Don't Stop Us Now AI Edition

Leaning into your strengths is perhaps the most powerful thing you can do as an individual to progress your career AND enjoy it more. 

And if it’s that important we figured we should have a conversation about this! So we did! :-) 

In this week’s episode, Claire and Greta have a lot of fun talking about everything you need to know to own your strengths, thrive and feel more fulfilled.

We cover:

• Why leaning into your strengths has so many payoffs
• How you discover what your key strengths really are
• How to think about applying them in to your day to day work and life, and
• Hear real life stories of people who’ve made changes and are now thriving all due to insights about their strengths.

Wherever you’re at in your career, we can all benefit from pausing and asking ourselves “how much am I using my strengths this week?” 

Join us now :) 

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Today you are coming on tour with us to a newly opened, state of the art immersive technologies research centre at Portsmouth University in England. 

The CCIXR, or Centre for Creative and Immersive Extended Reality, is the UK’s first facility where the latest in special effects, gaming and virtual reality technologies are all brought together. 

Come with us as we learn all about this cutting edge facility from the Centre’s Business Director, Pippa Bostock and Specialist Technician and Producer, Hattie Ball. 

As you’ll hear, the Centre is at the forefront of how technologies are converging to make all kinds of experiences that much more realistic - from films and theatre, to museum visits, as well as incredible training simulations for industry and the armed forces. (Think virtual reality on steroids.) 

In this episode we start with Pippa taking us through the big picture including the metaverse,  and then we’re going to dive a little deeper and speak with Hattie who walks us through a real example. 

In this episode you’ll learn: 

• What Immersive and extended realities are
• How and where we might see them used in the future
• How you can learn more and get creative yourself
• And exactly how the buzzword of the moment, the Metaverse might play out. 

All the people at the CCIXR were so welcoming so a big shout out to the whole team there. Let’s start the tour shall we? 

Useful Links

CCIXR (Centre for Creative and Immersive Extended Reality) website

Pippa LinkedIn 

Hattie LinkedIn

Hattie Ball’s personal website

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We’re back from our much needed holiday and super excited about our guest this week. She’s a technology veteran who’s just made the leap, after a long career with big global tech brands, to run a climate tech startup in Singapore. 

Maya Hari spent over 15 years in the digital media, mobile and e-commerce industries, working in the US and in Asia Pacific with companies such as Google, Samsung and Microsoft. She also led Twitter’s operations in Asia Pacific.

Now she’s taken up the reins as CEO of a startup called Terrascope with a mandate to scale the young venture. She’s had three months in her new role and is excited about how it fits both her professional and her personal purpose.

You can tell Maya is a deep thinker and we love how she talks about: 

• How she made the decision to leave big corporates to join a startup
• How she assesses when it’s right to make a career transition
• What she learnt from her most challenging career experience,
• And we just loved a habit of hers that she calls ‘Serendipity Reading’.  

So without further ado, enjoy this conversation with the strategic and thoughtful Maya Hari. 

Useful Links

Maya on LinkedIn

Terrascope website

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This week we have a treat in store for you: an Australian entrepreneur who’s literally bringing nature indoors with her creation of a whole new segment using Australian native botanicals for products such as handwash, cleaning products, and dog shampoo. 

Founder of Bondi Wash, Belinda Everingham, launched her business in 2013. Today, the premium Bondi Wash range is sold and known around the world for its quality, chemical-free formulations and beautiful scents. 

Curiously, what Belinda’s doing now with her business is light years away from how her career started as a management consultant. 

In this episode you’ll learn:

• How serendipity helped Belinda scale her overseas presence not long after launching
• What happened when Belinda had to go into battle with a US giant trying to stop her using her brand name
• The one thing she believes is critical for success in business
• And why, when starting Bondi Wash, Belinda threw her rigorous and structured management consultant training out the window.

We think you’ll love this episode with the super thoughtful and inspiring Belinda Everingham. 

Useful Links

Belinda on LinkedIn

Bondi Wash Website

Wyalba Perfumes

Wash Wild Website

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We can hardly believe it but Don’t Stop Us Now! is officially 4 years old! 

It was quite a different world back when we launched in 2018. Covid wasn’t a ‘thing’, working from home was often seen as a privilege, and organisations never would have believed they could ‘convert’ to digital and remote operations as easily and rapidly as they did.

We’ve had a ball going back through the 146 episodes of the past four years to bring you this special episode featuring wonderful highlights and memories. We also identified a few key incredibly helpful themes that keep cropping up with our inspiring, pioneering and innovative female leaders (83 so far and counting). 

You’ll also hear about the one moment Claire will NEVER repeat again as well as the moments that filled us with wonder and awe. Plus, learn how you could win a $100 Amazon gift card. 

So come on a highlights-filled journey with us now. . . preferably whilst eating cake and supping champagne!  :-) 

Links

Our How to Manage Your Inner Critic episode: 

Our How to Breathe Easy About Your Purpose episode :  

Claire on LinkedIn

Greta on LinkedIn 

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Our guest this week is a truly pioneering woman in so many fields. For instance, if you live in Australia today, then many of the rights you may take for granted came about thanks, at least in part, to the determined and courageous stand of feminist pioneer, businesswoman and writer, Wendy McCarthy. 

From campaigning tirelessly for women’s rights, to smashing the glass ceiling time after time, Wendy, now in her 80s, has done it all including just publishing a book: ‘Don’t Be Too Polite Girls’. Unsurprisingly, she’s been described as a national treasure. 

Starting out as a teacher, Wendy has evolved over the decades to be an executive, a founder and company director. Across all these endeavours, she has worked for change in education, family planning, human rights, public health, conservation and the Arts to list a few.

In this episode you’ll hear the formidable Wendy share:

• How one profound lesson as a young girl has shaped her life 
• How she’s learnt to take risks and not be intimidated
• How trying to retire at 60 was a huge mistake, and 
• How Wendy thinks about claiming her space when she walks into a room.

Enjoy the stories and wisdom from true pioneer and trailblazer, Wendy McCarthy. 

Links

Wendy’s new book: ’Don’t Be Too Polite Girls’

Wendy on LinkedIn

Wendy on Twitter

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This week’s guest was named IT Woman of the Year for the APAC region in 2020 and despite her illustrious and super busy career in senior regional leadership roles at Google, Twitter and Cloudflare, Aliza Knox also managed to find time to mentor many women along the way. 

As a result of all her rich experience, Aliza has just published a book on the 6 essential mindshifts you need to rise and thrive at work. The book is called Don’t Quit Your Day Job. 

These days, Aliza serves as a non executive director on Boards in multiple countries and is a senior advisor to her old consulting firm, Boston Consulting Group. 

We were fascinated to catch up with Aliza to learn more about her own career lessons as well as the 6 key mindshifts she’s identified in her book. We think you’ll be fascinated too. 

Hear unique advice and stories including: 

• Why a bad job situation led to Aliza moving countries
• Why reflecting on your career options at any point in time is so valuable 
• What job dating is
• And, which of the 6 essential mindshifts Aliza believes has been the most influential in her own career. 

Aliza has some amazing career advice so sit back and enjoy this episode.

Links

Aliza’s website

Aliza on Twitter

Aliza on LinkedIn

‘Don’t Quit Your Day Job’ on Amazon, Booktopia

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It’s not everyday you come across a global marketing leader who trained as an engineer and computer scientist! But that’s true for our visionary guest this week, Lucinda Barlow. 

Lucinda is Senior Director, Head of Marketing for Asia Pacific for Uber. Before joining Uber two years ago, Lucinda was global Marketing Director for YouTube, with its 2 billion daily users.

With more than 20 years of experience working in Internet and mobile in Asia, the US and UK, Lucinda has some incredible and varied experience coupled with a true passion for championing creativity. 

In this episode you’ll hear how:

• How Lucinda changed her life, and her job, after receiving some wise advice from fashion designer and icon Diane von Furstenberg
• How she thinks about making big career transition decisions
• Why she believes failure should be celebrated more
• And how Lucinda brings creativity out in her teams. 

Enjoy this episode with the incredibly passionate and creative Lucinda Barlow. 

P.S. A reminder that our mini episodes are taking a little break right now so we’re back with a new episode every 2nd week. 

Links

Lucinda on LinkedIn

Lucinda on Twitter

Uber.com

Uber on YouTube

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We’re back from Covid (hooray!) and so even more excited about this week’s inspiring guest! 

Joanna Flint is Chief Commercial Officer for the Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group where she’s responsible for its global marketing, sales, revenue management, brand and distribution functions. She is also a member of the company’s Board. 

Joanna joined the luxury brand last year after more than twelve years with Google in Asia where, amongst other roles, she was Managing Director of Google Singapore. Based in Singapore with her family, after 20 years living in Asia, Joanna is also a member of YPO and a mentor to early stage start-ups. 

If you’re contemplating your career or thinking about changing roles then you have come to the right place because Joanna has some of the most thoughtful musings on this topic we’ve heard. 

In this episode you’ll learn:

• The incredible story of why Joanna nearly didn’t apply for the top job at Google in Singapore and what happened to make her change her mind
• The opportunities she feels she wasted because she wasn’t super clear about what she wanted next in her career
• Exactly how Joanna got that clarity on what her next role needed to look like
• And how she manages the challenges of leading a truly global team without working 24/7.

We know you’ll love the amazing insights and advice shared in this conversation, so enjoy this episode with the insightful and passionate Joanna Flint. 

A quick P.S. from us that we are giving our mini episodes a little break for a while, so we’ll be back in two weeks time with our next conversation with an amazing, pioneering female leader. Hint - she’s ‘uber’ cool. 

Useful Links

Jo on LinkedIn 

Mandarinoriental.com 

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This week’s mini episode explores what it takes to build a successful partnership with a co-founder. 

One thing we’ve noticed with numerous early stage startups is the challenge in those very early days of finding a co-founder, or co-founders, whom you can really work with for the long term, even when the pressure’s on. 

So often you hear of acrimonious founder breakups and it got us asking ourselves, how do you create a good working relationship over time if you have co-founders? 

One person who’s brilliantly navigated the co-founder challenge is serial Scottish entrepreneur Lesley Eccles, who with her 4 other co-founders built a blockbuster business called FanDuel. We spoke to Lesley on the podcast a year ago and she has some amazing stories and experiences if you haven’t heard that episode.

In this mini episode you’ll hear how Lesley and her co-founders made a success of working and pivoting together for more than ten years to create a business that has ultimately been valued over $11 billion. 

We also share some of our observations from the four years of producing this podcast and from years of observing and advising numerous startups first hand. 

As the saying goes: “it takes two to tango” and it typically takes two or more to build an epic business. So enjoy this mini episode on Succeeding with Co Founders. 

Links

Link to Lesley Eccles original episode

Link to Adina Jacobs orig episode 

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