How I Made It

Sarina Russo failed high school English classes and was fired from her job as a legal secretary. She’s proof that determination and perseverance can triumph after joining the Financial Review Rich Women List earlier this year with an estimated $267 million fortune. Listen to how she did it.

Background reading:

• She failed high school English. Now she’s worth $267m
• ‘Watch me’: Sarina Russo’s 8 lessons to turn failure into $267m

How I Made It website here. Email us at [email protected]

For more stories about success, subscribe to The Australian Financial Review here.

 

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After dropping out of uni and with starting out with $400, Tammy Hembrow has built online fitness app Tammy Fit and clothing brand Saksi Collection into businesses that's given her an estimated $38 million fortune.

Background reading:

• 13 lessons to turn $400 into $38m
• How this 28-year-old built a $38m fortune

How I Made It website here. Email us at [email protected]

For more stories about success, subscribe to The Australian Financial Review here.

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David Tudehope quit working for CBA at 25 to start a company with big ambitions. Macquarie Telecom would take on Telstra. It’s been so successful he’s found his way onto the Financial Review Rich List. Tudehope shares his secrets for success, which includes something they’ve developed called the Noah’s Ark.

Background reading:

• The key to the group’s 28-year-success in the fast-changing tech industry is an in-house process they invented to evaluate emerging trends.
• One of Tudehope’s favourite quotes is from former US president Calvin Coolidge. It's about persistence, and for about a decade, he kept that quote in his wallet. Here's what else he learnt along the way. 

How I Made It website here. Email us at [email protected]

For more stories about success, subscribe to The Australian Financial Review here.

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When Grant Petty was growing up in Shepparton in Victoria’s Goulburn Valley, his family didn't have much money so he took to 'rorting' the system to fund his early education in electronics. Petty went on to start Blackmagic Design, a company that designs cameras and editing systems for the entertainment industry that turned over ¾ of a billion dollars in 2021.

How I Made It website here. Email us at [email protected]

Background reading

• Grant Petty doesn't play by traditional business rules: He mocks human resources departments who love to use psychometric testing. His accountants pull their hair out because he insists on paying more tax than he should. And, people probably thought that he was “pyscho” in the early days of building Blackmagic Design, a video equipment and software company that’s become so successful it made him a billionaire this year.
• 14 lessons for success: Founders need to “stop caring about how you look or what people think of you and focus”. Also, “be a little crazy”. 

For more stories about success, subscribe to The Australian Financial Review here.

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Australian Financial Review's Julie-anne Sprague takes you inside the world of the country’s top entrepreneurs. They'll share insights on what makes them tick, their business advice and how they overcame the odds to grace one of the AFR's Rich Lists.

If you want to know how business empires are made, listen to How I Made It. Season two premieres Monday July 18. 

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Michael Heine, 72 and his son Matt, 42, together run Netwealth, one of Australia’s fastest growing wealth management businesses. They come from a long line of entrepreneurs, never finished university and the family is now worth around $2.8 billion.
They talk about taking on Australia's big banks, working with family, risking it all for a good idea and Dolly Parton.

Background reading: The 150-year making of Netwealth

How I Made It website here.

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Jessica Sepel, 32, went from working at Priceline after school to creating one of their fastest growing brands JS Health Vitamins. She’s a nutritionist and wellness blogger who quit her day job and is now worth an estimated $426 million. She talks about her struggle with food, getting scammed by manufacturers, how to deal with the social media haters, and one lesson she lives by: “Life is suffering.”

 

Background reading: Wellness couple fight back from failure to join Young Rich List https://www.afr.com/young-rich/wellness-couple-fight-back-from-failure-to-join-young-rich-list-20210913-p58r87

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Wes Maas, 41, was doing “okay” playing in the NRL for the South Sydney Rabbitohs but knew he was never going to be in the top 20 per cent. So the “workaholic” from Dubbo went home and bought a bobcat for $14,000 and borrowed $25,000 to buy a tip truck. His company employs over 600 people, listed on the ASX last year, and Wes is now knocking on the door of the nation’s billionaires club. He adopts his business philosophy from sport: work hard, build a great team and play to win. He talks about why Dubbo is the most connected place in Australia and why every team needs a “mozzie”.

How I Made It website here.

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Graham Turner, 72, grew up on an apple farm in Queensland and attended a one-teacher primary school where he had to make up numbers on the netball team. He’s a trained vet who went from driving double decker tour buses around Europe to starting Flight Centre with a couple of mates.

It’s now one of the world’s biggest travel agencies with operations in 24 countries. Flight Centre put Turner on the Rich List for 20 years until the pandemic knocked the share price from $61 to $9. Turner says it’ll take the company 3 to 5 years to recover and while he has no plans to retire, he is looking forward to an overseas holiday. 

How I Made It website here.

Background reading: ‘Cash is everything’: Skroo’s 8 lessons for life; How Graham Turner built Flight Centre and survived COVID-19

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The Australian Financial Review started tracking Australia’s 200 richest people in 1983. Back then, they were worth a combined $4.7 billion. Fast forward to this year and the total value of Australia’s 200 richest people sits at $479.6 billion.

In this bonus episode of How I Made It, host Julie-anne Sprague is joined by Rich List co-editor Michael Bailey and Chanticleer columnist James Thomson to dissect how they find candidates for the list, how the nature of wealth has changed over the last 38 years, and what investors can learn from the way fortunes are being made today.

How I Made It website here.

Background reading: Meet this year’s 26 new Young Rich Listers

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