The High Flyers Podcast with Vidit Agarwal

Explore your curiosity w Yolanda Redrup about media, journalism and how news operates in startups, technology and capital markets.

Please enjoy!

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Find out more about Curiosity Center, including 75+ episodes at www.curiositycenter.xyz

Find out more about the Australian Financial Review at www.afr.com

Share your feedback and discuss partnership opportunities with us by emailing [email protected]

Follow the show on Linkedin / Instagram

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TIMESTAMPS

02:00 - Melbourne and swimming

02:32 - Being set on journalism from age 13

04:15 - How you can build your career in journalism

06:09 - Behind the scenes of how an article comes together

09:27 - Inbound, Outbound and reactive news sources

10:46 - Does the first sentence need to be a hook?

13:08 - How much editorial approval does a journalist need?

14:36 - what software is useful for interviews and writing articles?

15:52 - How does street talk differ from tech news?

17:30 - What is the biggest unknown about your role?

19:06 - How to invest and nurture relationships?

20:50 - Being a journalist with an investor approach

21:34 - How do VC’s get their capital raise featured in the AFR?

23:50 - Biggest change having covered tech for 10+ years?

27:44 - How do you keep up your learning of media landscape?

29:15 - What separates a great journalist from the rest?

30:09 - How to decide what news platforms to read?

31:36 - The role of independence in journalism and being neutral?

33:30 - One thing you’d like to learn in the next 6 months?

Thank you for rating / reviewing this podcast on iTunes and Spotify, it helps others find us and convince guests to come on the show!

Follow us on Instagram, LinkedIn or Twitter

Contact Vidit directly at [email protected] to discuss sponsorship opportunities, recommend future guests and share feedback.

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Welcome to episode #78 w Matt Allen! Here are 5 key takeaways you will learn from this episode:

1. How Matt found his passion for music and computers in high school

2. Why success at age 20 was building out his first startup, providing web based solutions for insurance companies

3. Balancing a conservative approach to finance with investing in high growth (and high risk) startups

4. What is venture debt, how it's structured and when should founders consider it

5. The five active hall of fame investors in Australia / New Zealand to be in a room with

Please enjoy!

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TIMESTAMPS

02:28 - Birth place and residence now

03:16 - First job and various roles now

04:07 - High Flyers under the radar

05:08 - eldest of 3 brothers and attending agricultural school

08:24 - Computer teacher being an influence

09:37 - Infamous blue hat

10:25 - Early days of the internet: building web based solutions for insurance companies

11:25 - Biggest unknown for startups in the 90’s

14:03 - Balancing financial conservative approach with investing in high risk startups

16:10 - Most painful learning

17:43 - First time into angel investing

21:30 - Process for getting to know founder / business from scratch

24:33 - Meeting thousands of founders at Amazon startups

28:02 - 5 people to have in the “active hall of fame investors” room

30:24 - Decided to be a founder again with Tractor Ventures

36:04 - Financial structure within Venture Debt model

38:23 - 3 use cases for a founder to consider revenue based financing

41:10 - Supporting the longevity of a company

43:42 - Building education in community about finance and debt

46:56 - Matt’s routines to balance his various roles

49:09 - Building and maintaining reputation

52:07 - How Matt got started making websites for bands

54:02 - final sprint

Thank you for rating / reviewing this podcast on iTunes and Spotify, as it helps others find us and convince guests to come on the show and grow the show with sponsors and partners.

Follow us on Instagram, LinkedIn or Twitter for more!

Contact Vidit directly at [email protected] to discuss sponsorship opportunities, recommend future guests and share feedback.

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Learn about Rachael’s sunrise in New York, with her dad being the son of jewish immigrants and mum from a rural part of New York with 8 brothers and sisters with Rachael's mum being the eldest.

Welcome to episode #77 w Rachael Neumann! Here are 5 key takeaways you will learn from this episode:

1. Influences of growing up in New York with two sides of the family, with her parents bringing different perspectives

2. Navigating her career having varied interests and taking the the entrance exams to law, business & medical school

3. Why the transition from the US to Australia was hard personally and professionally

4. 2 big learnings from leading eventbrite and Amazon startups teams

5. Process to get to know founders from scratch to consider investing in, how to say no with empathy and valuations vs hype

Please enjoy!

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TIMESTAMPS

02:25 - New York and Melbourne

04:00 - Re-imagining a high flyer

06:00 - Being a social chameleon navigating the two sides of her family

08:33 - Wanting to leave New York City

11:33 - Heroes in Nobel Prize Winners

13:30 - Success at 20

15:35 - Painful learning from having varied interests

22:04 - Moving to Australia by accident

25:25 - Major differences between US and Australia

28:51 - Hiring a team for a new category that doesn’t exist yet

33:10 - How investing in startups started

36:45 - Process for getting to know a business from scratch

40:26 - Dislocation of Valuations vs hype in valuations

43:33 - How to say no with empathy

48:17 - Transition from individual investor to a fund

53:22 - Final sprint!

Explore your curiosity w Kate Dinon about PR, communications and investment to scale startups.

1. Learn about how Kate had her break into PR & Communications
2. Building out her own firm Character & Distinction, based in Melbourne with a roster of recognisable brands.
3. First few months of starting the firm, client relationships, bad story telling and displaying culture in their office space.
4. Unpacking Kate’s foray into supporting startups through mentoring and investment via Protagonist Capital & what they're looking for in founders and early stage startups.
5. Don’t miss out on a special rapid fire round with your community questions!

Please enjoy exploring your curiosity as I did mine through this conversation!

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Find out more about Curiosity Center, including 75+ episodes at www.curiositycenter.xyz

Find out more about Character + Distinction and Protagonist Capital at https://ofcharacter.com/

Share your feedback and discuss partnership opportunities with us at [email protected]

Follow the show on Linkedin / Instagram

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TIMESTAMPS

02:20 - Where you were born and live now

03:02 - Do you remember the first time you heard of PR & Communications?

04:16 - Was it a conscious decision to start your own PR firm?

06:08 - What were the first months like in 2017 and unknowns?

07:55 - Did you find building relationships was a focus moving back to Australia from Switzerland?

10:31 - How does a client relationship work in practise?

12:40 - How does a first client meeting work and what can PR help with?

15:14 - What is bad story telling?

17:22 - Are there high maintenance vs low maintenance industries?

19:44 - What are your sources of learning and inspiration?

22:17 - Importance of Character and distinction visible in their office space

25:15 - Supporting startups through Protagonist Capital

27:32 - What are you looking for in the deals? Specific sector or person to support?

29:00 - Supporting founders in consumer facing brands and enterprise tech for future of work

30:32 - Naming conventions for Protagonist and Character + Distinction

32:29 - Rapid fire round of your community questions

Aneetha De Silva is the managing director, government for Aurecon’s Australia and New Zealand business is a leading public infrastructure expert. She is also President of Roads Australia and sits on the boards of Aurecon Group, LaunchVic, the Melbourne Arts Precinct Corporation and the North East Link State Tolling Corporation.

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Episode guiding points:

Learn about Aneetha’s sunrise in Singapore, at a time when wasn’t the city it is today and Aneetha calls it a fight for survival, and the influences of her parents with her dad being a professional cricketer and building the family business.

This conversation is candid and applicable to life and work, whether you’re early in your journey to more established — we cover Aneetha’s adjustment period coming to Australia halfway through her law degree, to then unpacking the behind the scenes of a successful career in infrastructure, roads and government projects and what that work entails including $2B dollar projects (critical to our society), private and public partnerships and more.

Questions I loved hearing Aneetha’s organic reflections include: How to go into a new environment and build relationships whilst learning the area, Connecting with people 1:1 vs in a group setting to build relationships, Spotting and nurturing talent, Balancing working on the bigger picture and getting in the details, Influencing local governments in different cultures and how does one get accepted onto boards, and we cover the importance of family, switching off and more.

It’s now time to explore your curiosity. Please enjoy!

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Follow us on Instagram, LinkedIn or Twitter

Contact us via our website to discuss sponsorship opportunities, recommend future guests or share feedback, we love hearing how to improve!

Thank you for rating / reviewing this podcast on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, it helps others find us and convince guests to come on the show!

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The High Flyers Podcast re-imagines the traditional notion of a "high flyer" and is a premier product of the Curiosity Center. The podcast showcases the journeys of relatable role models from their sunrise (childhood) to today. Listeners love the unique and direct inside access to these relatable role models, companies and industries in every walk of life to help us all be 1% better everyday, together.

140+ guests have joined Vidit Agarwal on the show from around the world including Heads of state, Olympians, Business and cultural leaders, social Advocates, Investors, Entrepreneurs and more.

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