Flip the Focus

Jen Dobbie

Flip the Focus is the factory reset for tech. Jen Dobbie and Producer Nico spotlight the Founders, Funders and Leaders asking big tech questions that flip the industry on its head. From shaking up funding, to putting the status bro on notice, they’re building new systems to keep tech human. Join us each time and find out what got them focussed on tech, how they’re flipping it, and where they’re building community to give bad tech the bird.

  1. 13 Aug

    Redefine success with Maddi Ingham

    This is a story about staying human while solving serious problems, and building a business whose success is measured by the size of the problem it helps solve, not by how long it remains the only company doing it. In this episode of Flip the Focus, Jen and Producer Nico sit down with Maddi Ingham, co-founder of GreenPay, Australia’s green payment processor, to talk about what happens when you take an ordinary piece of business infrastructure and give it a much bigger purpose. Maddi’s story begins in management consulting, moves through startup operations, hypergrowth and impact finance, and eventually leads to GreenPay: a full-stack payment processor that donates 50% of its profits to protecting Australian nature. Rather than reinventing how payments work, GreenPay is looking at how an existing, widely used system can become a force for good. Maddi is not building GreenPay from a place of commercial naivety. She talks about the realities of growth, funding, pricing and competition, and why she hopes GreenPay becomes enough of a threat that larger players are forced to do something significant for the planet too. This is also a conversation about redefining founder success. Maddi says individual success is not really a thing, and that if another company took GreenPay’s idea and delivered even greater environmental impact, that would be an excellent outcome. It’s a powerful challenge to the scarcity mindset that says there is only room for one winner. You’ll hear Maddi talk about the gender funding gap, the communities and mentors that helped her find her way into tech, the difference between progress and perfection, and why impact businesses should not be held to an impossible purity test. She also shares how GreenPay is thinking about brand, community and building a company people want to talk about when it is not in the room. If you love this episode, subscribe, leave a star rating and give us a quick review. It helps more people find the show and supports our mission to share stories from leaders shaping tomorrow’s tech, startups and impact-led innovation: like Brittany Fox, Amy McLennan, Victor Dominello, Cindy Gallop, Ida Tin and more.

    Redefine success with Maddi Ingham
  2. 29 July

    Find funding with Brittany Fox

    Why Brittany Fox stopped waiting for permission and built a funded customer journey mapping tool. In this episode of Flip the Focus, Jen and Producer Nico sit down with Brittany Fox, founder of Nevam, for a conversation about what happens when a sharp operator stops seeing mess as a nuisance and starts seeing it as a market. Britt’s story is one of founder conviction: she went from marketing and consulting across huge systems to building a customer journey mapping tool designed to expose the cracks, connect the dots, and turn invisible friction into something businesses can actually act on. Britt doesn’t just talk about building a product, she talks about building the right thing. After years of watching teams bury insights in spreadsheets, dead emails, PowerPoints, and disconnected tools, she built Nevam to give businesses a shared view of the customer journey, so the work stops stalling in theory and starts moving in reality. It’s a tool for clarity, for alignment, and for finally making the invisible visible. And what makes this episode land is Brittany herself: A rare, funded female founder in a system that still vastly underfunds women, underestimates operators, and rewards polished noise over actual insight. Brittany is now in a place of real confidence; not the performative kind, but the kind that comes from knowing exactly what she’s solving, why it matters, and how to land funders who back her hard enough to build it her way. You’ll hear why she chose to sell the house and create room to bet on herself, and how confidence can be built through action, not just mindset. This is a story about momentum, clarity, and the powerful simplicity of knowing that if you want the system to change, sometimes you have to build the thing that the system was missing. If you love this episode, subscribe, leave a star rating, and give us a quick review. It helps more people find the show and supports our mission to share stories from leaders shaping tomorrow’s tech, startups, and female-founded innovation — like Brittany Fox, Amy McLennan, Victor Dominello, Cindy Gallop, Ida Tin and more.

    Find funding with Brittany Fox
  3. 16 July

    Ask better questions with Dr Amy McLennan Part 2

    What is cybernetics, and why does it matter now than ever? In this episode, Jen and Producer Nico sit down with Dr Amy McLennan, a medical anthropologist and systems thinker at ANU School of Cybernetics, for a conversation about cybernetics, leadership, and why the smartest way to understand technology is to stop treating it like a standalone thing. Cybernetics helps us look at tech feedback loops, relationships, and assumptions that shape what happens next. Amy explains why tech is really a systems enabler; and why the real work is in understanding the people, intentions, and power dynamics around it. From a speculative factory called Frank, to the egg oversupply during COVID, this episode shows how small examples can reveal big truths about how systems behave when the world changes fast. You’ll also hear why binary thinking gets us nowhere, why trust needs to be earned, and why the most useful leadership questions are the ones that surface what’s missing, what’s assumed, and what might break when the system is under pressure. For anyone leading teams, shaping culture, or making decisions in a complex environment, this one is a smart place to start. If you love this episode, subscribe, leave a star rating, and give us a quick review. It helps more people find the show and supports our mission to share stories from leaders shaping tomorrow’s health, tech, and inclusion... like Amy McLennan, Victor Dominello, Cindy Gallop, Ida Tin and more. Find out more about the books, people, and ideas in this episode Frank Makes a Factory by Josh Noble and Simona Dango: A piece of speculative fiction Amy uses to show how systems can be shaped by hidden assumptions.Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men by (absolute icon) Caroline Criado Perez: referenced by Jen in the discussion about women being left out of data and design.American Sirens by Kevin Hazzard: the book Amy mentions about the Freedom House Ambulance Service and the roots of modern emergency medicine.Sir Ken Robinson: Jen's reference (and one of her heroes) in the discussion about education systems, creativity, and industrial style thinking.Clue and Ida Tin: Jen mentions them as an example of women’s health tech that is thoughtful about data and privacy. (You can hear Ida Tin in Season One of Flip the Focus, she's incredible.)David Ogilvy: Jen references as an example of starting from human insight.Watson: Producer Nico mentions this in the AI history discussion as part of the longer arc of machine learning and pattern recognition.

    Ask better questions with Dr Amy McLennan Part 2
  4. 10 July

    Ask better questions with Dr Amy McLennan

    Why staying curious is a skill - and how you can learn it. In this episode, Jen and Producer Nico sit down with Dr Amy McLennan, a medical anthropologist and systems thinker at ANU School of Cybernetics, for a conversation about AI, health, and why the smartest tech conversations are never as simple as for or against. And it's such a huge one, we've made it into 2 episodes.. so make sure you subscribe and catch both! Dr Amy breaks down why curiosity is a skill, why asking questions can feel weirdly uncomfortable, and why something as ordinary as eggs can reveal how wildly connected our systems really are. If you’re trying to make sense of the AI wave, the health data gap, or the pressure to have a hot take on everything, this one is a smart place to start. You’ll hear about the real world stuff that tech headlines love to skip over: a surgical robot that couldn’t fit through the hospital door, the giant blind spots in women’s health data, and why “AI will save us” is just as unhelpful as “AI will ruin everything.” If you love this episode, subscribe, leave a star rating, and give us a quick review. It helps more people find the show and supports our mission to share stories from leaders shaping tomorrow’s health, tech, and inclusion... like Amy McLennan, Victor Dominello, Cindy Gallop, Ida Tin and more. Watch us on YouTube Flip the Focus Season 3 Amy McLennan Find out more about the books, people, and ideas in this episode: Frank Makes a Factory by Josh Noble and Simona Dango: A piece of speculative fiction Amy uses to show how systems can be shaped by hidden assumptions.Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men by Caroline Criado Perez: referenced by Jen in the discussion about women being left out of data and design.American Sirens by Kevin Hazzard: the book Amy mentions about the Freedom House Ambulance Service and the roots of modern emergency medicine.Sir Ken Robinson: Jen's reference (and one of her heroes) in the discussion about education systems, creativity, and industrial style thinking.Clue and Ida Tin: Jen mentions them as an example of women’s health tech that is thoughtful about data and privacy. (You can hear Ida Tin in Season One of Flip the Focus, she's incredible.)David Ogilvy: Jen references as an example of starting from human insight.Watson: Producer Nico mentions this in the AI history discussion as part of the longer arc of machine learning and pattern recognition.

    Ask better questions with Dr Amy McLennan
5
out of 5
20 Ratings

About

Flip the Focus is the factory reset for tech. Jen Dobbie and Producer Nico spotlight the Founders, Funders and Leaders asking big tech questions that flip the industry on its head. From shaking up funding, to putting the status bro on notice, they’re building new systems to keep tech human. Join us each time and find out what got them focussed on tech, how they’re flipping it, and where they’re building community to give bad tech the bird.