At its peak, in the early 1990s, Smorgon Consolidated Industries was one of the largest and most diverse family businesses in Australia.

David Smorgon estimates that there were 25 family members across three generations working in the business, whose origins can be traced to a kosher butcher in Lygon Street, Carlton, in 1927.

On top of that, there were another 200 family members who didn’t work in the business, but who were nevertheless involved as direct and indirect shareholders.

The company was broken up in 1995 and the family members went their separate ways when it came to business, but in the case of David Smorgon, who many in Melbourne would know was the president of the Western Bulldogs Football Club from 1997 to 2012, a legacy of more than 30 years working in a family business led to a wealth of knowledge that he now passes on as the chief executive of Pointmade, a Melbourne-based family advisory firm.

He and his fellow advisers counsel family businesses across a variety of issues, and in the latest Lap of Caulfield Park podcast, he tells Ashley Browne that communication issues often run at the heart of conflicts in family businesses.

“Are you really calling a spade a spade? Are you really getting to the core of issues when you’re relaying messages to other members of the family or are you playing around the boundary line rather than being in the centre square,” he said.

In a wide-ranging conversation, Smorgon discusses:

• The need for open, honest and transparent discussion between family members, without boundaries.
• Succession planning and how elderly family patriarchs and matriarchs can be convinced to finally cede control
• Where the Smorgon family sometimes got it wrong
• Some case studies where independent mediation has helped solve family business issues
• The need for regular family business health checks?
• Succession, the TV series and how many people in family business watch it religiously
• His beloved Western Bulldogs and their prospects for 2022.

You can subscribe to A Lap of Caulfield Park through Apple Podcasts, Spotify and your favourite podcast player.

On the final Lap of Caulfield Park podcast for 2021, Ashley Browne is joined by fellow journalist (and fellow The Age alumnus) for a broad discussion and occasional deep dive into the news and views of the day and the year.

On the agenda are:

-       Memories of working for The Age and why she left.

-       The weekly column that Julie still writes for the newspaper.

-       COVID. Did 2021 become even harder to navigate than 2020? And what were her coping strategies?

-       Her strong views on public versus private education and would a public model work for the Jewish community?

-       Social media and its pitfalls.

-       Her reading, listening and watching recommendations for the summer holidays.

A Lap of Caulfield Park is presented by Plus 61J Media and is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and your favourite podcast provider.

What is it like to be 34, having just had your first job, just starting your dream job and then having it all ripped out of your grasp by a shocking, life-altering event?

In the latest Lap of Caulfield Park podcast, stroke survivor Paul Fink tells Ashley Browne of his journey over the last eight years, from bending over to pick up his son from his cot, to not setting foot inside his house for the next six months. 

Following his stroke, Fink underwent four brain surgeries and was in a coma for two weeks. He spent some time in a ward at the Alfred Hospital before moving to the Caulfield Hospital.

And that was only the beginning. He had to learn to talk again. To walk again. To become a husband and a father once again. And he wanted to run again. He was an avid sportsman before falling ill.

Nothing is off the table on the podcast as the inspirational Fink discusses his rehabilitation, the various goals he set for himself along the way and why, as his health solely improved, he decided to become an advocate and to increase awareness and visibility of and for stroke survivors.

He blogs and he podcasts. And now he wants to work again. 

A Lap of Caulfield Park is presented by Plus61J Media and is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and your favourite podcast players.

Talk to people in start-ups and one of the first questions is usually about the so-called ‘lightbulb’ moment. 

For Cara Davies, the fitness-obsessed CEO of Steppen, it was the regular trips to the gym, but then having no real clue what to do once she walked through the door.

In the latest Lap of Caulfield Park , Davies tells Ashley Browne about the genesis of the app that is making fitness training more accessible than ever for young people. 

“I would walk into the gym and I had no idea what to do. No idea. I would look around the gym all the time and do the same work out, copying what other people were doing and felt really lost.

“And I worked out that was common for a lor of people. At the same time, I had mate who was really into fitness and I thought it would be really great to do what she’s doing and just copy that when I went to the gym.”

Davies was typical of many youngsters. Keen to work out regularly, but not necessarily having the means to pay for it. Gym memberships can be expensive, as are personal trainers, but what she understood is cheap and accessible is content about fitness.

So, with the help of friends Jake Carp and Dave Slutzkin, she used the extra downtime she had last year due to the Melbourne lockdown to create Steppen.

“Existing fitness apps are paywalled, so young people won’t pay for that, so they turn to Instagram and TikTok to find fitness contest. We are leaning into that and creating a platform to find workouts, share workouts and complete workouts.

“Find the perfect content to achieve your goals,” she said.

What is remarkable about Davies is that she is just 22. She dropped out of her software engineering course to work full time on the app and to build the business. For now, she is earning no income from the business. And on the podcast, she talks about the challenges and excitement of attracting seed capital. Among the early investors is Afterpay co-founder Anthony Eisen.

Davies did an unpaid internship at the form last summer, was given the opportunity to pitch her idea to Eisen. “He’s a very busy man and I knew I had one shot, but I knew what I wanted to say,” she recalled. 

Eisen liked what he heard – Davies didn’t present him with any sort of pitch document – and he came on board.

And with that, Steppen was on its way and it has lofty plans for the future. It likely won’t get Gen Z types of take their eyes off their screens, but at least it might get them fit. 

What runs through the heart and mind of the owner of a runner in the Melbourne Cup?

Brae Sokolski, the owner of race favourite Incentivise, walks Ashley Browne through what his lead-up to the 2021 Melbourne Cup race is likely to be. (Note: this interview was recorded prior to the Cup).  

“I’m actually fairly even-tempered (until) probably an hour before the race and then the nerves start to hit,” he said.

 “When the horses are in the mounting yard 15 minutes before the jump that’s when I really start to struggle and when they’re milling behind the barriers, I’ve basically lost my faculties and its even difficult to watch the race.

“The nerves accelerate pretty quickly and I keep a lid on it as best I can but it’s constantly on my mind. Work is a welcome distraction but I’m constantly running the race through my mind over and over and over again.”

Winner of the Caulfield Cup a fortnight ago, Incentivise, at around $2, will likely be the shortest priced favourite since Phar Lap in 1930. If Sokolski is looking for an omen, Phar Lap’s owner, David Davis, was also Jewish and it is believed there have been no Jews to have won a Melbourne Cup since.

Sokolski, who made his fortune in commercial real estate investment, told the podcast of first being bitten by the racing bug when he laid a few bets, while trying to take his mind off his VCE exams.

He began racing horses a few years later but it is only in the last decade that he has become one of Australia’s leading – and most successful - owners.

In a wide-ranging discussion, Sokolski also discusses:

• The difference between succeeding in business and racing.
• How involved he gets in the tactical side of the sport.
• The joy he gets from racehorse ownership and the hot streak he is currently experiencing, which he knows is unsustainable.
• The important steps Racing Victoria has taken to make the sport safer for its horses, especially on Cup day.
• Some of the anti-Semitism he has experienced online since becoming successful in racing.
• The hilarious story of Kaplumpich, the most Jewish racehorse ever and why the joy of owing a horse with his childhood friends might even top winning a Melbourne Cup.

Anyone who has worked in hospitality will tell you running a restaurant or cafe is a tough gig. Margins are small, customers are fickle and competition is fierce. Add a pandemic into the mix – including mandated closures – and it's proved near impossible for many restaurateurs.

Adam Faigen knows this better than most. For the past two decades, Adam has owned and operated several cafes and 'smart casual' restaurants in Melbourne's inner south. He's seen food trends come and go as well as the rise of food delivery giants Uber Eats and Deliveroo. But nothing could prepare him for what was to come in 2020. Undeterred, Adam and his business partner started up a new business venture: Golda, a restaurant celebrating modern Israeli food. 

The restaurant, originally inspired by the cooking of his late maternal and paternal grandmothers – Sephardi and Ashkenazi respectively – quickly won admirers for its unique fusion of flavours. As Melbourne re-awakens to life after lockdowns, Adam is hoping Golda can return to its early success and help kickstart a revival in the city's dining scene.    

For more than two decades, Channel 7's sports broadcasters and presenters have come to rely on the knowledge of one producer: Josh Kay. Every weekend during the AFL football season – and every four years for the Olympics – Kay serves up pages of research to help shape compelling and entertaining television coverage. Not suprisingly, Kay is a walking stats machine, capable of listing off obscure sporting facts and figures from the past to present day.  It's as if the job of sports producer/research was made for him – and yet life very nearly took him down a different path. 

If you were at home on a Friday night in the early 1990s, chances are you were watching Live and Sweaty. The popular sports television show launched the media careers of many a young Melbourne articled clerk turned comedian Libbi Gorr (and her onscreen persona Elle McFeast ). As a roving reporter, panellist and eventual host of the show, Gorr/McFeast won a legion of fans for her witty takedowns of sports stars, politicians and anyone else that came into her path. 

In the years that followed, Gorr rode the waves of Australia's capricious media and enterainment industry. She created multiple TV specials, hosted shows, and had other shows cancelled. In 2012, she became the voice of ABC Melbourne's Saturday and Sunday morning program. It's proven the perfect fit for both Gorr (who always loved the medium of radio) and her audience, who've come to treasure her warm and intimate style. 

A decade ago, commerce student Dean Cohen began a regular soccer meetup with a boy who had autism. Although Dean's exposure to people with autism was limited, the experience changed him. Dean soon he became committed to creating a more inclusive world for people of all abilities.

In 2014, under the banner Camp Sababa, Dean and a group of youth leaders began hosting fun-filled camp experiences for young people with disabilities in the Jewish community. Fast forward seven years and Dean now heads a fully-fledged organisation, Flying Fox, with 10 paid staff, 26 camps each year, and an ever-growing waiting list of participants. Dean and his army of dynamic volunteers are driven by a vision to create an inclusive world for people of all abilities.

In recognition of the huge contribution Flying Fox has made to the disability sector, Dean was award an Order of Australia Medal. It's an amazing achievement for someone who is yet to reach 30 years of age. 

If you've been watching ABC's Q&A in recent years you might have come across the erudite legal scholar Professor Kim Rubenstein. Kim is an expert on citizenship and in recent years  she's been called upon to explain the complex and problematic subject of Australia's citizenship laws. Listen to Kim talk for just a few minutes, however, and you'll quickly realise she speaks with clarity, avidity and intelligence on a range of contemporary and historical matters.

In July 2021, she celebrates the publication of her new book: The Vetting of Wisdom: Joan Montgomery and the Fight for PLC. It tells the dramatic tale of the sacking of a popular private school principal in the mid-1980s.