Clever Women Co‪.‬ Gal Krohn and Em Kaplan

On today’s show we chat to Kristina Karlsson, founder and former creative director of global Swedish design and stationery brand kikki.K - and recent founder of Dream Life. 

At just 22 Kristina moved from her home in Sweden to Australia - a new country half a world away from family and friends. She had little money and no idea what to do with her life.

But amidst uncertainty, inspiration struck in the humble setting of her home office. Dissatisfied with the mundane stationery options available, “Kikki” - her childhood nickname - wanted something more exciting. She borrowed a few thousand dollars to produce sample stationery, then tested it on friends.

It was a bootstrapped venture, with a local manufacturer creating her products, which she drove around Melbourne delivering to retailers. Six years later, and when she couldn’t get finance to expand the venture, she convinced her partner to sell his house, and the funds went into the first kikki.K store in 2001. 

Kikki.K would go on to become an Australian retail powerhouse, making them millions of dollars. At its peak, kikki.K had 120 retail stores and a presence in over 150 countries. 

Kristina ran and operated kikki.K for over 20 years, but the chaos of 2020 meant the company went into administration two times in two years. After this tumultuous time, Kristina parted ways with kikki.K in what she describes as the saddest and most heart-breaking day of her life.  

To Kristina, though, this was everything but the end of the journey. 

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Kristina is currently re-reading Robin Sharma’s The Wealth Money Can't Buy: The 8 Hidden Habits to Live Your Richest Life. Join Kristina’s bookclub Grow Club. 

Shop all things Dream Life: https://www.thedreamlifestore.com/ 

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New here? Welcome! Join us on this podcast where we chat about all things business, career, finance and entrepreneurship. 

Listen closely, because every episode is so different and full of insight, you might just walk away with that one tool you needed to take that next step in YOUR journey. 

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Wanting more?

Find us on TikTok, Instagram and LinkedIn as @cleverwomenco 

Chat to us, your co-hosts @galkrohn and @em.kaplan (can you tell we love a chat?)  

Ask a question or pitch to come on the show by heading to our website: clevermediaco.com 

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And please don’t forget to support us! 

If you liked what you heard, subscribe to our show & leave us a rating and review - we will love you for it 3

Thank you SO much for listening, we can’t wait to be in your ears again next week!

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You’re listening to a Clever Media production. Clever Media acknowledges the traditional owners of the land and waters that this podcast is recorded on. We pay our deepest respects to elders past, present and emerging. 

Sound Credit: Engines Ready by Yarin Primak 

On today’s show we chat to Tammy Green, the founder and director of Prene - an accessories label responsible for Australia's best-selling bag. 

It was 2015 and Tammy was only 20 years old when she dropped out of a course in business entrepreneurship at RMIT to launch her business. Working out of a bedroom in her family home in Melbourne, she bootstrapped and started with one product - the Brighton tote bag. 

At the time, she saw designers such as Alexander Wang developing garments using neoprene - the same synthetic rubber that wetsuits are made from. 

With this invincible material in mind, and in a fashion industry where expensive leather designer bags ruled the handbag world, Tammy saw a gap in the Australian market for a bag that was machine-washable and lightweight while still being stylish and affordable.

The Brighton bag was able to be used in so many ways: a nappy bag, a gym bag, a work bag, and a travel bag. The use case was endless and the product flew off the shelf. 

Along the way, she’s produced sell-out collections in collaboration with the AO, Brown Brothers wine, swimwear entrepreneur Chloe Fisher, Melbourne fashion maven Bec Judd, and others.

From side hustle to 8 figures, Prene bags are now stocked in more than 400 stores around Australia and the world, and the brand now offers close to 100 products. 

But as a young female entrepreneur, she initially struggled to gather a team, and many experienced professionals older than her didn’t like reporting to a young female boss. 

“Even dealing with retailers and big companies and stakeholders, I would answer the phone and speak to them as the founder of a very successful business, and they would immediately say, ‘Could you put your boss on?' I always had to prove myself.” 

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Tammy is currently reading You Are the Placebo: Making Your Mind Matter by Joe Dispenza. She also enjoys some fun podcast listens like Alex Cooper’s Call Her Daddy and Lauryn Evarts & Michael Bosstick’s The Skinny Confidential. She just started watching The Gentlemen on Netflix, and adores the American sitcom Curb Your Enthusiasm by Larry David.   

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Find Tammy on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube and LinkedIn. 

Shop all things Prene at https://www.prenebags.com/ 

–

New here? Welcome! Join us on this podcast where we chat about all things business, career, finance and entrepreneurship. 

Listen closely, because every episode is so different and full of insight, you might just walk away with that one tool you needed to take that next step in YOUR journey. 

–

Wanting more?

Find us on TikTok, Instagram and LinkedIn as @cleverwomenco 

Chat to us, your co-hosts @galkrohn and @em.kaplan (can you tell we love a chat?)  

Ask a question or pitch to come on the show by heading to our website: clevermediaco.com 

–

And please don’t forget to support us! 

If you liked what you heard, subscribe to our show & leave us a rating and review - we will love you for it 3

Thank you SO much for listening, we can’t wait to be in your ears again next week!

–

You’re listening to a Clever Media production. Clever Media acknowledges the traditional owners of the land and waters that this podcast is recorded on. We pay our deepest respects to elders past, present and emerging. 

Sound Credit: Engines Ready by Yarin Primak

Hello, it’s just Gal here today! And I’m chatting to Sara Bell - the founder and CEO of RIISE, and a climate change advocate who believes we can no longer rely on incremental change and need to use every creative fibre of our beings to transition faster to a cleaner lifestyle.

Sara is passionate about changing the narrative about solving climate change so people get excited about building a low-carbon future. She has spent four years legally challenging fossil fuel subsidies in the European Court as CEO of a groundbreaking energy tech company in London. She won, marking a massive career high. Sadly the win was temporary as the UK government and EU Commission unlawfully reintroduced the scheme. 

In this episode, you will see how profitability, sustainability, power and consumerism all collide, but can also be used as such a force. You will learn a lot about climate change just like I did, and not only that, but Sara will also chat us through what is it really that we want as individuals? 

What is it that is going to make us care more, and take more action? What is it that's going to make it not so scary to think of climate change? What's going to make it approachable and relatable? Because at the end of the day, Sara says, humans crave newness. 

But newness is the opposite of slowing down our buying habits. So what is the solution? 

Let’s get into it. 

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Sara is currently reading The Wizard of the Kremlin by Giuliano Da Empoli - an Italian and French political essayist and novelist. She is also watching Ginny & Georgia - an American comedy-drama television series created by Sarah Lampert. 

Read about the fossil fuel court case Sara led as the former CEO of Tempus Energy: 

Capacity Market: Sara Bell on what happens next

UK Parliament: https://committees.parliament.uk/oralevidence/4384/html/

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Find Sara Bell on LinkedIn.

Shop sustainably at riise.world, and find them on TikTok and Instagram.

–

New here? Welcome! Join us on this podcast where we chat about all things business, career, finance and entrepreneurship. 

Listen closely, because every episode is so different and full of insight, you might just walk away with that one tool you needed to take that next step in YOUR journey. 

–

Wanting more?

Find us on TikTok, Instagram and LinkedIn as @cleverwomenco 

Chat to us, your co-hosts @galkrohn and @em.kaplan (can you tell we love a chat?)  

Ask a question or pitch to come on the show by heading to our website: clevermediaco.com 

–

And please don’t forget to support us! 

If you liked what you heard, subscribe to our show & leave us a rating and review - we will love you for it 3

Thank you SO much for listening, we can’t wait to be in your ears again next week!

–

You’re listening to a Clever Media production. Clever Media acknowledges the traditional owners of the land and waters that this podcast is recorded on. We pay our deepest respects to elders past, present and emerging. 

Sound Credit: Engines Ready by Yarin Primak 

On today’s show we chat to Nikki Eylon, a cybersecurity expert who teaches us why Australia is a specific target when it comes to cybersecurity attacks, how to not get hacked, and what to do if your personal data has ever been compromised. 

Starting out her journey as a teenager by waking up at 4am for swimming lessons would frame so much of how Nikki approaches business. She is a goal-setter and innovator, and reiterates the importance of storytelling when it comes to conveying information and explaining a problem. 

Nikki coached elite sportsmen for the olympics, worked in high-end fashion design, and is now in the world of technology, cybersecurity and start-ups. 

With over 20 years of managerial experience, Nikki joined the BSW Group, a group of technology companies, to extend it into Oceania. She is also working at a startup called ParKam, a smart parking app where drivers are guaranteed to always find an available parking spot. She’s enthusiastic about innovation and finding new solutions, and to her, penetrating and emerging into new markets is one of the biggest challenges facing an entrepreneur. 

She is a classic multitasker and as an immigrant, learned to keep reinventing herself as well as continuously apply her versatile knowledge in every situation. She is a strong advocate for mentoring young women to speak up and believe in themselves, in particular focusing on how we can get more women and girls into startups and the tech space. 

We are certain of two things: you will learn so much in this episode, and you will run to change all your passwords when you finish listening. 

Now let’s get into it. 

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Find Nikki Eylon on LinkedIn. 

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Wanting more?

Find us on TikTok, Instagram and LinkedIn as @cleverwomenco 

Ask a question or pitch to come on the show by heading to our website: clevermediaco.com 

–

And please don’t forget to support us! 

If you liked what you heard, subscribe to our show & leave us a rating and review - we will love you for it 3

Thank you SO much for listening, we can’t wait to be in your ears again next week!

–

You’re listening to a Clever Media production. Clever Media acknowledges the traditional owners of the land and waters that this podcast is recorded on. We pay our deepest respects to elders past, present and emerging. 

Sound Credit: Engines Ready by Yarin Primak 

Before we dive into today’s show, just a trigger warning - this episode contains some themes of sexual abuse in aged care settings so please keep this in mind before listening. 

On today’s show we chat to Grace Brown, a robotics engineer and founder of Andromeda - an AI startup on a mission to revolutionise human-robot interactions.

Grace, who is only 23, has been spending the last 18 months building Abi. Abi is a human-like, 120cm-tall robot, who is being built to provide social and mental support to vulnerable individuals, starting with the  elderly and disability demographics.  

Abi can give hugs on demand, make eye contact, and build actual relationships with people. She’s already being used as a companion in aged-care settings, and is helping people maintain their independence, learn, as well as socialise.

While aged care is the initial target, Grace says Abi has incredible potential to provide an alternative way to connect, especially for young people. 

Early on in the journey, she said, quote: "We've got parents of teenagers with disabilities who are saying that even with just the prototype, they are taken aback by the impact it has for that non-verbal social connection.” 

If all goes to plan, in the next 20 years, Abi will be a fixture in 5% of households - as common as the trusty robot vacuum cleaner. 

Listen in as we pass the mic over to Grace, who can tell us a LOT more about this, and learn about what a humanoid robot companion is, could be, and will be. 

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Grace is currently reading:  

Build - The Smile that Wins: An Unorthodox Guide to Making Things Worth Making by Tony Fadell. 

Never Split the Difference: Negotiating as if Your Life Depended on It by Chris Voss.

The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers by Ben Horowitz. 

In this episode, we chat about wanting to learn to read books faster, and reference this blog post by Tim Ferris as a way to get started: Scientific Speed Reading: How to Read 300% Faster in 20 Minutes

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Find Adromeda on Instagram, LinkedIn, and find Grace on YouTube 

Learn more about Andromeda and Abi the robot: https://dromeda.com.au/ 

–

Wanting more?

Find us on TikTok, Instagram and LinkedIn as @cleverwomenco 

Ask a question or pitch to come on the show by heading to our website: clevermediaco.com 

–

And please don’t forget to support us! 

If you liked what you heard, subscribe to our show & leave us a rating and review - we will love you for it 3

Thank you SO much for listening, we can’t wait to be in your ears again next week!

–

You’re listening to a Clever Media production. Clever Media acknowledges the traditional owners of the land and waters that this podcast is recorded on. We pay our deepest respects to elders past, present and emerging. 

Sound Credit: Engines Ready by Yarin Primak

“When You’ve Met One Person With Autism, You’ve Met One Person With Autism.”

On today’s show we chat to Jenna Cohen - co-founder of the not-for-profit disability organisation Flying Fox, and recent founder and director of Honeycomb Access and Design - a firm specialising in advice to the construction industry to ensure that the built environment is accessible for all. 

Jenna’s Access Consulting expertise is informed by her background in architecture and an extensive knowledge of the disability sector. Jenna consults on the design of events, schools, public transport, hospitals, retail, and commercial developments, including working on the Sydney Opera House and the Arts Centre Melbourne.

One of her proudest achievements is co-founding Flying Fox, which in short facilitates social sleep-away programs that have connected over 1500 young people with and without a disability. 

Join us as we delve into topics surrounding the disability sector as well as everything you’d want to learn about building inclusive spaces for all. 

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Jenna is currently reading The Complete Australian Guide to Pregnancy and Birth by Sophie Walker and Jodi Wilson. She’s a big Seinfeld fan and just started watching Larry David’s Curb Your Enthusiasm.   

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Find Jenna on her LinkedIn here: Jenna Cohen 

Find Flying Fox on Instagram and at  flyingfox.org.au

Find Honeycomb on Instagram, LinkedIn and on honeycombaccess.com.au 

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Wanting more?

Find us on TikTok, Instagram and LinkedIn as @cleverwomenco 

Ps. you can ask us a question or pitch to come on the show by heading to our website: clevermediaco.com 

–

And please don’t forget to support us! 

If you liked what you heard, subscribe to our show & leave us a rating and review - we will love you for it 3

Thank you SO much for listening, we can’t wait to be in your ears again next week!

–

You have been listening to a Clever Media production. Clever Media acknowledges the traditional owners of the land and waters that this podcast is recorded on. We pay our deepest respects to elders past, present and emerging. 

Sound Credit: Engines Ready by Yarin Primak