Mel Silva is the Managing Director of Google for ANZ. She has held senior leadership roles across Asia-Pacific, including leading Google's APAC Go-to-Market Strategy & Operations from Singapore. Today, she oversees one of Google's most influential regional businesses, and serves on the board of the Sydney Opera House.
In one of her most candid interviews, Mel shares the story behind leading Google. From growing up in a family business to taking career risks that meant pay cuts and missed promotions, she reflects on the setback that changed everything, the mentor who saw potential she couldn't yet see, and why learning to separate instinct from her inner critic transformed both her career and her leadership.
Vidit and Mel explore leading Google through Australia's landmark News Media Bargaining Code, returning from parental leave to a transformed company, building leaders who can one day replace you, balancing ambition with motherhood, and how AI is reshaping the way we work, learn and lead.
Please enjoy exploring your curiosity.
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Join our stable of commercial partners including the Australian Government, Google, KPMG, Vanta, Allens, Macquarie Capital and more.
Aug 4
1 hr 31 min
Vandita Pant is the Chief Financial Officer of BHP, one of the world's largest resources companies, with a market capitalisation of approximately US$150 billion and annual revenue of around US$55 billion.
This is Vandita's first-ever podcast interview.
Growing up in Delhi, India in a family of academics, Vandita reflects on her childhood dinner table debates, teachers and love of books for shaping the curiosity that has defined her career. After studying at Shri Ram College and IIM Lucknow, she built a global career across India, Singapore, Japan and the UK before joining BHP, where she now helps oversee the financial strategy of a company at the centre of AI, electrification and the energy transition.
In this conversation, Vandita shares why she deliberately pursued unfamiliar challenges, the career setback that unexpectedly led her into risk management, what it was like helping steer RBS through the Global Financial Crisis, the leadership lessons from earning trust in Japan, why she believes the modern CFO is a value creator rather than a scorekeeper, how she thinks about AI and capital allocation, and why Australia and India have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to deepen their economic partnership.
Please enjoy exploring your curiosity.
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Get in touch with us via email at [email protected]
Join our stable of commercial partners including the Australian Government, Google, KPMG, Vanta, Allens, Macquarie Capital, City of Sydney and more.
Welcome to the 12th episode in our special series with the Australian Government and their Centre for Australia–India Relations (CAIR), spotlighting the growing Australia–India relationship across technology, business, media, culture and sport. Other guests in this series include Bank of America's Head of Capital Commitments Gautam Chari, Renowned Music Composer Tushar Apte, Australia's High Commissioner to India Philip Green, MUFG's CEO Vivek Bhatia, Australia's Secretary of Foreign Affairs Peter Varghese, NAB's EGM Sweta Mehra, Deputy Secretary of Australia's Home Affairs Brendan Dowling, Orica's CEO Sanjeev Gandhi, Sports Journalist Bharat Sundaresan, Cricket Legend Lisa Sthalekar and CAIR's CEO, Ryan Neelam, reflecting the breadth of Indian-Australian leaders at the most senior levels.
Jul 28
1 hr 36 min
Caroline Rawlinson is the CEO of Culture Amp, the global employee experience platform trusted by more than 6,000 organisations and 25 million employees. Underpinned by people science and AI, Culture Amp helps organisations build high-performing teams at scale. Before joining Culture Amp, Caroline held executive leadership roles at MYOB, Trade Me and Fletcher Building across Australia, New Zealand and Asia.
In her first ever in-depth interview, Caroline shares the journey behind becoming CEO of Culture Amp. She reflects on growing up in Auckland, captaining hockey teams, meeting her husband at McDonald's, landing a role at PwC despite knowing almost nothing about finance, and the forgotten career goal she wrote down at 28: "I want to be CEO."
Vidit and Caroline explore the big learning in Shanghai when she was a first time CFO that changed how she leads forever, the partnership that made an international executive career possible, succeeding Culture Amp's founder as CEO, balancing today's business with an AI-native future, building high-performing cultures at global scale, and why the closer she came to becoming CEO, the harder it became to believe she could.
Please enjoy exploring your curiosity.
________
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Join our stable of commercial partners including the Australian Government, Google, KPMG, Vanta, Allens, Macquarie Capital and more.
Jul 21
1 hr 18 min
Jesse Zhang is the Co-founder & CEO of Decagon, one of the world's fastest-growing AI companies. In just two and a half years, Decagon has grown to around 500 employees, raised approximately US$500 million from investors including Andreessen Horowitz, Accel and Bain Capital Ventures, and today powers AI customer service for many of the world's largest airlines, banks, retailers and technology companies.
In this rare in-depth conversation, Jesse reflects on growing up in Boulder, Colorado, an intensely disciplined childhood shaped by maths competitions and Chinese immigrant parents, graduating from Harvard in just three years, and why his first startup taught him far more than his second.
Vidit and Jesse explore how Decagon found its billion-dollar opportunity by interviewing hundreds of customers, why they reached US$1 million in ARR with just two people, how to hire exceptional talent, why speed has become the ultimate competitive advantage in AI, building one of Silicon Valley's leading AI companies, and what it really takes to scale from founder mode to leading 500 people.
Please enjoy exploring your curiosity.
________
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Join our stable of commercial partners including the Australian Government, Google, KPMG, Vanta, Allens, Macquarie Capital and more.
Jul 14
1 hr 18 min
David Eckstein is the CFO of Legora, one of the world’s fastest-growing enterprise software companies, which grew from $1 million to $100 million in Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) in just 18 months.
David reflects on his parents’ divorce, graduating from college in three years, and realising at 22 that he was “living someone else’s life” before leaving investment banking for Silicon Valley.
Vidit and David explore his journey through Box, OpenDNS, Menlo Security and Vanta to Legora; helping sell OpenDNS to Cisco; investing in more than 100 startups; and how 16 years of relationships helped Legora attract $1.5 billion in investor demand and raise a $600 million Series D.
They also discuss the changing role of the CFO, AI economics and token spend, how to diligence a startup before joining, lessons from exceptional founders, Legora’s extraordinary growth, and David’s philosophy of loyalty and giving more than he takes.
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, Vanta, Allens, Macquarie Capital and more.
Jul 7
1 hr 15 min
Episode #263 features Gautam Chari, Managing Director and Head of Capital Commitments (Asia Pacific) at Bank of America.
Growing up in Mumbai, Gautam thought his path was already written. Like many students of his generation, he became a civil engineer, started work on construction sites and expected to spend his career building physical infrastructure. Instead, a series of bold decisions took him to Australia, into investment banking, and eventually to one of the world's largest financial institutions.
In this rare and deeply personal conversation, Gautam reflects on the teachers who changed the trajectory of his life, the culture shock of moving from Mumbai to Adelaide, breaking into investment banking without a finance background, living through 9/11 in New York, and the lessons from building a global career across Sydney, London, New York and Hong Kong.
Vidit and Gautam explore why the best careers are rarely linear, the difference between confidence and conviction, how great leaders develop judgment, why listening is an underrated superpower, the AI investment cycle, and why the Australia-India relationship will be one of the defining economic stories of the coming decades.
This is Gautam's first-ever podcast interview. 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, Vanta, Allens, Macquarie Capital, City of Sydney and more.
Welcome to the eleventh episode in our special series with the Australian Government and their Centre for Australia–India Relations (CAIR), spotlighting the growing Australia–India relationship across technology, business, media, culture and sport. Previous guests include Renowned Music Composer Tushar Apte, Australia's High Commissioner to India Philip Green, MUFG's CEO Vivek Bhatia, Ex Secretary of Foreign Affairs Peter Varghese, NAB's EGM Sweta Mehra, Deputy Secretary of Australia's Home Affairs Brendan Dowling, Orica's CEO Sanjeev Gandhi, Sports Journalist Bharat Sundaresan, Cricket Legend Lisa Sthalekar and CAIR's CEO, Ryan Neelam, reflecting the breadth of Indian-Australian leaders at the most senior levels.
Jun 30
1 hr 15 min
Welcome to this classic episode. Classics are our favorite episodes from our back catalogue, published as frequently as possible. These are N of 1 conversations with N of 1 people. This is a replay of Episode 202, originally released in April 2025— one of our most loved classics.
Brad Banducci is the recent CEO of Woolworths Group, one of the world's largest retail businesses, generating more than $65 billion in annual revenue, employing over 200,000 people and serving millions of customers every week.
In this rare interview (and his first since he left Woolworths after 8+ years) Brad reflects on growing up in South Africa during apartheid, the lessons learned from his entrepreneurial family, and the experiences that shaped his identity, ambition and worldview long before he stepped into the CEO's office.
Vidit and Brad explore his remarkable journey from engineer and management consultant at Boston Consulting Group to leading one of the Southern Hemisphere's most complex organisations. They discuss intrapreneurship versus entrepreneurship, making high-stakes decisions with imperfect information, leading through transformation at scale, and the leadership philosophy behind one of his most memorable ideas: being directionally correct beats being perfectly right.
They also unpack failure, purpose, family, curiosity, succession, building leaders who outperform you, and why the best executives spend less time chasing certainty and more time moving towards what matters.
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, Vanta, Allens, Macquarie Capital and more.
Jun 23
1 hr 3 min
Episode #261 features Ameet Bains, CEO of the Western Bulldogs, an AFL club with more than 65,000 members, $100 million in net assets, and a reach spanning elite sport, community programs and one of Australia’s fastest-growing regions.
Ameet reflects on growing up as the son of Indian migrants, embracing both Australian and Punjabi cultures, and the entrepreneurial sacrifice his parents made to fund his education and future.
Vidit and Ameet explore his journey from lawyer at MinterEllison and Toyota to AFL executive, the setbacks and missed opportunities that ultimately shaped his career, and the leadership lessons learned from managing player contracts, building high-performing teams and leading through intense public scrutiny.
They also discuss sustaining success in elite sport, balancing ambition with family, the future of AI in organisations, engaging Australia's rapidly growing Indian community, and why humility, service and long-term thinking matter more than headlines.
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, Vanta, Allens, Macquarie Capital and more.
Jun 16
1 hr 10 min
Episode #260 features Maxine Minter — Founder and General Partner of the Pre-Seed Venture Capital Fund, Co Ventures.
Maxine reflects on growing up between Australia, Japan and Europe, speaking Japanese before English, and raised by a fiercely entrepreneurial single mother.
Vidit and Maxine explore her childhood, the influence of her grandparents, executive coaching, the idea of “generative ambition”, and the lessons learned from building companies, backing founders and how and why she started her own VC fund, Co Ventures.
They also discuss the specifics of how the best Aussie founders go global, the realities of venture capital, AI, partnership, importance of play, and why the biggest opportunities often come from stepping outside the boxes others expect you to fit into.
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, Vanta, Allens, Macquarie Capital and more.
Jun 9
1 hr 32 min
Episode #259 features Ryan Neelam, CEO of the Australian Government's Centre for Australia–India Relations (CAIR). A career diplomat, Ryan has represented Australia at the United Nations, negotiated global development goals, led through the Hong Kong protests and COVID-19, and spent his career helping Australia navigate an increasingly complex world.
Ryan shares his journey from migrating to Australia as a child from Malaysia, growing up with Indian and Malaysian Chinese heritage, and accidentally finding his way into diplomacy. He reflects on representing Australia at the UN, negotiating alongside countries with vastly different worldviews, leading through the Hong Kong protests and COVID-19, and why luck plays a bigger role in successful careers than most people admit. Vidit and Ryan explore diplomacy as the art of persuasion, how trust is built across cultures, and why understanding different perspectives has never been more important. They also discuss the rise of India, Australia's biggest opportunities with its fastest-growing diaspora, clean energy, innovation, and the future of one of the world's most consequential relationships. Please enjoy exploring your curiosity.
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, Vanta, Allens, Macquarie Capital, City of Sydney and more.
Welcome to the tenth episode in our special series with the Australian Government and their Centre for Australia–India Relations, spotlighting the growing Australia–India relationship across technology, business, media, culture and sport. Previous guests include Renowned Music Composer Tushar Apte, Australia's High Commissioner to India Philip Green, MUFG's CEO Vivek Bhatia, Ex Secretary of Foreign Affairs Peter Varghese, NAB's EGM Sweta Mehra, Deputy Secretary of Australia's Home Affairs Brendan Dowling, Sports Journalist Bharat Sundaresan, Cricket Legend Lisa Sthalekar and Orica's CEO Sanjeev Gandhi, reflecting the breadth of Indian-Australian leaders at the most senior levels.
Jun 4
1 hr 1 min
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