NTP Podcast James MacDonald

This episode of the NTP Podcast features Brett Thomas, COO of The Melt. Brett recounts his journey from aspiring professional soccer player to founding The Melt, a hardware startup accelerator. After a leg injury ended his soccer career, Brett backpacked internationally for a year before working in surveying and offshore hydrographic positioning. He later helped build out the internet's fiber optic infrastructure during its rapid growth. Brett then joined mining supply chain software startup Qmaster with his current business partner Trent Bagnell. After Qmaster's acquisition, Trent founded the Slingshot startup accelerator. Inspired by Slingshot's success, Brett and Trent opened The Melt's first prototyping lab to support hardware startups. They have since expanded The Melt's network and facilities with various partnerships and grants.

Join us as we speak with Josh Weeks, founder and Director of Alpha Echo, an Australian cybersecurity company. Josh shares his journey from wanting to be a teacher to becoming an aerospace engineer for the Australian Defence Force.
After leaving the ADF, Josh struggled to find work but eventually launched his own contracting company in Canberra. He later moved his family back to Newcastle and slowly grew his business by expanding into new government contracts. Today Alpha Echo has 35 employees across cybersecurity, training, and classified facilities management. Josh discusses the challenges of starting a company and his focus on hiring good people and giving back to the Newcastle region. He explains how Alpha Echo aims to improve Australia's cybersecurity posture through education and leading by example. Tune in to hear more about the origins and growth of this homegrown cybersecurity firm.

In this episode, Carolyn Breeze shares her career journey through the world of tech and payments. Starting at eBay, she gained experience at large Silicon Valley companies before becoming Country Manager for Braintree in Australia. Her passion for payments grew as she helped expand GoCardless's services down under. After a stint as Chief Commercial Officer at Zepto, Carolyn took on the CEO role at Scalare Partners - an early stage investment firm with a unique model. 
Carolyn outlines how Scalare differs from traditional VC firms by taking an active role in helping their 26 portfolio companies. She also provides advice on taking on new challenges to expand skills, even if you feel underqualified. The conversation covers the sacrifices of being a startup founder, the importance of founder self-care and salaries, and why founders deserve the opportunity to benefit financially from secondary sales. Carolyn reflects on her learnings so far and the value of ongoing education and resources. Tune in for an insightful chat about thriving in tech, the payments space, and the world of startups and investing.

On this episode of the Digitally Diverse podcast, Ellen talks to Sophie Benjamin, Content Designer at Canva. Sophie talks about going through three career changes, and the process of transitioning into tech. We discuss the principles of content design and the similarities and differences between them and UX or Product Design. The episode also covers a wide range of topics spinning out of Sophie's varied career history, including how to build a sustainable culture, find your workplace fit, manage the risk of burnout, and grow your career.
 

In this episode, James talks to Michelle Crawford, Chief Conversationalist of Being More Human.  Michelle sheds light on the power of good leadership. People often forget that leadership and management is a technical capability and shares tips to help listeners develop that skill. 
We also look at how the best leaders have excellent strategic thinking capabilities and embrace ambiguity. We discuss your genius zone, where you are most efficient, and how to identify and assist your team to work in that zone, too. 
Michelle then dives into her experiences with start ups; culture building, developing a sales funnel, managing multiple priorities and identifying high-performers.
This podcast is for anyone interested in start-ups, leadership or culture. We hope you enjoy the show!

On this episode of Digitally Diverse, we talk to Jalissa Lawson, a Senior Product Designer at Zip Co. Jalissa talks about her experience transitioning from marketing to product design and UI, what it's like working in the fintech space and how she's adapted to a start-up way of thinking. Jalissa also shares how she's upskilled via university, boot camps and good old-fashioned YouTube, along with what makes a stand-out workplace culture, and more.