Ryan Murtagh is the founder and CEO of Neto, a B2B and multi-channel Ecommerce platform that provides an all-in-one solution for Ecommerce, POS, inventory & fulfilment.

Neto is the trusted retail management platform for household brands like Spotlight, Bicyclesonline, Anaconda and Edible blooms.

An entrepreneur at heart, Ryan’s business journey started at the early age of 14, when he took over a failing school tuck shop and turned it into a small business success story.

He shares an inspiring journey; from running an online store selling bikes and massage chairs, to starting Neto and their evolution from a web development service business to productising their platform and transitioning into a Software-As-A-Service (SAAS) business.

Ryan shares the lessons learnt through huge growth following a significant investment from Telstra, which led to hiring 70 new employees in 8 months. He explains why they’re leaving their head office in Brisbane to become a fully-distributed workforce. We discuss how they’re preserving and protecting their culture and his vision for the new space, which seeks to be a retreat from the home office.

Ryan provides some valuable tips and takeaways for people in Ecommerce and predicts what the future of retail may look like.

Connect with Ryan on LinkedIn.

Ryan Murtagh is the founder and CEO of leading retail management platform, Neto.

Established in 2009, today Neto is a complete solution for retail that allows retailers and wholesalers to sell everywhere (Point-of-Sale, webstore, and marketplaces such as Amazon and eBay) and manage all of their back of house operations (payment gateways, shipping/freight, inventory, accounting, CRM and advanced data analytics). Thousands of retailers across the world use the platform to sell their wares and cumulatively have turned over more than $3 billion in sales. Neto experienced steady growth until 2015, at which time Telstra invested in the company, and Neto has been rapidly expanding since.

Ryan started his journey as an Australian multi-channel retailer, importing and distributing products on eBay, a webstore and a bricks and mortar location, establishing Neto after identifying the pain points of running a retail business.

With a great product and over 130 passionate people working at Neto offices in Australia, New Zealand, and Asia, Ryan is inspired by coming into work each day and is excited to see where this next phase will take the company.

Zoe is the Co-Founder & Creative Director of Co-Partnership, a multi-award winning branding and packaging agency that specialises in alcohol brands.

Since 1998, Zoe has worked on some of the world’s most iconic brands with some of the industry’s most inspiring creatives, including Harry Pearce of Pentagram, Mary Lewis of Lewis Moberly and Max Harkness with whom she founded Co-Partnership with in 2011.

Zoe has a great story — from growing up in the London 90’s music scene, building a portfolio from scratch, packaging design for FMCG brands, designing a casino in Tanzania, and the highlights and challenges of their first decade at Co-Partnership

She shares what inspires her, explains the difference between designing for food versus alcohol brands, how they get new clients, attracting and retaining great staff, and their design process for creating brands worth remembering.

Follow Co-Partnership on Instagram and connect with Zoe on LinkedIn.

Zoe Green is the Co-Founder & Creative Director of Co-Partnership, a branding and packaging agency that specialise in alcohol brands.

Zoe’s journey to graphic design followed the rhythm of the London underground music scene where she began designing logos and record labels for 90’s jungle and hip-hop genres. 

Throughout her career, she has worked with some of the industry’s most inspiring creatives, such as Mary Lewis of Lewis Moberly and Harry Pearce of Pentagram, leading projects for iconic household names and challenger brands with proven experience across FMCG food packaging and premium alcohol branding.

In 2011 she co-founded Co-Partnership, a strategic branding and packaging studio with Innovation Director Max Harkness. The company has grown in reputation for their specialism in alcohol packaging design, working in partnership with local Aussie drinks brands and established global companies with strict commercial realities.

Shaped by her London upbringing, Zoe is driven to give a brand a pulse, coaching her team to always seek relevant ideas that add value and inspire memorable design executions.

Always one to challenge a category, she understands you have to know the rules to break them.

Nikki Bentley is an Executive Producer who has dedicated her working life to creating world-class content and marketing, for brands around the world.

She is the founder of Perfect Tribe, a creative consultancy and representation agency for brands. By tapping into her global network of brilliant creative specialists, Nikki assembles the perfect team for each project.

Nikki is also a Co-founder of Troupe, a community designed to support the creative journey for remote working talent.

In this episode we discuss her background, starting out in production and television in South Africa, working in ad agencies in London, and moving to Lisbon to start her own business.

We touch on how the production industry has changed over the years, Nikki shares some great stories of working in live television, plus we dive into how she collaborates with some of the brightest creatives around the world.

Connect with Nikki on LinkedIn.

Nikki Bentley is an Executive Producer who has dedicated her working life to creating world-class content and marketing for brands around the world.

Her career has taken her from live broadcast production and award-winning documentary programming, to rebranding media channels and producing cross platform campaigns around the globe.

Nikki founded Perfect Tribe to provide the perfect team for every project by tapping into the vast network of brilliant creative specialists she has met and loved over the years. Her founding belief is that when each member of a tribe delivers what they’re individually brilliant at, we build a better, healthier and more creative community. And we get to create beauty and joy.

She is a company director and the treasurer for Promax UK and sits on the advisory council for PromaxBDA in Europe. She is a frequent speaker at key industry events and is regularly invited to join the jury panels for judging award competitions.

Nikki is a member of the Million Dollar Women movement which aims to see one million female business owners reach one million dollars in revenue by 2020. And she forms part of the senior leadership team for the M$W Summit hosted in New York each year.

She was also listed as 2018 Top 100 Influencer by Creativepool.

It is Nikki’s driving ambition to see great creative minds inform decisions across every aspect of business as she believes this will build a more emotively connected world.

Craig Parsons is the Co-founder and Chief Creative Officer of Parsons, a Brand Design Studio with offices in South Africa and Ireland.

Founded in 2009, Parsons work with businesses across the globe, on identities, campaigns, packaging and more.

In this episode, Craig shares his story of how he went from being a young surfer, designing t-shirts while travelling across America, to running one of the most revered brand studios in the world.

We discuss: how he got into design, Co-founding Parsons with his wife and business partner, how they get new clients, their design process, some of his favourite projects, why him and his family are moving from Cape Town to Ireland, and where he gets ideas and draws inspiration from. Plus he shares some practical tips for improving the way you present work.

Follow Parsons on Instagram.

After working as a graphic designer for 12 years, with deep roots in research and strategy, Craig founded his own studio in 2009. Craig is a multi-disciplined creative, with a passion for pure graphic design, typography and art direction. His strengths lie not only in his ability to produce beauty through restraint and crafted simplicity, but his conceptual work and extreme resourcefulness are what set his ideas apart. Design-thinking is core to our project work, as pathfinders Parsons identifies the human experience of authentic brands that are looking to make new friends and reach their full potential.

Keith Byrne is a globally experienced Creative Director, who has worked for some of the world’s most renowned advertising agencies, including: Digitas, R/GA, Ogilvy and Rothco.

With over 15 years’ experience, Keith’s worked on some of the biggest brands, such as Disney, Honda, HSBC and Mercedes-Benz.

In a time where advertising is seen as an annoying interruption, Keith explains what marketers can do to cut through the noise.

He shares his favourite campaigns and discusses how the industry has changed over the years, plus what brands can do to rebound out of a recession.

Learn more about Keith.

Keith Byrne is a Creative Director, Writer and Strategist.

He has crafted campaigns, content and experiences that have run on nearly every continent, in nearly every category, for Disney, Honda, HSBC, Mercedes-Benz, Unilever and VISA.

For the past 4 years, Keith has led Digitas Singapore, helping the agency to be named Marketing Magazine’s Digital Agency of the Year (Twice) and Campaign’s Consultancy, Digital and Specialist Agency of the Year. During this period, Digitas Singapore has been highly awarded at the Spikes, Markies, Mumbrella and Shorty Awards.

Keith regularly writes about creativity, design, media and technology, and occasionally judges advertising festivals, most recently taking part in Adfest (Thailand), Adstars (Korea) and Mumbrella (Singapore). Outside of advertising, Keith is married with two young boys.

Ben Johnston has spent more than 15 years developing businesses, consulting on digital strategy and identifying market gaps and future trends. He’s founded and co-founded some hugely successful companies including digital ventures studio Josephmark (JM), motion design company Breeder, indigenous creative agency Gilimbaa and trending music platform We Are Hunted, which was acquired by Twitter in 2012.

In this episode we discuss what the future of work could look like, working with performance coaches and designing smart spaces. 

We also dive into the venture studio model and how Josephmark is reimagining and redesigning the traditional agency model and corporate structures. 

Ben shares some valuable insights on how JM decides on which start-ups to partner with and their framework for validating concepts and determining product/market fit. And provides some great advice for founders looking to build successful digital products. 

He also shares some great stories of ventures they’ve partnered in, including music discovery app Undrtone and in browser video editing app Clipchamp. 

Learn more about Josephmark.

Follow Ben on Twitter. 

Ben’s Bio:

Ben’s spent more than a decade developing businesses, consulting on digital strategy, identifying market gaps and future trends. He’s founded and co-founded many successful companies, including digital ventures studio Josephmark (JM), motion design company Breeder, indigenous creative agency Gilimbaa and trending music platform We Are Hunted, which was acquired by Twitter in 2012. As JM’s Founder, Ben leads a team who consistently create and launch innovative digital products like Australian startup chart Vest, catch-up news platform Hash and social music discovery site Undrtone. He’s become an influential figure within Australia’s creative and business communities, and his fearlessness in pushing the envelope has culminated in the truly entrepreneurial business that Josephmark is known for.

Episode Contents: 

Tim Hughes is a global expert in creative brand strategy and the founder of The Brief Doctor. He is a lifetime achievement award–winner, and former chair of Promax UK.

A creative brief is a short 1-2 page document outlining the strategy for a creative project, typically between client and agency. Tim’s business, The Brief Doctor, specialise in making these documents more compelling, which in turn results in better creative.

This episode is perfect for people who want to make brands better and marketers who want their messages to cut through.

Tim explains The Brief Doctor’s Who, What, Why method of writing great creative briefs, the art of the Single-Minded Proposition, and the common mistakes people make when writing creative briefs.

We discuss: customer journeys and creating advocates, how to unite your Marketing and Creative teams, Tim’s favourite projects, how to make things go ‘viral’.

Plus, how to improve engagement on Linkedin and how brands get social media wrong.

Connect with Tim on LinkedIn.

Tim Hughes is a global expert in creative brand strategy and founder of The Brief Doctor.

He is a customer-focussed strategic thinker and award-winning creative leader with twenty years experience in branding and global television marketing. Tim is a motivator of people, a conceptual visualiser, a strong and intriguing speaker and consultant.

Andrew McShea is a Management Consultant and Co-Founder of Play Sports Marketing, a leading sports consultancy firm created for the post COVID world in the business of sport.

He’s the former General Manager of Queensland Cricket and the Brisbane Heat.  Having spent 9 seasons with the Brisbane Heat, Andrew talks about how the Big Bash League (BBL) grew from an idea to becoming one of the most popular sporting codes in Australia.

We discuss game-day activations and off-field entertainment, sponsorships and dealing with social media trolls.

Anyone who’s followed the BBL or been to a Brisbane Heat game will enjoy hearing behind the scenes stories about Rocketman and the CUA pool deck.

We talk about other sporting codes who are getting it right. I ask Andrew what Rugby Anion needs to do to save the game in Australia. Plus our shared love of sports documentaries like The Last Dance and Amazon’s The Test.

Andrew shares some great perspective on what it takes for sporting codes to succeed.

Connect with Andrew on LinkedIn.

Andrew McShea is a senior sports executive with 20 years experience working for leading consumer and sporting brands including Johnnie Walker, Smirnoff, Guinness, Bundaberg Rum, Goodlife Health Clubs and the Brisbane Heat. Andrew has an award-winning track record of revenue generation, innovation, commercialisation and digital success.

For the people who have been with us for our first 10 episodes, why the change in name?

Well it’s not because we’ve run out of remarkable people to talk to. We’re changing the name because we want to align the topics of the podcast with what our business does: grow businesses through effective brand strategy, marketing and design.

Moving forward, our attention will be focused on interviewing remarkable people from the creative, design and branding community, to get their perspective on great branding, marketing, advertising, digital and design.

My vision is to bring branding into the mainstream, the same way The Gruen Transfer did for Advertising.

I believe that having an appreciation and understanding of what good branding is, is relevant for everyone, and for those who want to build a business it’s vital knowledge.

This podcast will highlight great stories of effective branding, creative campaigns and good business practices.

Jason Andrew is a leading real estate industry commentator, keynote speaker and CEO of Ray White — NSW.

Previous to joining Ray White, Jason ran his own hugely successful Auctioneering business. As a group they called over 3,000 auctions per year, with Jason personally calling over 30,000 in his career alone. Jason was awarded the Australasian Auctioneering Champion in 2010, and was also named Auctioneer of the Year by the Real Estate Institute of Queensland in 2009, 2012 and 2014.

In this episode we discuss the effect COVID-19 has had on the Australian real estate market and what the outlook could be. How Jason built his auctioneering business and what it takes to be a great auctioneer. Plus some tips on how we could all improve our public speaking skills.

Jason explains why he left his own business to join Ray White, and shares his thoughts on leadership, running successful conferences and the challenges the real estate industry faces.

Connect with Jason on LinkedIn.

As CEO of New South Wales | ACT, Jason provides leadership to Ray White’s network of offices and works with businesses and agents to drive a higher level of performance in this incredibly competitive and important market.

Previous to this Jason launched his namesake business in 2008. Quickly growing in size and reputation, the team at Jason Andrew Group call over 3,000 auctions per year, with Jason personally calling over 30,000 in his career alone. As a tribute to his auctioneering talent, Jason was awarded the Australasian Auctioneering Champion in 2010, and was also named Auctioneer of the Year by the Real Estate Institute of Queensland in 2009, 2012 and 2014.

In recent years Jason has become a leading industry commentator, key-note speaker and mentor, which sees him share his fresh and dynamic approach to established real estate concepts in his own irreplaceable and ubiquitous style.