Hard Yards in Leadership

This episode’s guest is Chris Simon. Chris is the technical co-founder of https://www.inloop.com.au, home of Australian Fintech success stories https://www.flexischools.com.au and https://www.lanternpay.com (Recently acquired by NAB).

Since 2021 he has been coaching startup CTOs through Dev Cycles Technology Advisory (https://devcycles.io/page/consulting/) as well as supporting executives & boards with strategic technology advice, and engineering teams with training, mentoring and consulting.

In this episode Chris shares:

• The hard shift leaders encounter when they never intended to become a leader
• How leadership skills can be learnt in the most surprising places
• The challenge of realising there is an inherent power dynamic when building trust with employees
• How not giving employees enough direction because you want to respect them  can lead to disaster
• Learning that you may make the same mistake multiple times
• How he deals with how his own frustrations can cause tension in the team

Key Quotes

“Be directive without being a dictator and be assertive without being an arse.”

“If you’ve not given them clarity on what’s expected then that’s not fair.”

“If something is not going right (with the team) I start by looking at what have I done?”

More About Chris Simon

You can follow Chris on linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christopher-simon-au/?originalSubdomain=au 

If you want to find out more about what Wayne does, check out his business via the website:

http://engage4performance.com/

Or you can follow him on socials:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/wayne-reuben-engage4performance/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This episode’s guest is Steve Melhuish, a tech entrepreneur, investor and board advisor based in Asia for the last 18 years. He’s founded 4 companies, scaled teams from zero to 1,500 staff, built a tech platform used by 40+ million monthly consumers, raised $400M+ funding, executed 5 M&A deals, took a company IPO on NYSE, launched a climatetech venture fund and invested in/mentoring ~25 greentech start-ups. On top of that he’s passionate about tackling climate change & inequality.

In this episode Steve shares:

• His belief in what a leader should do for their team
• His experience firing someone who was a bad cultural fit and why he should have done it sooner
• The reason he nearly caused disaster in a business by scaling too fast
• His plan for migrating out of a business and how he sorted a succession plan
• What he’s doing now in business to help fight climate change

Key Quotes

"If we'd taken our time I don't think we'd be in a worse position. It'd be a lot less stress, we wouldn't have lost as many people."

“We went from building to then actually being told to cut cost and that was extremely challenging.”

‘The impact of firing someone on the team, rather than a negative impact, had a positive impact.”

More About Steve Melhuish

You can follow Steve on linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevemel/

You can also find out about his business Property guru here: https://www.propertygurugroup.com/

If you want to find out more about what Wayne does, check out his business via the website:

http://engage4performance.com/

Or you can follow him on socials:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/wayne-reuben-engage4performance/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This episode’s guest is Natalie Ashdown. Natalie is one of Australia’s most senior and experienced coaches and a recognised speaker and author. Her passion, vision, creativity and commitment assists and supports individuals, teams and companies to create lasting cultural change using coaching skills. Natalie is one of just 18 coaches in Australia to hold the International Coach Federation Master Certified Coach credential (MCC).

Often working with HR, L&D professionals and executive teams to implement strategic initiatives and designing leadership programs that target organisational change; and she is sought after for her expert facilitation skills particularly in coaching managers to coach their teams and is regarded as a mentor by many.

In this episode Natalie shares:

• The first time she had to deal with rumours about herself in the workplace
• Why she wrote out a mantra and how it helped her
• The conflict she has experienced between business priorities and looking after your people
• What happens if you have imposter syndrome in meetings
• Her advice on how to help up and coming leaders as a leader

Key Quotes

"Sometimes the business doesn't need what the person can offer. And that's a really challenging thing."

More About Natalie

You can follow Natalie on linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/natalieashdown/?originalSubdomain=au

If you’re interested in her services, check out Open Door Coaching now: https://opendoorcoaching.com.au/

If you want to find out more about what Wayne does, check out his business via the website: 

http://engage4performance.com/

Or you can follow him on socials:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/wayne-reuben-engage4performance/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This episode’s guest is Tim Rossanis, the Managing Director of Turo Australia, the world’s largest peer-to-peer car sharing marketplace. He oversaw Turo’s launch into the Australian market, which is the company’s second international expansion in 2022 and the first in the APAC region. In this role, he leads Turo’s operations in Australia which span across Operations, Marketing, Claims/Protection, Sales, Customer Support, Strategy & Analytics.

Tim previously served as the Head of Growth for Uber’s Retail business in Australia & New Zealand.

He is actively involved in the Australian tech and startup ecosystem as an angel investor, Startmate mentor, Director at Nullarbor Ventures & Fellow at AfterWork Ventures.

In this episode Tim shares:

• Why volunteering in a jewish youth group was when he first recognised himself as a leader
• Why he believes collaborative leadership doesn’t always work.
• His advice for hiring people who have subject matter knowledge that you don’t have
• How not following recruitment policy resulted in a terrible hiring decision
• The importance of people vulnerable with your employees and colleagues

Key Quotes

“You can't always lead via consensus, you have to be decisive.”

“The only way I could get the best out of the team was to realise I don’t have all the answers here.”

“I think one of the things that saved the teams spirit was I showed vulnerability.”

More About Tim Rossanis

You can follow Tim on linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/timrossanis/?originalSubdomain=au

If you want to find out more about what Wayne does, check out his business via the website:

http://engage4performance.com/

Or you can follow him on socials:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/wayne-reuben-engage4performance/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Welcome to our third episode of Hard Yards in Leadership.

This episode’s guest is Paulwyn Devasundaram, the co-founder and CEO of Medoo a tech startup building software for coaching and personal development. Prior to founding Medoo, Paulwyn was a General Manager and Senior Engineering Leader at Canva. She posts about topics in the intersection of technology and human growth on LinkedIn

In this episode Paulwyn shares:

• How her time at Canva helped her move from being a contributor to a leader
• Where she first took her lessons in leadership from
• What happened when she led a new group and a fellow leader wasn’t performing at the level that was expected.
• How we need to approach emotions in conflicting situations
• The way she handles people disagreeing with how she does things
• Learning to see, acknowledge and work with the personal blockers she has

Key Quotes

“As much as we try to leave emotion out of it, I don’t think that’s possible.”

“When you have those hard conversations you do end up alienating at least some people.”

More About Paulwyn Devasundaram

If you want to know more about Paulwyn and Medoo, check out their website: https://medoo.life/

Or follow them on socials.

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/medoo.life/

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/medoo-life/

If you want to find out more about what Wayne does does, check out his business via the website:

http://engage4performance.com/

Or you can follow him on socials:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/wayne-reuben-engage4performance/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Welcome to our second episode of Hard Yards in Leadership.

This episode’s guest is Dane Hudson a seasoned international leader who provides coaching, mentoring and advisory services to CEOs, Founders and C-level leaders through his company, Impactful Leadership Consulting.

In his career, Dane has held a range of key executive roles including Senior Vice President and Chief of Finance and Development for Yum Restaurants International (NYSE listed owners of KFC, Taco Bell and Pizza Hut), CEO of ASX listed Australian Vintage (one of Australia’s largest wine companies) and Regional CEO of ISS Asia Pacific (one of the world’s largest facility services providers) with responsibility for over 200,000 employees across Asia.

In this episode Dane shares:

• How he first got into a leadership position and learnt
• The mistakes he made when he found out an employee was stealing from the business
• The difficult process of having to fire a friend
• His tricks to hiring people in senior leadership

Key Quotes

“You can't dwell on bad decisions or mistakes that you make in the work force too much. I make 3,4,5 mistakes a day.”

“I’ve got a huge belief in people and 99.9% of the time I trust people…but there are a very small minority that will try to take advantage.”

More About Dane Hudson

If you want the benefit of Dane’s coaching you can check out his business via his website: https://impactfulleadershipconsulting.com/

Or you can follow him on linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dane-hudson-61234720/

If you want to find out more about what Wayne does does, check out his business via the website:

http://engage4performance.com/

Or you can follow him on socials

https://www.linkedin.com/in/wayne-reuben-engage4performance/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Welcome to our first episode of Hard Yards in Leadership.

This episode’s guest is experienced leader and Angel investor Sam Kothari.

Sam began his career at Kearney, after co-founding Connect Education, the first student-run lecture organisation in Australia, while at university. Sam combined consulting with entrepreneurship, co-founding Scroll Ice Cream and Pokéd during his time at Kearney, and growing Pokéd to eight locations across Melbourne and Sydney since 2016.

Sam has worked with the Seek strategy team, before taking on multiple roles at Airwallex including Head of Growth managing the P&L for the ANZ region. Sam joined AirTree’s Explorer program in February 2022 and is an active angel investor and startup advisor. 

In this episode Sam shares:

• He explains his start up business journey from the age of 18
• The struggles he had the first time he fired someone and what he regrets doing
• A leaders responsibility to employee’s even after they leave the business
• Why being a great problem solver was not a good trait for a leader.
• His advice for leaders who struggle to take leave

Key Quotes

“As a leader you don’t just have a responsibility while they are an employee but also to look after them after they move on.”

“Everyone would tell me, Sam you’re a great leader you solve all our problems, and then I tried to take leave.”

More About Sam Kothari

You can follow Sam on linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kotharisam/?originalSubdomain=au

If you want to find out more about what Wayne does does, check out his business via the website:

http://engage4performance.com/

Or you can follow him on socials:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/wayne-reuben-engage4performance/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Starting out in leadership? Or maybe wanting to learn something new?

In Hard Yards in Leadership, experienced consultant Wayne Reuben will be joined by an array of successful leaders and together they will explore the tough leadership challenges they have experienced along their journey.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.