the Brisbane community, bringing his finance background to help entrepreneurs create the exceptional companies of tomorrow, from start up, to scale up, investment, exit and financial literacy thrown in between. Marc talks to me about some of the uncertainties, predictions and surprises he experienced personally and professionally during the pandemic in 2020.

As an executive in the health tech space, Chris shares the hard times, the good times and how doubling down on a freemium offering in the midst of a pandemic helped not only struggling GP clinics but bought it a tribe of passionate and vocal customers advocating the virtues of everything Cubiko.

Face to face business such as beauty clinics had a tough time in 2019. Forced shut-downs left them with no choice but to stand-down much loved staff. Undeterred Francesca Webster is brimming with enthusiasm about what the future has in store.

Dr Jane Thomason has vision and passion to improve the lives and prosperity of people in underdeveloped countries through the power of blockchain technology.  Forget about bitcoin, the real power of crypto is far more wide reaching.  I speak to Jane about how COVID-19 brought forward years of progress in this space but also brought other parts of her life to a sudden (and not so fun) halt. Jane Thomason is a visionary leader, social innovator and an advocate for digital transformation to reduce inequality and vulnerability with a focus on emerging economies. Jane shares some extraordinary experiences and observations, including insights on the impact of the pandemic on acceleration of technology happening around the world.

Lloyd Heinrich, CEO of The Wine Collective knows a thing or two about online market places but his vision to turn two bricks and mortar businesses into an online international market place driven by smart tech was going to be no mean feat.   As we all turned to online buying in 2020 COVID-19 catapulted many online businesses such as The Wine Collective into a new realm of sustainable growth and blue sky opportunity. Lloyd’s personal life took quite an unexpected twist as well.

Envest is a private, entrepreneurial, equity investment business that focuses on investing and supporting insurance and financial services businesses. In this episode of Executive Stories’ M&A and Deal Maker series, I speak with Partner and MD Greg Mullins, who shares some sage advice on the long game, knowing when to bow out of a deal and only focusing on the things you can control.

Ask any tax advisor about their role in M&A, and they’ll tell you they are fundamental to the process. Pilot Partners’ Murray Howlett is no exception—in this episode of Executive Stories, we find out why. It may not be the sexy side of M&A and deal making, but tax is something you can’t afford to overlook or get wrong.

From Sydney to New York and back to his home shore of Queensland, 10 years at Credit Suisse afforded Evan Kilpatrick some awesome buy and sell side experiences, working with big name clients on some incredibly complex deals. Tune in to this episode of Executive Stories to hear about the pure passion and adrenaline that comes from running some hugely complex deals with big name clients.

In episode three of the M&A Dealmaker Series, Brad chats to Deloitte Transaction Services Partner Rob McConnel. With a career like Rob’s, there’s hardly a stone unturned, but it’s the people side and why he enjoys working with Queensland businesses that will make you want to tune into this one.

In this episode of the M&A and Deal Makers Series we talk with Warwick Face, Corporate Finance Partner at Pitcher Partners about: Being a sell side M&A specialist Alignment of fees with client interests Importance for sellers to deliver on their ‘story’ The numbers don’t lie.

She’s back this season to talk to me about the highs and lows of the M&A world; from identifying the rush of deal fever, to fighting through deal fatigue; maintaining standards while getting deals over the line; the precarious nature of international transactions and much more. It won’t take you long to see why Sharon is so successful in her field.     It’s hard to believe how much you can cover in just 13 minutes. Thanks again to Sharon for giving up her time and sharing her infinite wisdom. It’s always a pleasure.

Gavin Tye is the lead sales at RedEye Apps. We all know the acronyms B2B and B2C but how much do we know about B2E (business to enterprise).  We cover this plus: how to also adapt your sales approach when selling to a large a enterprise the importance of building long term sales relationships why culture is everything for the RedEye sales team how Gavin knows when he has nailed a sale; combining family life with a job that sees him often on the road to build important client relationships   As this is the last podcast for the year I just wanted to quickly thank both Gavin and all of my other guests in 2018 who have opened up and shared their life end Executive Story with us all.  Also I would like to give a little shout out to all of the listeners to all of my podcasts this year and cant wait to start all again next year.

In this episode we dive deep with Aleksandar Svetski, CEO of Amber, into: Making a fortune and losing it; Impact of family on goal setting; What really happened in the breakdown of iRecruit; What Aleks really thinks about ICOs notwithstanding Amber is playing squarely in the cryptocurrency evolution; Do people judge CEOs for startup failures The importance of morals and integrity in the nitty gritty world of startups

Tim Walmsley is the CEO and Founder of BenchOn. What I love about this conversation is how Tim lets us into not just the problem BenchOn is solving, but the personal side of it all.  Things like what it’s like working with his wife Katie in what is a small team and the impact of this on life at home.  If you work closely with a relative then my chat with Tim will surely resonate with you.  Tim and I also chat: Running a company while doing a round of fund raising  at the same time – how to juggle those balls; the struggles and the anxiety that come along with being a founder of a company; the difference is from a start up company to scale up company, which is what BenchOn is now; getting your customer message bang on.     

Sally is one of those people so passionate about what she does and understands her “why” so well that it pervades all that she does – you can hear it in her voice.  That may no co-incidence as Sally is a Voice and Presentation Coach to corporates and broadcast journalists alike. Many of the first and second impressions we create are a result of how we sound when we speak (the saying “… and then he opened his mouth comes to mind!). Sally turns to her 17 years in experience in this field to help people communicate better through their voice.  Communicate better in the boardroom, on TV, on stage and in your personal life.  Yes, it goes that deep and we chat about this in spades on the podcast.  For someone like me who is obsessed with great conversations knowing that our voice can be trained to adapt to situations (without necessarily trying to be all posh about it) was truly enlightening.  Find out what I am talking about and more in this episode with Sally Prosser.   

Like many of my guests, Ben tried to have a normal job but that wasn’t the life for him.  Ben is an entrepreneur, non-executive director, techo and deal maker all wrapped up into one package.  Ben speaks about the art and skill of raising money, knowing your numbers backwards and not being afraid to invest in creating a solution to a problem that is keeping his business from scaling – and then giving it away to others for free!  You can tell Ben is a deep thinker on a quest to always do better than his last.  But I think he also one of those guy who doesn’t take himself too seriously and just gives everything he does a bloody good crack.

Michael is the go to guy for infrastructure advisory work around rail, port, water and energy for bulk commodity producers.  That’s the power of being super niche.  As Director and part owner of Balance Advisory, Michael is grateful to see the recent doldrums of the resources sector behind him.  But being super niche does mean though you are tied to the economic cycles of your industry which is why it’s wise of Michael and his co-owners to be now investing in early stage companies in a variety of sectors – diversification!     Michael’s network is enviable and valuable, and is known for seeking to add value to his network more than seeing what he can take from it.  Many listeners have probably benefited from Michael’s willingness to help and leverage his network without putting his hand out for anything. When you work in an industry where economic cycles and infrastructure contracts are long it pays to play the long game … something we should all be thinking of.   If you want to learn the power of being super niche the person behind who is Michael Ryan, this one is for you.  

Brad is the Founder & CEO of the Citrus Ad Platform. He is startup founder, marketer, digital innovator and hands on leader who enjoys building great products, but most of all great teams. His career began in the arena of elite sport playing football for the Adelaide Crows before entering into the world of business. He started his first tech company in 2011, which he tells us ended in a lot of tears, heartache and mental health scars. Clearly oozing too much entrepreneur for a standard office job he figured he might as well have another crack at creating and growing another startup. Brad and Citrus have hit the jackpot with their scalable, personalised ad serving platform designed for retailers. Chances are it is the tech running in the background of your online grocery and other online retail shopping experiences. Citrus has serious unicorn potential! Brad on likening the role of CEO founder to Frodo with the Lord of the Rings, being bashed up in business and then bouncing back bigger and better than before.

Nick Heaney is CEO of Skrilla, an e-fantasy gaming website that recently completed an initial coin offering (ICO).  Take any of those and consider “who wakes up one day thinking that’s what I want to do for my career”?! Probably no one is the answer.  And that is the prelude into what drove Nick to abandon his cushy life at PwC doing management consulting and choose the path of the entrepreneur. A path that is seldom predictable, can often require you to pivot your entire business in order to survive (which Nick had to do) and never cushy. We chat about Nick’s journey from consulting to Stepsie, then Puntaa to Skrilla and what he learnt along the way. I personally didn’t know much about the e-sports industry, but boy did Nick sell me on it. It’s a large, relatively untapped market which is why Skrilla has such potential and is a ‘watch this space’ sort of play. Nick also delves into Skrilla’s ICO and how the tokenised ecosystem can empower your platform’s users. He also tells us why raising capital through an ICO was the right move for them but also discusses the problems faced through token use, particularly in regard to exchanges. I have been doing a lot more legal work in the ICO and utility token space of late, so if you looking to know more then this is the interview for you.  What I love most about Nick is that he doesn’t profess to have all the answers.  He is humble and not afraid to stick up his hand for help in what is unchartered territory for even the most seasoned CEO. Enjoy.

Have you ever really wondered why and who decided gold would be a stable store of value?  And what about crypto currencies like Bitcoin – are they theoretically any different? And for all of you out there with diversified portfolios, do you hold any gold bullion – and if not should you? This week on Executive Stories, I chat with Paul Engeman, Director at Ainslie Bullion & Reserve Vault about all of this and arrive at some very interesting answers. Paul is not a gold bullion or crypto evangelists and prefers to go by his trade marked mantra “Balance your wealth in an unbalanced world”.    I have never held bullion other than the wedding ring on my finger, but after this conversation with Paul think that is something I will have to remedy.