The Spotlight Series - Don’t just survive, thrive‪!‬ Nicola Steel

Nicola Steel speaks to Rithik Illankovan, a highly experienced Delivery Lead/ Project Manager. Rithik is also the Founder of a startup called Gezzin. Gezzin's mission is to promote peace in the world by connecting and uniting families.
Rithik tells his personal and professional story migrating from India to Australia as a young student in the early 2000s. He describes his achievements and challenges over the last 20 years.  
Rithik's idea for the Gezzin app started when he was living alone and missing his family back home. This made him consider how he could bring families together on a daily basis sharing their moments. It was this thought that led to him creating a free app with a family tree where users can upload photos, videos, host parties and be involved in group chats.
The word Gezzin means Cousin in African and Family in Dutch which Rithik believes is a perfect word to describe how his app is uniting families with their extended families from around the world.
Download the free Gezzin app from the AppStore and PlayStore.

Yas Grigaliunas is an Impact Entrepreneur and the Founder of Circonomy.  She has many accolades including Global 100 Inspirational Leader of 2022 alongside the likes of Jacinda Ardern, Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Sheryl Sandberg, Sara Blakeley and Oprah.

Yas tells her story from pizza delivery driver to her first startup followed by the World's Biggest Garage Sale and now the CEO of Circonomy.  She talks about being an impact entrepreneur and how Circonomy is creating a world without waste and that includes human potential. She is passionate about the global Sustainable Development Goals and building a business that is bigger than just sales and metrics.

Yas always brings her authentic self and is proud that she shows up every day as herself regardless of what is going on in her life.  She believes that one of her greatest strengths is being coachable and being able to have real conversations. The secret to her success is being comfortable in the uncomfortable.

Yas is very values driven and her core values are:
Love Optimism Empathy Growth Integrity Resilience TransparencyTo help Yas on her mission, go to Circonomy- renewed furniture, tech, apparel, toys at affordable prices
 

Charlie Wood is the CEO of Wiise, the fastest-growing cloud ERP platform. He has over 25 years of tech experience.  Charlie is a successful Sydney-based entrepreneur and business leader, who formerly headed up Dropbox ANZ, held leadership roles at Microsoft and Salesforce, and has built and mentored several startups.

In this episode, Nicola and Charlie discuss his main career highlights and challenges.  They discuss what qualities he looks for in new team members when building high performing teams.  They talk about what factors drive successful business transformations and the traps that cause businesses to fail.
Charlie describes his plans for Wiise over the next 12 months as well as what he looks for when assessing aspiring entrepreneurs.  

They finish the podcast discussing Charlie's main business lessons he has learnt over the course of his career and what habits really drive his success.



 

Kody Cook is the Head of Software at Gilmour Space Technologies.  Kody has extensive experience of space and aerospace technologies working at the Australian Space Agency, Fleet Space Technologies and Boeing.  His experience encompasses mechatronics, software and systems engineering.  Gilmour and Kody's team are working towards launching Australia's first sovereign made orbital launch vehicle.

Kody demonstrated his engineering credentials from an early age when he started building computers out of junk shop parts from his pocket money around Grade 2. He then progressed to setting his parents' house on fire and electrocuting himself! It is Kody's innate sense of wanting to understand how things work and to solve problems that attracted him to space technology.

In this episode, Kody and Nicola talk about the importance of aerospace technology in Australia.  They discuss how many people don't see or understand the benefits of space technology as well as the lack of government support in the development of future space technologies.

Ben Shapira has extensive experience in the digital advertising and marketing industry. More recently, he has become a tech founder, solving problems in the financial services industry with his innovative tech solutions.  His newest venture is dineiro - a mobile app focusing on the interactions between consumers, mortgage brokers and financial advisors.
Ben and Nicola discuss a variety of topics including:
💲 the future of tech in financial services
💲 the democratisation of financial data 
💲 the importance of financial literacy, particularly for young people
💲 how young people get can get on the housing ladder

Christin Marshall is the Founder of Sol & Sonder.  Sol means sun and Sonder is the realization that each person has a life as vivid and as complex as their own.  Sol + Sonder is a lifestyle brand which is looking to integrate renewable energy into everyday accessories which use solar energy so that people can have access to the power of the sun at any time.  Her first product is a solar travel wallet which combines solar power banks wrapped in leather with beautiful colours.

Christin talks about her career and personal background.  Her experience of investing and equity crowdfunding.  She explains the challenges of not getting as much capital as her male counterparts.

Christin's words to her 16 year old self - “You should be so incredibly proud of the resilient woman that you’ve become...you should be extremely proud, and you'll come across a few roadblocks, hard things to get across, but you’ll make it out the other side and you’re gonna do well”