Many startups struggle to scale – and leadership plays a bigger role than founders often realise. Early growth is fuelled by passion, tactics and effort. But scaling demands a different kind of leadership: more strategic and more focussed on building teams and systems. Some founders adapt; others get stuck between old instincts and new demands.… Read more »
Every business leader talks about values. But living them – truly embedding them into daily decisions, behaviours, and culture – is rare. At Employment Hero, we don’t just talk about values – we operationalise them. That’s what The EH Way is all about: a living framework to keep us mission-aligned, fast-moving, and true to our… Read more »
Joel Macdonald’s been busy resetting his thinking in the last few years after the cofounder of Getswift was banned by the Federal Court from running companies in Australia for 12 years. He’s been in therapy, busy journaling, writing affirmations on glass walls in an apartment, taking psychedelics, including ayahuasca and mushrooms, and the former CEO… Read more »
Is the title “founder” this decade’s version of wanting to be a Masterchef or influencer? Startup 360 cohost Kayla Medica has a theory. “So many people now have glamourised being a founder, being an entrepreneur, that there’s a whole host of people who just start businesses with that in mind, and they’re not actually starting… Read more »
When do you know you’re CEO material? It’s the question Startup 360 host Simon Thomsen put to Majella Campbell, the newly appointed CEO of Fishburners, Australia’s pioneering startup coworking space. Majella talked about her mentor, Myles Baron-Hay, the former Sydney Swans CEO, saying “why not?” when she had her doubts. “When I was unsure about… Read more »
Matt Vitale, the CEO and cofounder of Birchal, has stepped down from his leadership role and away from the business, saying he was “a bit broken” after eight years of building the pioneering crowdfunding platform. Techstars boss Kirstin Hunter will take on an advisory role as CEO transition lead in the interim, Birchal chair Adam… Read more »
The study of leadership in high-performance coaching aims to deepen the understanding of how and why coaches lead the way they do, rather than just what they do. There has been increasing academic and applied interest in this area, particularly due to the significant impact coaches have on athlete and team performance, as well as… Read more »
Building a successful and sustainable business as a startup or scaleup goes beyond developing great products or services. Your people are arguably the most critical success factor for growth, and having strong HR strategies in place is essential. Overlooking HR can lead to significant long-term issues, including high employee turnover, misaligned team goals, legal and… Read more »
Earlier this month, the tech world was abuzz with debate following comments from Craig Blair, a renowned VC and partner at Airtree Ventures, at a Tech Council of Australia (TCA) event. Whilst his comments around founders’ “greatly flawed characters” being what “makes them special” sparked concern he was perpetuating toxic leadership in tech, I do have… Read more »
We’ve all been there. I once had a boss who rarely gave me a thought-out quarterly plan or strategy, instead they left it (mostly) up to me to decide. And then they’d nitpick all of my decisions after the quarter was over! So why let me decide? They left it up to me because they didn’t know… Read more »
Every business starts with a decision. In the case of Four Pillars, it was the decision to make gin. And from that first decision flowed a cascade of dozens, then hundreds, of other decisions to be made. At its simplest, all business is just decision making, and those decisions come at you thick and fast… Read more »
One of the first big questions that many startup founders face is deciding what to offer a potential cofounder as compensation — cash, equity, or some mixture of both. This decision sets the tone for the entire relationship and can have long-lasting impacts on the success of your startup. While this might seem like a… Read more »
In November 2021, one week before I was going to sign investment docs for our first investment round for Orkestra, I woke up having a panic attack. It was the second attack in two weeks, but I’d never experienced them before and haven’t experienced them since. That morning, my wife had to ring my cofounder,… Read more »
The moment an entrepreneur decides to take the plunge and launch a unique value proposition, it often feels like a solitary journey. This decision is personal, driven by a deep desire to seize a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Analysing this moment reveals a singular experience—one person, one opportunity, one launch. It’s a scenario that can easily be… Read more »
AgriFutures is on the hunt for the next generation of agrifood innovators with applications opening for the evokeAG. Groundbreakers program. The annual leadership mentoring event has rebranded from Future Young Leaders to the 2025 evokeAG. Groundbreakers Program. It will give five innovators the chance to present their ideas or research to an international audience at… Read more »
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