#269 Flavia Tata Nardini: The Italian-Australian Leading an $800M Space Company Finding Critical Minerals Beneath Earth

Flavia Tata Nardini is the co-founder and CEO of Fleet Space Technologies, the Adelaide company using satellites, seismic sensors and AI to help find the critical minerals needed for the energy transition. Since starting with just A$25,000, Fleet has grown into a global space and mining technology company valued at more than A$800 million. In this candid conversation, Flavia shares how losing everything as a child shaped her relationship with money, identity and risk, why moving to Australia left her with little choice but to build her own company, and how Fleet searched for product-market fit across everything from beehives and cattle to pipelines and vineyards. Vidit and Flavia explore the mining breakthrough that transformed Fleet, the A$100 Rocket Lab launch that helped save the company, raising children while building a startup, finding the right partner in life and business, and why Fleet now plans to take the same seismic technology it uses beneath the Earth to the Moon. Please enjoy exploring your curiosity. ________ Get in touch with us via email at [email protected] Join our stable of commercial partners including the Australian Government, Google, KPMG,, Allens, Macquarie Capital, Xero, JP Morgan and more.  Show notes and more episodes here Follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram Get in touch with our Founder and Host, Vidit Agarwal directly here Contact us via our website ________ TIMESTAMPS 01:00 Who is Flavia 03:42 The Day Her Family Lost Everything 14:02 The Childhood Dream That Never Left Her 19:12 Leaving Rome and Becoming Someone New 24:22 What the Space Industry Got Wrong 27:08 Why Australia Forced Her to Become a Founder 35:35 How Fleet Space Really Began 38:38 Betting on an Industry She Barely Knew 41:15 The Moment Fleet Became More Than an Idea 45:05 Building a Company With the Person You Love 49:36 The Messy Search for Product-Market Fit 54:12 The Bet That Changed Fleet Forever 55:45 Using Satellites and AI to See Beneath Earth 01:01:02 Building a Global Deep-Tech Company From Adelaide 01:05:15 The $100 Satellite Launch That Saved Fleet 01:09:15 From Founder Mode to Leading an $800M Company 01:14:40 Taking Fleet’s Technology From Earth to the Moon 01:16:00 Rapid Fire ________ The High Flyers Podcast features in-depth interviews with the world’s most influential figures in business, tech, finance, government and sport. Launched in 2020, it has ranked in the global top ten for past three years, with listeners in 27 countries and over 200+ episodes released, and featured in Forbes, Daily Telegraph, and at SXSW. Our guests include -- Malcolm Turnbull (Prime Minister of Australia), Jason Collins (Head of BlackRock, Asia Pacific), Brad Banducci (CEO, Woolworths), Michael Schneider (CEO, Bunnings), David Eckstein (CFO, Legora), Jesse Zhang (CEO, Decagon), Vandita Pant (CFO, BHP), Elena Verna (Head of Growth, Lovable), David Haber (a16z Partner), Jodie Auster (Uber's Global Head of Travel), Rob Giglio (CCO, Canva), Jean-Michel Limieux (CTO, Shopify and Atlassian), Stevie Case (CRO, Vanta), Cristina Cordova (COO, Linear), Gautam Chari (Head of Capital Commitments, Bank of America), John Haddock (CBO, Harvey), Mark Suster (Partner, Upfront Ventures), Niki Scevak (Partner, Blackbird), Craig Tiley (CEO, USA Tennis), Jeanne DeWitt Grosser (COO, Vercel), Paul Bassat (Partner, Square Peg), Bowen Pan (Creator, Facebook Marketplace), Peter Varghese (Secretary of Foreign Affairs, Australian Government), Sam Sicilia (CIO, Hostplus), Jack Zhang (CEO, Airwallex), Tim Doyle (CEO, Eucalyptus), Sukhinder Singh Cassidy (CEO, Xero), Sanjeev Gandhi (CEO, Orica) and Philip Green (Australia's Ambassador/High Commissioner to India).