Defying Gravity with Helen Souness Helen Souness

Rob Newman, multi time entrepreneur and scale up CEO of Perth based deep tech SaaS company Nearmap when I met him, covers two topics in this interview that so many Aussie start ups struggle to achieve. This is a masterclass on how to hire the Executive team you need to scale globally and how to enter and win leadership in the US market. Recommended listening if you are thinking about either step in your scale up journey.

Natalie’s journey has been a whirlwind of experiences, starting at SEEK, where she left her mark on almost every facet of the company’s growth. Following SEEK’s ex-CMO Katie May, who founded Kidspot, Natalie played a pivotal role in the company’s acquisition by NewsCorp as CEO. Next, she was approached by a founder and investment team to join School Places - an online platform revolutionising private school vacancies. Today, Natalie is the CEO of Vivi, a communication and collaboration tool designed to engage school students and elevate educators. At Vivi, Nat has led several funding rounds and successfully expanded Vivi’s footprint into the US where the company continues to rapidly scale.

Our conversation centred around Natalie’s wealth of experiences, alongside her insights for successfully managing transitions with founders and her advice for companies eyeing new markets. Enjoy!

Check out Vivi at: https://www.linkedin.com/company/vivieducation/

The ability to build a resilient team and reimagine yourself is critical for sustained growth in any business – a sentiment felt wholeheartedly by a travel industry upended by pandemic disruption. During our conversation, Adam Schwab talks about the critical inflection points Luxury Escapes faced, building an internal culture that rejects ‘day two’ mentality, the importance of reinvention, and knowing when it’s time to step away from a business (as well as when to step back in)

The full Defying Gravity interview with the wonderful Tessa Herd Court, founder and CEO of IntelligenceBank, global SaaS company founded in Melbourne. Her reflections on growing her company from some Powerpoint slide ideas she tested on her fellow CMO friends to more than 800k users across 55 countries. How did she do it? The magic of delegation, orchestrating the dream team and developing a stomach of steel!

You can’t orchestrate a $1.6b acquisition with Oracle without learning a few lessons along the way. Leigh Jasper, Co-Founder of Aconex and Co-CEO and Co-Founder of Firmable is the absolute definition of defying gravity. I’ve picked his brains on how to build a sustainable cadence that lasts you over time, lessons learnt from rapid scaling, flipping your perspective on mistakes vs rallying points, and why he’s at it again.

SEEK is one of Australia's most valuable companies, with a valuation of around $9bn and operations and investments all over the world. But behind the numbers and accolades lies a narrative of personal growth and strategic leadership that propelled SEEK to the top - and at the centre of this is co-founder and ex CEO Andrew Bassat.

I was interested in chatting to Andrew not just about the growth of SEEK, but also how he managed to scale himself.