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I first came across Neal Foard about a year ago. I saw one of his videos on Linkedin and I was hooked. Since then, I light up every time I see the distinctive black backdrop with his smiling face inviting me in for another immersive life lesson.
Neal is a storyteller. He shares beautiful, heart-warming stories – always with a powerful takeaway. In an age where many of our political leaders and media personalities encourage us to think the worst of each other and to focus on the rage, Neal highlights the best of us. Through his stories, he inspires the best of us.
Neal’s background is in in advertising and marketing. Thirty years spent creating award-winning campaigns for global power brands like Budweiser, Sony and Nokia. For his work on Toyota, Neal ranked among the top ten most awarded creative directors in the world in 2002. As the author of an innovative talent development series, Neal was named Worldwide Director of Creative Learning for global ad agency Saatchi & Saatchi. He has consulted on creative messaging for Fortune 500 companies and universities and been a featured speaker at TEDx conferences. Most recently, Neal has gained a sudden following on social media for his inspirational videos about the kindnesses of everyday people.
Today, I am so excited to introduce you to Neal. This episode is filled with stories and insightful nuggets of gold. Ultimately the message that rises up is the immense power of stories to connect us in a disconnected world, to build trust and to inspire the best from us.
Highlights:
Connect with Neal
On Linkedin
On YouTube
On Instagram
On TikTok
Storyfire website
Sasha Titchkosky is the co-founder and CEO of Koskela; Australia’s leading sustainability practitioner in the furniture and design industry. She has become an influential voice for circular business and social impact as she transforms Koskela towards total circularity by 2027 and absolute-zero emissions by 2035.
She also leads programs that use design skills to support Australia's Indigenous communities.
Sasha founded Koskela in 2000 with her partner Russel Koskela, both leaving behind lucrative jobs in the corporate sector in a bid to create a company with a courageous mindset and strong social conscience.
Today, they work with some of the world's leading corporations and educational institutions to create work and learning spaces of the future, from Airbnb to Pinterest, Apple, Google, and Australia's leading law firms and banks.
In 2017 Koskela became Australia’s first certified furniture B Corporation.
Sasha is committed to manufacturing Koskela’s range in Australia and is a fearless advocate for using design skills to affect social change.
Our interview covers Sasha’s career journey leading to why and how Koskela started 24 years ago.
Sasha shares the story of Koskela’s evolution from a business that started with the principles of designing furniture that was affordable and sourced and manufactured locally, to their commitment to achieve total circularity by 2027.
It’s a story of innovation and leadership and one that I’m certain will provide inspiration and insight to others who want to understand how business can solve some of society’s most challenging problems.
Interview Highlights:
❤️ Sasha introduces Koskela, highlighting their two impact pillars – reconciliation and environment
$ She shares her background journey from law and working at the ASX to how she and her partner started Koskela
❤️ The problem Koskela set out to tackle – the horrific level of waste in the way commercial tenancies worked
$ The evolving thinking of Koskela’s founders on certain climate certifications and why they decided to move beyond carbon neutrality
❤️ Sasha explains their move towards creating their own carbon budget and she highlights and recommends the tool they’ve adopted, through The SME Climate Hub
$ She shares their ambitious 2027 deadline to become fully circular
❤️ Sasha explains the scale of the problem they are tackling, highlighting both waste and health factors.
$ This provides the context for her to share how Koskela have designed their shift to circularity, including their ReHome second life program
❤️ Sasha shares the next exciting phase of Koskela, a subscription model award-winning concept that is currently in development
$ We discuss the importance of profitability for a purpose-driven business
❤️ Sasha outlines her vision of what Koskela could look like by 2030
Sasha on Linkedin
Koskela website
Koskela's 2027 Circularity Action Plan
Lucy Piper is the Director of WorkforClimate and a passionate voice for moving the needle on climate change. After a decade in the corporate sector working in advertising and film production, Lucy faced her own climate reckoning. As a new mother, hearing the voice of Greta Thunberg addressing the UN, "We will never forgive you", echoed in her mind and she decided to turn her skills towards climate solutions.
In 2020, she left her much-loved role as the Global Head of Creative at Intrepid Travel to join WorkforClimate – a non-profit that equips climate-concerned professionals with the education, resources and community to make impactful change. Since then, Lucy has spent her days empowering Australians to push for change within their workplaces so that more businesses can set and achieve ambitious climate goals.
Lucy believes that businesses are key to solving the climate crisis and that employees are critical to its success. “You don't need to quit your day job in order to have a big impact on climate change.” She says. Her team is helping build a ‘green collar’ workforce and increasing practical climate literacy in every role and department.
My interview with Lucy was such a boost of energy and I hope it flows through to you. It is exactly the kind of energy we need, because it comes from a place of empowerment. A recognition that we all have a role to play in the climate crisis. And we can do something. And that something – no matter how small it is – can level up into something bigger.
Work for Climate is an antidote to the philosophy that little old me can’t do anything. Yes you can.
Interview highlights:
❤️ Lucy shares her background from the perspective of – as she describes, a “geriatric millennial” – starting work at the intersection of the analogue and digital worlds.
💲 Lucy explains the concept behind WorkforClimate – empowering people to take action on climate change within their organisations
❤️ She recalls and describes a powerful Venn diagram concept shared at the 2023 Purpose Conference by Adaptation Architect Digby Hall, explaining how we all need to respond to the Climate Crisis today – at the intersection of mitigation and adaptation. She connects this with what corporate organisations must do now to meet their stakeholders’ needs
💲 Lucy explains the specifics behind WorkforClimate and the four comprehensive action areas they support, which include the tools and resources for employees – leadership skills to influence others in their team; and technical skills
❤️ She fleshes out the four action areas:
💲 Lucy passionately describes the imperative for everyone to take some form of action. Because the alternative is to be a bystander!
❤️ Lucy shares the dream for WorkforClimate – that “every job should be a climate job” - to grow the community exponentially globally, for employee-led change, across industries, sectors, companies, to accelerate what is possible in the corporate sector.
Get Started now in your climate job here
WorkforClimate website http
Connect with Lucy
On Linkedin
There are 40,000 victims of modern slavery on any one day in Australia, as reported by the Australian Federal Police. Shocking right?
My guest on this episode is Sally Irwin, Founder and MD of The Freedom Hub, who is committed to create a world of freedom by ending Modern Slavery.
Sally has a career background in the corporate sector, but in 2008 she moved to Germany when her husband took up a Diplomatic post in Berlin. There, Sally was confronted with the issue of human trafficking in Eastern Europe, and established a charity in Berlin to fund organisations that supported the victims. She became very active in a centre supporting women trafficked in prostitution and was personally involved in helping a number of these women return to their country and begin a new life.
After four years working face to face with trauma victims of modern slavery, Sally returned to Sydney in 2012, keen to apply her experience in Australia.
She found a gap in Australia’s care for slavery victims, resulting in the creation of The Freedom Hub (TFH). In March 2014 Sally founded TFH Survivor School, that rebuilds the lives of slavery victims and is the ONLY specialised long-term support in Australia. TFH trauma informed classes train, equip and provide work experience to survivors of modern slavery in Australia. With over 14 years of frontline experience TFH is now a leading organisation in this field.
Sally is such an inspiring leader committed to creating change and this is an episode you don’t want to miss. What is remarkable and what I absolutely LOVE is how her commitment to tackling this problem has led her to creating an innovative organisational model that creates value for a range of different stakeholders.
Her story and that of The Freedom Hub is utterly compelling and will – I have no doubt – inspire you. My hope is it inspires you into action. Small steps or big leaps, it doesn't matter. One action almost always begets another, as Sally's story confirms and as the quote featured on TFH's website also supports...
“Start by doing what’s necessary, then do what’s possible, and suddenly you are doing the impossible.”
~ Saint Francis of Assis
Interview highlights:
❤️ We learn about the shocking scale of the problem that is modern slavery in Australia.
💲 Sally describes the problem that she discovered – not just the existence of Modern Slavery in Australia, but the absence of long-term care for its victims.
❤️ Sally shares her extraordinary story that saw her move from a corporate career in procurement to being posted overseas as a diplomat’s wife, to eventually starting The Freedom Hub, the only organisation that exists in Australia to support victims of Modern Slavery with long-term care.
💲 Sally tells us about the origins of The Freedom Hub - a cafe in Surry Hills, Sydney - that then became an event venue
❤️ How the Modern Slavery Act 2018 led to Sally expanding TFH into ethical business consulting for corporates, leveraging the work of TFH as well as Sally's earlier corporate expertise in procurement.
💲How Sally's passion to eradicate the problem of Modern Slavery has led to TFH also running Zoom training sessions for smaller organisations to do it themselves as a voluntary exercise, making improvements over time. She also talks about the business opportunity for medium and small organisations supplying corporates.
❤️ The galvanising statistic! 75 per cent of global slavery in the world is in Asia-Pacific - Australia's shopping ground, for our government, businesses and consumers. Meaning WE, Australians can dramatically impact global slavery just through conscious buying.
💲Sally describes the 5 pillars of TFH's Survivor School - the human-centred journey for survivors, the length and depth of which can vary for each individual; and which links to TFH's employment program.
❤️ Marking TFH's 10 year anniversary, Sally shares her inspiring 5 year vision of success and what she needs (businesses, please take note - there is so much opportunity for business partners in this, corporates and small to medium businesses alike)!
Connect with Sally
The Freedom Hub Website
In the last episode for 2023, I reflect on the interviews that have aired this year and some of the themes that have emerged.
When I started this podcast back in 2021, it was only meant to be a limited 12-episode series and yet here we are at Episode 52. I guess I have become a bit addicted to interviewing people who I consider to be true leaders of our time, who are charting a new and better path for business.
Our 2023 interviews covered a range of topics including:
❤️DEI – Diversity Equity and Inclusion
💲Social Enterprise, BCorp and Fair Trade
❤️Brands leading change
💲 The power of community and collaboration
❤️Creating more human-centric workplaces
💲Challenging the purpose of business
❤️Leadership
💲The Environment
❤️Cultivating Resilience
And I then dive into two key themes that consistently emerge through these interviews and my conversations with others on purpose-led business. And that I believe are intrinsically linked:
💲The importance of connecting profit with purpose
I also talk a bit about an article by author and researcher Thomas Klaffke on “Pleasure Activism”. It is such a perspective-altering read about the organising principle of the modern world being pain and the opportunity that reframing it to one of pleasure offers us.
If you're enjoying this podcast, please rate/review it on your favourite listening app and share with others who you think may also enjoy it.
Connect with Carolyn:
The Cause Effect website
Carolyn's personal website
Buy the For Love & Money book
Heidi Dening is a professional keynote speaker, author and trusted expert and educator on resilience. She regularly features in the media on this topic and believes that education changes lives.
Combining the insights she has learned from surviving a paralysing illness, a gunpoint kidnapping, a life-threatening tsunami, and petrol bombs with her impressive business and health education background, she has a unique ability to elevate the professional resilience of leaders and their teams. This enables them to make better decisions, be more innovative, have more energy, optimism and empathy, and successfully deal with change, stress, and uncertainty.
Heidi has dedicated her career to inspiring thousands of people globally with practical strategies that improve resilience, self-leadership and wellbeing, from small children on remote Pacific Islands to professional teams across numerous industries.
In this episode, Heidi shares her story that brought her to becoming one of Australia’s foremost experts on resilience. She generously shares some strategies for cultivating resilience and why it is so important.
Why is this relevant to a podcast that explores the intersection of Love & Money (Purpose & Profit)?
Well, leaders of the movement for purpose-led business will face many bumps on their path to purpose. There will be resistance to the change that becoming truly purpose-driven demands of businesses and leaders. Cultivating resilience in yourself is vital if you are going to go the distance. Clearly it is also a vital trait for teams, but today’s episode is for you. This is about cultivating resilience for yourself.
I hope you get value from this episode. Heidi is amazing and has so much wisdom to impart on this subject.
Interview Highlights:
Connect with Heidi
Heidi's website
Heidi on Linkedin
In this episode, I wanted to introduce our listeners to an organisation that I love; one of our amazing impact partners.
Rainforest Rescue is a not-for-profit organisation that has been protecting and restoring rainforests since March 1999 by providing opportunities for individuals and businesses to Protect Rainforests Forever.
Their projects re-establish rainforests through planting, maintenance, and restoration programs, as well as purchasing and protecting high conservation value rainforest and preserving its biodiversity
The majestic Daintree Rainforest is their key client, if I can put it that way. The forest they love, learn from and invest most of their time to protect.
I interview Rainforest Rescue’s CEO Branden Barber and Partnerships Director Kristin Canning. Both of their bios are below. It was a wonderful opportunity for me – and I hope, n turn, for you – to learn more about the Daintree and Rainforest Rescue’s efforts in collaboration with their partners, to protect it forever.
Here are some of the highlights:
And if you’re looking for some great Christmas gifts, take a look at their wonderful merchandise here
Before founding her own enterprises, All of the Good Things and Authentic Selling, Nimmity worked for 25+ years in senior management in the software industry. Working across a broad international landscape, this included working in Africa, Middle East, Europe (including Russia and Central Europe), Scandinavia, Asia and the Americas.
As well as providing fantastic experiences exploring the world, these experiences also highlighted the extreme contrast in her living and travelling circumstances, and those she saw in her travels. Nimmity is passionate about using her business experience for good. Her travels and work experience sparked a passion in the Fair Trade movement. Nimmity currently volunteers as the Chair of the Executive Committee of the Fair Trade Association of Australia and New Zealand. Nimmity enjoys hiking, exploring new cities, art and camping.
In this interview we explore the importance of relationships – the emotional bonds we build with other human beings. Not just friends and family, but through business. Nimmity talks about Fair Trade being the antidote to Modern Slavery, but our conversation also reveals it is so much more than that. It is about moving away from transactional bonds to emotional bonds. And in the process building more human businesses and reconnecting to our humanity.
I loved this conversation. It has inspired me to dive deeper into the Fair Trade movement. I hope it achieves the same for you.
Some of the highlights:
Connect with Nimmity
On Linkedin
All Of The Good Things website
All Of The Good Things on Instagram
Connect with the Fair Trade movement
Fair Trade Association website
List of Fair Traders in Australia
Get involved
NSW Meet-ups
Fair Trade Australia (commodity products)
In this special episode on The Voice to Parliament, I have the privilege of interviewing Yes campaigner and Director for Australians for Indigenous Constitutional Recognition, Thomas Mayo.
Thomas is a Kaurareg Aboriginal and Kalkalgal, Erubamle Torres Strait Islander man. He is the Assistant National Secretary of the MUA.
Thomas is a signatory of the Uluru Statement from the Heart and has been a leading advocate since its inception in May 2017. He is the Chairperson of the Northern Territory Indigenous Labor Network and a director on the Australians for Indigenous Constitutional Recognition board.
Thomas is the author of six books published by Hardie Grant and has many articles and essays published across the major media providers.
His latest book is co-authored with well-respected journalist, Kerry O’Brien: The Voice to Parliament Handbook - All the details you need; published 17 May 2023.
In this special episode I ask Thomas to answer the many questions arising from the proposal for the referendum for the Voice to Parliament. Some of these questions are legitimate. Sadly and frustratingly many are borne from a campaign of wilful disinformation. This means there is a lot of misinformation floating around and this episode is a chance to hear directly from one of the leaders of the YES campaign.
I hope you find this episode valuable, however you ultimately decide to vote. And I ask you please – if you have found it valuable, please share it with someone else who you think it could be helpful to. I also echo Thomas' ask at the end of our interview; to reach out and speak to people about this important proposal. To listen to them with patience, curiosity and respect and if and when you hear some of this misinformation as part of their consideration process, share the truth.
A healthy democracy depends on our citizens being well informed. Sometimes we need to get involved personally to protect our democracy. I believe this is one of those times.
Highlights of this episode:
Connect with
Thomas Mayo on Linkedin
Yes23 website
Other links
Uluru Statement from the Heart
AEC Disinformation Register
RMIT FactLab
The Voice To Parliament Handbook by Thomas Mayo and Kerry O'Brien
Today's episode features Kirrily Graham, founder of Dovetail Social Enterprises. Through Dovetail, Kirrily is on a mission to transform how small & medium sized charities operate, creating more sustainable organisations through empowering micro, small and medium sized businesses to develop successful charity partnerships that don’t just raise the funds they need for their projects but also become social impact investors, building the charity's capacity and capabilities to amplify the great work that they do in the world.
Kirrily’s combined experience of working in the NFP industry, running her own micro, small & medium-size businesses (MSME) as well as working in the corporate sector, has led her to create her own Social Enterprise to empower partnership between MSME's and small but mighty, grass-root charities.
If you are a leader of a small to medium business and you want to make a greater difference in the world through simple and powerful partnership with grass-root charities that will help them scale – this episode is for you!
Kirrily shares with us
Resources and links to connect with Kirrily
Kirrily Graham Linkedin
Dovetail Social Enterprises website
Network for Good
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