Defying Gravity with Helen Souness

In this episode, we sit down with Julian Elliott, infectious disease physician turned founder of the global evidence platform Covidence, to unpack how the world makes sense of science in an era overflowing with information - and misinformation. Julian explains how his years working in HIV care in Cambodia exposed a critical problem: clinicians often couldn’t access the research they needed to make the best decisions for patients. That experience ultimately set him on the path to building Covidence, a platform now used by governments and academics worldwide to cut through the 'firehose' of scientific slop and fraud. Julian reflects on Covidence’s evolution from a machine-learning research project into a nonprofit powering rigorous evidence synthesis, and why LLMs, while transformative, still fall short when it comes to producing high fidelity, reproducible scientific understanding.

Dr Angela Lim shares her journey from medicine to entrepreneurship, driven by a determination to fix a mental health system struggling with long wait times, rising youth need, and inefficiencies that left too many people without timely support. She reflects on building Clearhead, a platform designed to make personalised care accessible, and the realities of scaling a mission-led company without compromising quality. Angela also speaks candidly about the role of augmented intelligence in mental health - not as a perfect solution, but as a meaningful step forward - and offers grounded insights on leadership, focus and hiring shaped by her experience navigating one of New Zealand's most challenging sectors.

Campbell Brown didn't just build a company - he build a whole new category. In this episode, he shares the journey behind PredictHQ, a company that's redefining how businesses anticipate demand. Originally from New Zealand, Campbell moved to San Francisco and within a decade, built a global data intelligence company trusted by brands like Uber.

Kai Van Lieshout, founder of Lyrebird, knows what it really takes to build one of Australia’s fastest growing health tech companies. In this episode, Kai shares the unexpected challenges of innovating in an industry where the stakes are high, the systems are complex, and new technology often lags years behind other sectors. He talks about the human side of adoption - why earning trust from doctors and hospitals was the hardest part, and how deeply understanding clinicians’ pain points became Lyrebird’s superpower. He reflects on the surreal moment when doctors not only embraced the software but pushed their own hospitals to implement it. We also explore the realities of raising $12M in capital, the opportunity costs behind that decision, and how he balanced growth with solving real-world problems for practitioners. It’s a thoughtful, grounded window into building mission-driven technology in one of the most challenging environments there is.

In this episode, I sit down with one of New Zealand’s favourite entrepreneurs, Claudia Batten - trailblazer, startup builder, and global champion for Kiwi businesses. With multiple successful US ventures behind her, she now works across a number of boards and brings her signature candour, humour, and hard-won wisdom to the conversation. A longtime friend (and one-time fellow law school tutee!), Claudia dives into the truth of entrepreneurial life: the challenge is the point. She reveals why “execution by fire” forges real problem solving muscle and why great founders trust their ability to figure anything out. We explore her view of business as one giant, messy puzzle, constantly shifting, sometimes breaking, and always requiring you to simply find a place to start. From transformation in the boardroom (“everything is breaking because everything needs to be fixed”) to her wonderfully squiggly career from startup founder to NZTE leader, Claudia offers an inspiring, practical take on what it really takes to make bold decisions and build bold companies.

When you’re building a company that blends maggots, robotics, and waste management… how do you explain that to investors? Olympia Yarger, founder of GOTERRA, shares what it takes to define a whole new category, and raise capital for it, with zero experience and infinite grit. From finding believers who backed her vision to learning that every team member brings a piece of themselves to the mission (but not forever), Olympia’s story is a masterclass in resilience, leadership, and sustainable innovation. Raw, real, and full of wisdom - this one’s for anyone bold enough to build what’s never been built before.

Every startup needs a garage, and for iiNet, that garage was Michael Malone’s mother’s. iiNet is one hell of a scale up story to 3,500 staff and $1bn in revenue. What began as a tiny internet provider in Perth, blossomed into one of Australia’s largest telecommunications companies. From a former maths teacher to the CEO and Founder of a company servicing over a million households and businesses, Michael’s is a truly amazing growth journey about scaling, hiring in volume, customer service being front and centre of your business model, and leadership

In this episode of Defying Gravity, how scale up leaders overcome, Renece Brewster, founder of Visual Domain, touched on lessons like the power of networks, the importance of defining your values and aligning the business to them, and the acquisition process she underwent with News Corp – but she also spoke about some of the very real personal challenges female leaders face in the workplace that led her to founding Her Tech Circle. Enjoy!

Sam Riley, CEO and Co-Founder of Ansarada, with Helen Souness

Rob Newman, multi time entrepreneur and scale up CEO of Perth based deep tech SaaS company Nearmap when I met him, covers two topics in this interview that so many Aussie start ups struggle to achieve. This is a masterclass on how to hire the Executive team you need to scale globally and how to enter and win leadership in the US market. Recommended listening if you are thinking about either step in your scale up journey.

Natalie’s journey has been a whirlwind of experiences, starting at SEEK, where she left her mark on almost every facet of the company’s growth. Following SEEK’s ex-CMO Katie May, who founded Kidspot, Natalie played a pivotal role in the company’s acquisition by NewsCorp as CEO. Next, she was approached by a founder and investment team to join School Places - an online platform revolutionising private school vacancies. Today, Natalie is the CEO of Vivi, a communication and collaboration tool designed to engage school students and elevate educators. At Vivi, Nat has led several funding rounds and successfully expanded Vivi’s footprint into the US where the company continues to rapidly scale. Our conversation centred around Natalie’s wealth of experiences, alongside her insights for successfully managing transitions with founders and her advice for companies eyeing new markets. Enjoy! Check out Vivi at: https://www.linkedin.com/company/vivieducation/

The ability to build a resilient team and reimagine yourself is critical for sustained growth in any business – a sentiment felt wholeheartedly by a travel industry upended by pandemic disruption. During our conversation, Adam Schwab talks about the critical inflection points Luxury Escapes faced, building an internal culture that rejects ‘day two’ mentality, the importance of reinvention, and knowing when it’s time to step away from a business (as well as when to step back in)

The full Defying Gravity interview with the wonderful Tessa Herd Court, founder and CEO of IntelligenceBank, global SaaS company founded in Melbourne. Her reflections on growing her company from some Powerpoint slide ideas she tested on her fellow CMO friends to more than 800k users across 55 countries. How did she do it? The magic of delegation, orchestrating the dream team and developing a stomach of steel!

You can’t orchestrate a $1.6b acquisition with Oracle without learning a few lessons along the way. Leigh Jasper, Co-Founder of Aconex and Co-CEO and Co-Founder of Firmable is the absolute definition of defying gravity. I’ve picked his brains on how to build a sustainable cadence that lasts you over time, lessons learnt from rapid scaling, flipping your perspective on mistakes vs rallying points, and why he’s at it again.

SEEK is one of Australia's most valuable companies, with a valuation of around $9bn and operations and investments all over the world. But behind the numbers and accolades lies a narrative of personal growth and strategic leadership that propelled SEEK to the top - and at the centre of this is co-founder and ex CEO Andrew Bassat. I was interested in chatting to Andrew not just about the growth of SEEK, but also how he managed to scale himself.

Another Defying Gravity Gravity conversation, this time with the founder of Aussie unicorn Envato, Collis Ta'eed. Collis dialled in from Darwin so I could pick his brains about how you grow a company from 0 to 600 staff as a self-confessed introvert, why running a business often feels like a dumpster fire, advice for other founders and executives, and how to know when it’s time to walk away.

The full interview with Didier where he shares the Cultureamp story, and his own journey from start up founder to CEO of a 1000+ person global unicorn company. How he thinks about being the CEO the company needs each year, and changes to become that CEO.