Career Stories

"The world doesn't reward intent - it rewards action." Everyone tells you their big break was luck. It wasn't. It was a habit of showing up with your head up instead of your AirPods in. This week Luella sits down with thought leader, speaker and author Leanne Hughes to unpack the real story behind her new book, Work Fame - out 30 September. Forget the highlight reel of stages and airports. Leanne breaks down what actually got her noticed in a big organisation, and why the same mindset now powers her solo consulting business. From a childhood dream of playing netball for Australia to a corporate role that inspired an entire book, Leanne's career story is a masterclass in creating your own momentum instead of waiting for a conveyor belt to move you. She and Luella talk through the reality of solopreneurship, the "walk of fame vs walk of tame" concept at the heart of her book, why being hard to explain might be your biggest asset in the age of AI, and the Canada workshop disaster that accidentally launched her first podcast. Episode highlights: 00:36 - The reality of being a "thought leader" - what Leanne's week actually looks like behind the Instagram highlights 05:01 - Why being "unexplainable" is a strength, not a weakness, in the age of AI 10:38 - The idea behind Work Fame and how one piece of blunt career advice sparked it 13:36 - The "walk of fame vs walk of tame" - the mindset shift behind getting noticed 18:20 - Her formative years at Wicked Campers and the "seek forgiveness, not permission" lesson 24:38 - The workshop that went wrong in Canada - and accidentally launched her first podcast 34:03 - What success actually looks like to Leanne (and why she talks openly about money) 41:07 - Quickfire round - coffee order, WFH vs office, and the best career advice she's ever received Resources: Leanne Hughes Linked In New episodes on a Wednesday, with interviews with leaders or experts every week and a monthly discussion episode at the end of the month. We would love to hear from you. Share your thoughts on recent episodes or questions you would like Luella and Michelle to answer to stories@the-career-library.com. Support this podcast by becoming a member and get access to bonus episodes containing work related advice from Luella, Michelle and expert guests as well as a monthly newsletter with access to tools and guidance from this week's advice episode. Join here Connect & Subscribe Subscribe to Career Stories wherever you get your podcasts. Follow Career Stories on Instagram , YouTube, and LinkedIn. Career Stories is brought to you by The Career Library.

"Sitting behind the nameplate and thinking of an extraordinary privilege to represent Australia on that world stage." Today's News: Luella has recently launched new change leadership services - training programs for middle managers and senior leaders, keynote sessions, and a methodology developed through her doctoral research. Find out more here. Most people think corporate affairs means writing press releases. Sally Richardson's version of the job means coordinating with state governments during a live incident, running on what she calls the "no surprises doctrine," and keeping 3,500+ staff aligned when a transport network is in the headlines. Her path there wasn't linear. A commercial lawyer who moved to New York for what was meant to be one year and became ten, did a masters at Columbia, then joined Australia's diplomatic mission to the UN - working the campaign that got Australia elected to the Security Council, then serving on it herself. She came home, worked in Victorian state government, then jumped to Tennis Australia just months before COVID, ending up deep in the biosecurity and border coordination that got the Australian Open delivered safely. Corporate affairs at Yarra Trams, then Keolis, followed. In this episode, Sally Richardson, Chief of Corporate Affairs at Keolis, joins Luella to unpack what corporate affairs actually involves, how a "no surprises" relationship with government clients holds up under pressure, and how staying open to unplanned opportunities took her from law to the UN to national transport leadership. In this episode 00:01 - What Corporate Affairs actually covers at a national transport operator 00:13 - Wanting to be a paediatrician, coming from a family of lawyers, and Arts/Law at Monash 00:16 - Starting out as a graduate lawyer 00:17 - Moving to New York for one year and staying ten 00:20 - Joining Australia's Mission to the UN and the Security Council campaign 00:29 - Luella's Aristotle framework on trust, and doing what you say you'll do 00:35 - Joining Tennis Australia weeks before COVID, and delivering the AO through border restrictions 00:48 - The best career advice she's been given: be open to opportunities 00:49 - Her proudest career moment Resources & links: Sally’s LinkedIn New episodes on a Wednesday, with interviews with leaders or experts every week and a monthly discussion episode at the end of the month. We would love to hear from you. Share your thoughts on recent episodes or questions you would like Luella and Michelle to answer to stories@the-career-library.com. Support this podcast by becoming a member and get access to bonus episodes containing work related advice from Luella, Michelle and expert guests as well as a monthly newsletter with access to tools and guidance from this week's advice episode. Join here Connect & Subscribe Subscribe to Career Stories wherever you get your podcasts. Follow Career Stories on Instagram , YouTube, and LinkedIn. Career Stories is brought to you by The Career Library .

"I was telling them their baby was ugly. That's the last thing they wanted to hear." Today's News: This episode marks the launch of Luella's new change leadership services - training programs for middle managers and senior leaders, keynote sessions, and a methodology developed through her doctoral research. Find out more here. Ever gone from being the outside expert everyone wanted in the room to being the person who actually has to live with the decision - and noticed people stopped listening to the exact same advice? In this episode, Dr Luella Forbes talks to Angela Bliss, Head of Behavioural Science at NAB, about a career that's moved through art history, gallery direction, web design and freelance consulting before landing in a discipline built on one idea: it's easier to change someone's environment than to change their behaviour. They cover why personality predicts behaviour better than demographics, the very ordinary origin of her career (she wanted to be a police officer at eight), and the hardest lesson of her career - learning that being right isn't the same as being heard. In this episode: 00:00 - Introducing Angela Bliss, Head of Behavioural Science at NAB. 00:47 - What behavioural science actually means, and the ATM story that explains it best. 06:15 - Why personality traits predict behaviour better than demographics. 08:29 - Studying behavioural science at the London School of Economics. 13:25 - Childhood ambition: wanting to join the Queensland police at age eight, and the winding path through Japan, London and art gallery direction that followed. 19:35 - Reimagining a NAB bank branch as a design studio. 22:01 - Leaving NAB, going freelance, and being invited back to work on romance scams. 25:04 - The hardest period of her career: moving from consultant to insider, and why the same advice landed differently once she was "inside." 29:23 - Wellbeing, upbringing, and how both shaped her approach to career. 31:11 - Quick-fire round and the best career advice she's ever received. Resources & links: Angela Bliss on LinkedIn New episodes on a Wednesday, with interviews with leaders or experts every week and a monthly discussion episode at the end of the month. We would love to hear from you. Share your thoughts on recent episodes or questions you would like Luella and Michelle to answer to stories@the-career-library.com. Support this podcast by becoming a member and get access to bonus episodes containing work related advice from Luella, Michelle and expert guests as well as a monthly newsletter with access to tools and guidance from this week's advice episode. Join here Connect & Subscribe Subscribe to Career Stories wherever you get your podcasts. Follow Career Stories on Instagram , YouTube, and LinkedIn. Career Stories is brought to you by The Career Library.

"On their worst day, the shadow kind of looms over everybody and stops them being able to do what they need to." Today's News: This episode marks the launch of Luella's new change leadership services - training programs for middle managers and senior leaders, keynote sessions, and a methodology developed through her doctoral research. Find out more here. Ever walked into a meeting already flat, distracted, or just not yourself - and wondered afterwards why the room felt off? Turns out your team feels it too. And there's a name for it. In this month's Career Advice episode, Dr Luella Forbes and Associate Professor Michelle Gander unpack the "leadership shadow" - the idea that what you say, measure, prioritise and how you act on your best and worst days shapes your team far more than you realise. Sparked by a listener email and a comment from August guest Ron Christianson, it's a practical framework for turning self-awareness into better leadership, plus a look at why big organisations seem to grow leaders differently, and Luella's exciting news about a brand new chapter in her own career. In this episode: 00:00 - Michelle's quiet winter of reading (including her ongoing octopus obsession) and Luella's trip to Melbourne. 03:23 - Luella shares the new change leadership services she's launching today - training for middle managers and senior leaders, keynote sessions, and a methodology built from her doctoral research. Full details below. 07:06 - Quick take-aways from Ron Christianson, Asha Bhat and Janette O'Neill's episodes. 08:45 - What McDonald's, Mars and Mercedes get right about talent development - and what gets lost for people who've only ever worked in one place. 20:22 - A personal story about applying for - and not getting an interview for - a role, and what it revealed about how leaders are chosen. 24:48 - Luella breaks down the four-part framework - what you say, measure, prioritise and how you act - and why your bad day doesn't have to become your team's bad day. 32:29 - Michelle shares an example of a leader whose emotional, honest town hall speech landed better than a polished one would have. Resources mentioned: Dr Luella Forbes' new services - Lead Better Change at The Narratologist Gravitas by Dr Louise Mahler New episodes on a Wednesday, with interviews with leaders or experts every week and a monthly discussion episode at the end of the month. We would love to hear from you. Share your thoughts on recent episodes or questions you would like Luella and Michelle to answer to stories@the-career-library.com. Support this podcast by becoming a member and get access to bonus episodes containing work related advice from Luella, Michelle and expert guests as well as a monthly newsletter with access to tools and guidance from this week's advice episode. Join here Connect & Subscribe Subscribe to Career Stories wherever you get your podcasts. Follow Career Stories on Instagram , YouTube, and LinkedIn. Career Stories is brought to you by The Career Library.

"I think what I'm most proud of is the relationships that I've built along the way." - Janette O'Neill She built a global sustainability function from the ground up, led people and culture transformation across Australia, the UK and Ireland, and was named interim Chief HR Officer for North America right as Covid upended everything about the role. Thirty years in, people still ask her the same question: how do you actually make sustainability work inside a business, instead of it just being a slogan on a slide. Along the way there's a New York apartment lined up in the West Village, a view of the Chrysler Building, and Billy Joel tickets for Madison Square Garden - and then, as she puts it, "the Covid happened." Janette O'Neill is a former Global Head of Sustainability at QBE, with a career spanning strategy consulting, culture and HR transformation, and sustainability leadership across Andersen Consulting, PwC, NAB and QBE in Australia, the UK, Ireland and the US. In this conversation, Janette talks with Dr Luella Forbes about how she built a global sustainability function from scratch, her interim posting to New York and the Covid timing that upended it, what she's learned about resilience versus adaptability, and what it's like navigating a workplace that assumes childless employees have nothing else pulling at their time. Timestamps 00:01:06 - Meet Janette: Global Head of Sustainability at QBE 00:03:09 - A Deliberate Pause: Stepping Away On Her Own Terms 00:09:10 - Decoding Sustainability: Beyond the Paper Cups 00:13:44 - AI's Hidden Cost: Convenience vs Consequence 00:16:19 - From Art Curator to Andersen Consulting: How It All Started 00:32:07 - The New York Dream That Covid Cancelled 00:35:14 - Redefining Resilience: Why Adaptability Wins 00:38:54 - Success, Wellbeing and Life Without Kids at Work 00:44:34 - Quickfire Round 00:45:42 - What She's Proudest Of Resources Mentioned: Janette O’Neills LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/janette-o-neill-a60343/ Connect & Subscribe New episodes on a Wednesday, with interviews with leaders or experts every week and a monthly discussion episode at the end of the month. We would love to hear from you. Share your thoughts on recent episodes or questions you would like Luella and Michelle to answer to stories@the-career-library.com. Support this podcast by becoming a member and get access to bonus episodes containing work related advice from Luella, Michelle and expert guests as well as a monthly newsletter with access to tools and guidance from this week's advice episode. Join here Subscribe to Career Stories wherever you get your podcasts. Follow Career Stories on Instagram , YouTube, and LinkedIn. Career Stories is brought to you by The Career Library.

"Resilience is not that we don't have setbacks. Resilience is about coming back and showing up every day in spite of all the challenges that we have." She arrived in Australia with a husband, a master's degree, and no career plan of her own. Within two decades she was running one of Western Australia's largest Aboriginal community-controlled organisations - pulling it back from massive debt, then leading it to a King's Birthday honour for service to the community she serves. But the harder story isn't the title change. It's what came before it: convincing a traditional husband she needed to travel for work, rebuilding trust in a community that owed her nothing, and learning - the hard way, over email, in a restructure she still thinks about - that some conversations can only happen face to face. This week, Luella sits down with Asha Bhat, CEO of Southern Aboriginal Corporation in Albany, WA, and recipient of the Medal of the Order of Australia (2022) for service to the Indigenous community of Western Australia. Asha moved from India to Australia in 2004, worked her way from finance officer to CEO during an organisational crisis, and has spent the years since building trust, capacity, and cultural connection across housing, legal services, and family violence support. She talks with Luella about leadership lessons learned the hard way, what "sorry business" means and what it teaches about grief and community, and how she's had to renegotiate ambition, marriage, and identity at every stage of her career. Timestamps 00:00:53 - What Southern Aboriginal Corporation Actually Does. Asha breaks down the scope of the organisation - legal services, housing, mental health, and family violence support - and why every program is designed bottom-up with the community, not for it. 00:06:46 - The Restructure Mistake That Changed How She Leads. A hard lesson in delivering difficult news by email instead of in person - and why she's never done it again. 00:10:30 - What "Sorry Business" Means. Asha explains the Aboriginal community's approach to grief and mourning, and the parallels she sees with her own Indian cultural background. 00:21:03 - From Finance Officer to CEO in a Crisis. How Asha ended up leading the organisation she'd joined in an entry-level role, and what she changed first. 00:31:23 - Redefining Resilience and Success. Asha's take on what actually makes someone successful - and why it isn't a number, a title, or being the loudest person in the room. Resources mentioned: Southern Aboriginal Corporation: https://www.sacorp.com.au/ Asha Bhat on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/asha-bhat-oam-gaicd-46b9552/ New episodes on a Wednesday, with interviews with leaders or experts every week and a monthly discussion episode at the end of the month. We would love to hear from you. Share your thoughts on recent episodes or questions you would like Luella and Michelle to answer to stories@the-career-library.com. Support this podcast by becoming a member and get access to bonus episodes containing work related advice from Luella, Michelle and expert guests as well as a monthly newsletter with access to tools and guidance from this week's advice episode. Join here Connect & Subscribe Subscribe to Career Stories wherever you get your podcasts. Follow Career Stories on Instagram , YouTube, and LinkedIn. Career Stories is brought to you by The Career Library.

"Trust is very hard to build up, and it takes a long time - but it can be destroyed overnight." - Ron Christianson Most of us think of a crisis as something that happens to other people's companies. Then the media is outside the CEO's apartment, ringing the bell, and someone has to decide what gets said in the next five minutes. That someone, for years, was Ron Christianson - and this week he tells us how he got there, what it actually feels like, and why the leaders who handle it best are usually the ones who've learned to listen first. Ron is the founder of Credence Comms and Coaching, working across corporate affairs and leadership communication. Before going out on his own, he spent more than a decade inside McDonald's - rising from a communications role in Australia to a global position covering franchised markets across South America, Europe, the Middle East and Asia - before a strategic move to lead communications for Toys R Us Asia, right as Covid hit. Along the way there's also a language degree, a year teaching English in Korea, a "kismet" story about two careers landing in Hong Kong at once, and a front-row seat to the 2019 unrest and handover-era change in the city he called home for eight years. Luella and Ron talk trust, crisis communications, coaching leaders under pressure, and what it actually takes to build a career across four continents. Timestamps 00:00:53 - What Credence Comms and Coaching actually does, and why Ron sees communication as a business-critical skill, not a soft one. 00:09:42 - What it's really like when the press is at the door, the boss is calling, and there's no margin for error. 00:27:24 - Ron on the languages and teaching path he almost took, and the year abroad that told him it wasn't for him. 00:58:07 - Resilience, listening, adaptability, empathy, and why celebrating success matters more than leaders think. 01:08:45 - The risk that took him to Australia, and why he'd take it again. Resources Ron Christianson - Credence Comms and Coaching Connect with Ron on LinkedIn New episodes on a Wednesday, with interviews with leaders or experts every week and a monthly discussion episode at the end of the month. We would love to hear from you. Share your thoughts on recent episodes or questions you would like Luella and Michelle to answer to stories@the-career-library.com. Support this podcast by becoming a member and get access to bonus episodes containing work related advice from Luella, Michelle and expert guests as well as a monthly newsletter with access to tools and guidance from this week's advice episode. Join here Connect & Subscribe Subscribe to Career Stories wherever you get your podcasts. Follow Career Stories on Instagram , YouTube, and LinkedIn. Career Stories is brought to you by The Career Library.

"The bits that will never go away are the human interactions that go with it." - Dr Luella Forbes Everyone wants a straight answer on whether AI is coming for their job. Dr Luella Forbes didn't have one either - not until she'd spent a month talking to three different people who do. What she took away instead is sharper - it's not AI taking anyone's job right now, it's the excuse it gives leaders who wanted to cut costs anyway. In this monthly recap episode, Dr Luella Forbes and Associate Professor Michelle Gander sit down to unpack a month of AI conversations and cut through the noise around job security, hype, and what's actually worth worrying about. Luella and Michelle speak about the challenges with AI adoption at scale, whether whole job categories are really at risk, and the specific skills - critical thinking, adaptability, and a healthy dose of scepticism - that will matter most as AI capability keeps climbing. Timestamps 00:10:50 - Why this month became an AI month: Three guests in a row circled back to AI, and Luella admits she needed the reassurance as much as anyone. 00:13:15 - Is AI actually taking your job? The four-day-week debate, the layoffs blamed on AI that probably weren't, and the filing-cabinet argument for why roles change more than they disappear. 00:23:19 - Agentic AI, the models pulled over cybersecurity risk, and why lumping "AI" into one category misses the real threats. 00:27:21 - Why the sharpest AI users treat every answer with healthy cynicism - and why the craft of analysis isn't dead yet. 00:36:19 - The skill worth building isn't a technical one - it's the resilience to keep letting go of what you just learned. 00:41:00 - AI's uneven reach across countries, and why its impact on jobs is likely to hit women disproportionately harder. 00:46:18 - Just start: Matt Dunn's advice in a previous episode for getting over the fear of AI, and the ground rules for using it safely at work. New episodes on a Wednesday, with interviews with leaders or experts every week and a monthly discussion episode at the end of the month. We would love to hear from you. Share your thoughts on recent episodes or questions you would like Luella and Michelle to answer to stories@the-career-library.com. Support this podcast by becoming a member and get access to bonus episodes containing work related advice from Luella, Michelle and expert guests as well as a monthly newsletter with access to tools and guidance from this week's advice episode. Join here Connect & Subscribe Subscribe to Career Stories wherever you get your podcasts. Follow Career Stories on Instagram , YouTube, and LinkedIn. Career Stories is brought to you by The Career Library.

"I don't think anyone's job is going away." - Matt Dunn Everyone wants a straight answer on whether AI is coming for their job. Matt Dunn doesn't give one - because there isn't one. What he gives instead is sharper: the people who get replaced won't be replaced by AI, they'll be replaced by colleagues who learned to use it first. In this bonus episode, Dr Luella Forbes sits down with AI expert Matt Dunn to cut through the noise around AI adoption, job security, and what's actually worth worrying about. Matt and Luella speak about the challenges with AI adoption, whether entire job categories are really at risk, to the specific skills - curiosity, critical thinking, human judgement - that will matter most as AI capability keeps climbing. Timestamps 00:01:39 - Why most AI projects stall: It's rarely a technology problem — it's a passion project from middle management that leadership never understood or used themselves. 00:03:20 - Play first, optimise later: Matt's case for handing teams half a day a month to tinker with AI and deliberately try to break it. 00:06:47 - You don't need perfect systems to benefit from AI: How one person who knows how to use AI can outrun a legacy tech stack everyone already hates. 00:08:41 - Will AI actually take your job: The filing-cabinet analogy for why roles change but rarely disappear — and the real risk of refusing to engage at all. 00:11:44 - A real example: how one sales team used AI to sharpen tenders and proposals without cutting a single person from the team. 00:15:02 - When AI writing backfires: A beautifully written, entirely AI-generated proposal that fell apart the moment a human actually read it end to end. 00:17:05 - The skills worth building now: Why curiosity and adaptability matter more than any specific technical skill in a world this uncertain. 00:23:26 - Guarding against hallucinations and bias: Fabricated citations, unchecked assumptions, and the same "think about what the answer should be" test we used to apply to calculators. New episodes on a Wednesday, with interviews with leaders or experts every week and a monthly discussion episode at the end of the month. We would love to hear from you. Share your thoughts on recent episodes or questions you would like Luella and Michelle to answer to stories@the-career-library.com. Support this podcast by becoming a member and get access to bonus episodes containing work related advice from Luella, Michelle and expert guests as well as a monthly newsletter with access to tools and guidance from this week's advice episode. Join here Connect & Subscribe Subscribe to Career Stories wherever you get your podcasts. Follow Career Stories on Instagram , YouTube, and LinkedIn. Career Stories is brought to you by The Career Library .

"AI is like the smartest grad who's never left the library. They've got no life experience... you need to check what they're doing, particularly if you're going to put your name to it." Bethan Winn Bethan Winn is a critical thinking specialist, speaker and author of The Human Edge: Critical Thinking in the Age of AI, and through her business Human Skills Co she helps organisations figure out where the technology earns its keep and where it just gets in the way. In this episode, Luella and Bethan talk through what happens when businesses let AI answer for them (and what it costs them when it gets it wrong), why offloading your "backstage" thinking work can quietly wear down your onstage skills, and a career that ran from Oxfam to a London classroom to building her own critical thinking practice from a Facebook post, prompted in part by a health scare that made the "someday" feel a lot more urgent. Timestamps 00:05:33 - When AI answers for you: A quoted price, an "AI autobot," and why one bad automated reply was enough to lose a client for good. 00:10:39 - Outsourcing the thinking, not just the task: Catching herself two hours deep in a Claude chat for something that should've taken fifteen minutes. 00:14:09 - The patchwork trap: Why chunking everything into AI prompts can quietly replace the thinking it was supposed to support. 00:17:22 - An accidental expertise: How a university program she almost turned down turned into a career built on making dense, academic thinking make sense to anyone. 00:25:56 - Why listing your credentials doesn't build trust: The three things people actually judge you on, and why showing beats telling. 00:38:24 - The health scare that changed the timeline: A breast cancer scan turned "someday I'll go out on my own" into now. Resources mentioned: ● The Human Edge: Critical Thinking in the Age of AI by Bethan Winn New episodes on a Wednesday, with interviews with leaders or experts every week and a monthly discussion episode at the end of the month. We would love to hear from you. Share your thoughts on recent episodes or questions you would like Luella and Michelle to answer to stories@the-career-library.com. Support this podcast by becoming a member and get access to bonus episodes containing work related advice from Luella, Michelle and expert guests as well as a monthly newsletter with access to tools and guidance from this week's advice episode. Join here Connect & Subscribe Subscribe to Career Stories wherever you get your podcasts. Follow Career Stories on Instagram , YouTube, and LinkedIn. Career Stories is brought to you by The Career Library .

"Your gut is normally right, but you should back it up with some research as well." - Matt Dunn New AI tool, same old anxiety: am I using this properly, or badly, or barely at all? Matt Dunn has spent the past decade in the middle of exactly that problem. He started thinking seriously about automation more than ten years ago and has since moved into AI, now leading AI Programs at Quantum, an IT consulting firm, where he's personally trained over 4,000 people on what AI can actually do. In this episode, Luella and Matt talk through why Automation implementations have traditionally struggled and how AI might change that, how to use AI to actually get better at your job instead of just faster, and a career focussed on working smarter, not just harder, that took him from a default commerce degree to coding a startup in his lunch break. Timestamps 00:06:59 - Challenges of AI implementation: The biggest misconception isn't the technology, it's how uncomfortable people feel changing the way they already work. 00:10:37 - Using AI to get better at what you do: A simple habit that turns AI from a shortcut into something that actually improves your performance. 00:15:00 - An accidental career journey: From wanting to be a dentist to a commerce and technology degree, chosen almost by accident. 00:19:19 - Turning down more money to follow his gut: Choosing people over pay, and the sister's advice that's stuck with him ever since. 00:27:27 - The automation imperative: How a dinner conversation about robots turned into betting on automation before anyone else was. 00:30:05 - Automation work finally paying off: Why a technology that should have taken off a decade ago is only just catching up, thanks to generative AI. Resources mentioned: ● Hard Fork podcast ● Superhuman newsletter New episodes on a Wednesday, with interviews with leaders or experts every week and a monthly discussion episode at the end of the month. We would love to hear from you. Share your thoughts on recent episodes or questions you would like Luella and Michelle to answer to stories@the-career-library.com. Support this podcast by becoming a member and get access to bonus episodes containing work related advice from Luella, Michelle and expert guests as well as a monthly newsletter with access to tools and guidance from this week's advice episode. Join here Connect & Subscribe Subscribe to Career Stories wherever you get your podcasts. Follow Career Stories on Instagram , YouTube, and LinkedIn. Career Stories is brought to you by The Career Library. Career Stories is brought to you by The Career Library .

"Ultimately, humans are always going to be accountable - you can't put that on AI." - Mythili Baker Every few weeks, the AI conversation resets again - a new model, a new headline, a new reason to wonder whether the skills you've built still count. For people working inside large, regulated organisations, the question isn't abstract: it's showing up in budgets, headcount, and what "good work" even looks like now. Mythili Baker has spent the last year answering that question for real. As Head of Data & AI at Aware Super - Australia's third-largest super fund - she's responsible for how one of the country's biggest pools of retirement savings uses AI safely, while leading the human side of that change. Before this, she spent 18 years at data and AI consultancy Altus, helping it grow from 17 people to 150. In this episode, Luella and Mythili talk through what AI might change at work (and what it doesn't), the skill that matters more than ever right now, and the career instinct - saying yes, even when it's uncomfortable - that took her from a default degree choice to leading AI strategy for millions of members' retirement savings. Timestamps 00:07:38 - AI Won't Fix Bad Judgement: The biggest AI challenge isn't the tool - it's adoption, change, and learning to sense-check what it gives you. 00:09:31 - When AI Gets It Wrong (Confidently): Why AI can be confidently incorrect, and what it takes to catch it - including knowing when your own expertise should override it. 00:14:01 - Building a Team for an AI World: What Mythili looks for in her team now, and why curiosity and attitude matter more than technical skill alone. 00:15:23 - From wanting to travel the world as a kid to a "default" commerce degree that solved the problem. 00:19:35 - 18 Years at One Company: Growing alongside data and AI consultancy Altus from 17 people to 150, and the real opportunities that came with staying. 00:20:53 - Saying Yes to the Uncomfortable Move: Why comfort became the warning sign, and what finally pushed her into her current role at Aware Super. Resources mentioned: Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg: https://www.penguin.com.au/books/lean-in-9780753541647 New episodes on a Wednesday, with interviews with leaders or experts every week and a monthly discussion episode at the end of the month. We would love to hear from you. Share your thoughts on recent episodes or questions you would like Luella and Michelle to answer to stories@the-career-library.com. Support this podcast by becoming a member and get access to bonus episodes containing work related advice from Luella, Michelle and expert guests as well as a monthly newsletter with access to tools and guidance from this week's advice episode. Join here Connect & Subscribe Subscibe to Career Stories wherever you get your podcasts. Follow Career Stories on Instagram , YouTube, and LinkedIn. Career Stories is brought to you by The Career Library.

What does the FIFA World Cup tell us about leadership communication? And what kind of career do you actually have? In this June advice episode, Dr Luella Forbes and Associate Professor Michelle Gander explore how organisations communicate difficult news, how careers have changed, and why real employee engagement is much rarer than most organisations realise. In this episode: What two different World Cup squad announcement approaches reveal about leadership values and communication Why the sequence of delivering difficult news matters as much as the message itself The traditional career is not dead — what the research on university students actually shows Portfolio, contemporary and hybrid careers: the differences, the trade-offs, and the financial realities Gallup's 2026 finding: only 1 in 5 employees globally are genuinely engaged at work What the best leaders do differently — without being prompted by systems or processes Book recommendation: Hidden Potential by Adam Grant Preview of July's AI-themed guest episodes Resources mentioned: Gallup State of the Global Workplace 2026: https://www.gallup.com/workplace/349484/state-of-the-global-workplace.aspx Hidden Potential by Adam Grant: https://adamgrant.net/book/hidden-potential/ Read the full blog post and show notes: www.the-career-library.com/career-stories-episodes/june-advice-2026 New episodes on a Wednesday, with interviews with leaders or experts every week and a monthly discussion episode at the end of the month. We would love to hear from you. Share your thoughts on recent episodes or questions you would like Luella and Michelle to answer to stories@the-career-library.com. Support this podcast by becoming a member and get access to bonus episodes containing work related advice from Luella, Michelle and expert guests as well as a monthly newsletter with access to tools and guidance from this week's advice episode. Help other people find this podcast by subscribing in your podcast app and leaving a review. Career Stories is brought to you by The Career Library .

This week's guest is Simon Johnson, Senior Director of Customer Success for Asia Pacific and Japan at DocuSign. Simon leads a team of around 35 people across the region, but his career did not start with a clear plan. He missed the marks for the degree he wanted, fell into tech almost by accident, and built his way up through Macquarie Bank, JP Morgan, MYOB, EMC, Google and Okta. In this episode: Simon explains what customer success actually means in a software business, and why making sure people get value from what they bought is its own discipline. He describes leading a customer success team across Asia Pacific and Japan for a US-headquartered company, and the realities of managing across time zones. He talks about what he looks for when hiring and developing managers: commercial experience, genuine curiosity, and the confidence to hold a room of senior people. He shares his non-linear route into tech, from wanting to be a physiotherapist to starting out in a junior role at Macquarie Bank. He reflects on the leadership lessons he learned the hard way, leading an inside sales team at MYOB as a first-time manager. He looks back on the culture at Google, where noble failures were celebrated and moonshot thinking was the norm. He explains why he thinks about work life blend rather than work life balance, and how he weaves family time into a demanding role. Simon's career advice: "Doing what you said you would do is important. But being consistent with that means that you build some real credibility and trust with the people that you've got around you." Read the full episode notes at the-career-library.com/career-stories-episodes/simon-johnson . All opinions are the guest's own. New episodes on a Wednesday, with interviews with leaders or experts every week and a monthly discussion on what we've heard in the last week of the month. We'd love to hear from you. Share your thoughts on recent episodes or questions you'd like Luella and Michelle to answer at stories@the-career-library.com. Support this podcast by becoming a member at the-career-library.com/join and get access to bonus episodes containing work-related advice from Luella, Michelle and expert guests, plus a monthly newsletter with tools and guidance from this week's advice episode. Help other people find this podcast by subscribing in your podcast app and leaving a review. Career Stories is brought to you by The Career Library.

This week's guest is Claudine Besserer, a global brand strategy leader who spent 32 years at Mars. She rose from a 21-year-old sensory analysis technician, training factory workers to taste-test chocolate and ice cream, to leading global brand strategy for Royal Canin, a brand she helped grow to 6.5 billion euros. Claudine built her career by repeatedly creating roles that did not exist and moving into fields where, by her own account, she was nowhere. She now consults on brand and long-term value creation and lectures at French business schools. In this episode: Why a brand has to start from the real DNA and values of a company, or it becomes what Claudine calls blah blah marketing that consumers can feel is not true. How she built three different careers inside one company, moving from biology and research and development to market research to strategic marketing, each role created from nothing. What fourteen years in research and development taught her about failure, and why carrying the learning from each failed project into the next is what eventually succeeds. Why moving between disciplines gives you different cards to play, and how that helps you challenge silos and see the bottlenecks other people miss. Why leaders who cannot take being challenged will struggle in a volatile world, and how the need to be loved and right becomes the biggest threat to a business. How she rebuilt a marketing culture across 8,000 people at Royal Canin by proving the gap between internal and external brand perception with evidence, not stories. Why she believes you should be loyal to one person on earth, which is yourself, and what it means to define success as having fun rather than chasing ambition. How a working-class childhood as a miner's daughter shaped her resilience and her belief that everything is possible if you are honest about what you want. Claudine's advice on building a career on your own terms: "You have to be loyal to one person on earth, which is you." Resources mentioned: Lumina (personality and team profiling tool referenced as part of Mars's leadership development) - link TBC, to be added before publishing Influencing Without Authority (leadership development approach referenced from Mars) - link TBC, to be added before publishing Read the full episode notes at www.the-career-library.com/career-stories-episodes/claudine-besserer All opinions are the guest's own. New episodes on a Wednesday, with interviews with leaders or experts every week and a monthly discussion on what we've heard in the last week of the month. We'd love to hear from you. Share your thoughts on recent episodes or questions you'd like Luella and Michelle to answer at stories@the-career-library.com. Support this podcast by becoming a member at the-career-library.com/join and get access to bonus episodes containing work-related advice from Luella, Michelle and expert guests, plus a monthly newsletter with tools and guidance from this week's advice episode. Help other people find this podcast by subscribing in your podcast app and leaving a review. Career Stories is brought to you by The Career Library.

This week's guest is Anita Owen, Chief Delivery Officer at Novigi, a 550-person tech and data firm serving Australia's superannuation industry. Anita leads a team of 350, but her path to the C-suite started in data entry at a life insurance company after she dropped out of university and travelled the world. Her career has been built on curiosity, putting her hand up, and asking questions when other people rolled their eyes. In this episode: Why Anita hires for soft skills before tech skills, and how she can tell within 10 minutes of an interview whether someone is right for her team. How asking questions at a superannuation legislation briefing led to her first proper job in product and marketing. Why doing an MBA after years of work experience is what made it valuable, because she could bring real context to every concept. Why working three days a week made Anita more productive, not less, and how constraint forced her to focus. Being a hard marker on yourself, and the cost and discipline of an internal critic that thinks about failures more than successes. Why "you can do it all" is a myth, and how Anita balances family-first priorities with leading a big team. Working through public speaking nerves with the discipline of MBA presentations, and the year she has decided to put herself out there. Anita's career philosophy: "I'm probably towards the end of my career, but I feel like I'm still at the start." All opinions are the guest's own. New episodes on a Wednesday, with interviews with leaders or experts every week and a monthly discussion on what we've heard in the last week of the month. We'd love to hear from you. Share your thoughts on recent episodes or questions you'd like Luella and Michelle to answer at stories@the-career-library.com. Support this podcast by becoming a member at the-career-library.com/join and get access to bonus episodes containing work-related advice from Luella, Michelle and expert guests, plus a monthly newsletter with tools and guidance from this week's advice episode. Help other people find this podcast by subscribing in your podcast app and leaving a review. Career Stories is brought to you by The Career Library.

In this month's Career Advice episode, Dr Luella Forbes and Associate Professor Michelle Gander reflect on May's guest conversations with Fadzi Whande, Charity Becker and Annette Brodie, and find a common thread: each of them took a long, non-linear path to land in the work she does now. Luella also opens up about her own delayed reaction, post-doctorate and post-redundancy. The doctorate is done, the corporate job is gone, and the question of who she wants to be for the next 20 years has just walked in. In this episode: The identity work running through all three May conversations, and why every big career transition is also a psychological one. Why finding your place rarely happens in a straight line, and why people often need more than one career to find it. Self-identity versus how others see you, including what it feels like the first time someone calls you "Doctor". Grieving the version of yourself you didn't become, and why naming what's ending matters more than people realise. A working lifetime now holds four or five careers, and the rate of change is only quickening. How to do identity work practically: trusted advisors, an external coach or mentor, journalling, talking and writing your way to clarity. Why sensemaking takes time, and what change leaders get wrong when they skip the middle managers. Daniel Goleman's Emotional Intelligence as the book recommendation of the month. "I was in mourning a bit, because I was kind of grieving the life that I thought I was going to have." — Luella Forbes Resources mentioned: Daniel Goleman, Emotional Intelligence (25th anniversary edition) The Reconnect Project (Annette Brodie's charity, tackling Australia's digital divide) Career Stories May 2026 episodes with Fadzi Whande, Charity Becker and Annette Brodie All opinions are the hosts' own. New episodes on a Wednesday, with interviews with leaders or experts every week and a monthly discussion on what we've heard in the last week of the month. We'd love to hear from you. Share your thoughts on recent episodes or questions you'd like Luella and Michelle to answer at stories@the-career-library.com. Support this podcast by becoming a member at the-career-library.com/join and get access to bonus episodes containing work-related advice from Luella, Michelle and expert guests, plus a monthly newsletter with tools and guidance from this week's advice episode. Help other people find this podcast by subscribing in your podcast app and leaving a review. Career Stories is brought to you by The Career Library. Read the full notes and practical guide at the-career-library.com/career-stories-episodes/career-advice-identity-work-may-2026 .

This week's guest is Annette Brodie, founder and CEO of The Reconnect Project, a Sydney-based social enterprise and charity on a mission to close Australia's digital divide. Annette spent more than two decades in the not-for-profit sector across Australia and the UK, with a career that moved from retail communications and waste avoidance to running her own organisation from the ground up. In this episode: What the digital divide is and who it affects, including why 1 in 5 Australians currently cannot get online. How The Reconnect Project works: collecting donated phones, tablets and laptops, refurbishing them securely, and distributing them through over 130 social service agencies including women's shelters, homelessness services and refugee support organisations. How the repair and refurbishment process creates employment pathways for neurodivergent young adults, giving them skills and a real foothold in the tech industry. Why Annette designed The Reconnect Project as a social enterprise with income-generating business units, rather than relying on grant funding alone, and what that model means in practice. Annette's career journey from a failed first-year university course and years of experimentation to finding her calling in communications and waste avoidance, and how those threads eventually converged in The Reconnect Project. The moment she used the equity in her home mortgage to secure a shopfront for the charity, and what that decision required of her. Her experience of perinatal depression across two pregnancies, psychiatric hospitalisation and ECT treatment, and how those years shaped the resilience and empathy at the heart of her work. The career philosophy she developed in her 20s: the moment she felt comfortable in a job was the moment it was time to move on. Annette's career philosophy: "If any point in time I got scared of leaving, it's time to go. You've got to keep challenging yourself." Resources mentioned: The Reconnect Project - thereconnectproject.com.au Australian Digital Inclusion Index - digitalinclusionindex.org.au Pay What It Takes campaign - paywhatittakes.com.au Support The Reconnect Project: Donate financially at givenow.com.au/thereconnectproject . Donations over $2 are tax-deductible. Average cost to restore a device is $200. Donate a device by mail to: The Reconnect Project, 8 The Strand, Penshurst NSW 2222. All makes and models of phones and tablets accepted (any age or condition); laptops up to 8 years old. Perform a factory reset before sending to remove your personal data. Drop-off locations across Sydney (full list at thereconnectproject.com.au/donate): Bondi Junction (The Boot Factory, 27-33 Spring St), Hurstville Library (12-20 Dora St), Kogarah Library (Belgrave St), Lane Cove Council Civic Centre (48 Longueville Rd), Manly (Office of James Griffin MP, Shop 2, 2 Wentworth St), Maroubra (Lionel Bowen Library, 669-673 Anzac Parade), Marrickville (Among The Trees, 27 Sydney St, Saturdays 10am-4pm; or Reverse Garbage, 30 Carrington Rd), Matraville (Malabar Community Library, 1203 Anzac Parade), Northbridge (Office of Tim James MP, Shop 26/145-151 Sailors Bay Rd), Randwick (Margaret Martin Library, Royal Randwick Shopping Centre; or Sustainability Centre, 27 Munda St), Sutherland (Sutherland Shire Council Customer Service, 4-20 Eton St), Thornleigh (Community Recycling Centre, 29 Sefton Rd, Tue-Fri 8:30am-4pm, Sat 8:30am-12pm). Note: the Epping location is currently unavailable. Corporate or bulk donations (10 or more devices) - visit thereconnectproject.com.au/donate for the dedicated form. All opinions are the guest's own. New episodes on a Wednesday, with interviews with leaders or experts every week and a monthly discussion on what we've heard in the last week of the month. We'd love to hear from you. Share your thoughts on recent episodes or questions you'd like Luella and Michelle to answer at stories@the-career-library.com. Support this podcast by becoming a member at the-career-library.com/join and get access to bonus episodes containing work-related advice from Luella, Michelle and expert guests, plus a monthly newsletter with tools and guidance from this week's advice episode. Help other people find this podcast by subscribing in your podcast app and leaving a review. Career Stories is brought to you by The Career Library.

This week's guest is Charity Becker, an organisational coach based in Melbourne with 20 years of experience spanning coaching, coaching supervision, and coach training. After an unconventional path through hospitality, nannying and psychotherapy, Charity was drawn into the world of coaching while managing an executive coaching panel at a major bank, fell in love with it, and has since built a portfolio career as a coach, trainer, supervisor, and faculty member with IECL. Luella and Charity met through IECL's coaching training programs. In this episode: • Charity explains the real difference between organisational coaching, mentoring and consulting, and why being given a mentor when you need a coach can be devastating for the person on the receiving end. • She describes coaching as "a flip" in who holds the expertise: the coach's role is to help people access the wisdom and capability they already have, not to share their own. • Charity talks about the coaching industry's regulation problem, why ethics matter in a field where anyone can call themselves a coach, and what it looks like to say no to clients even when it costs you work. • She and Luella discuss the bias towards extroverted behaviour in organisations, the challenges women face when asked to lead in ways that contradict what society has long told them, and the "double glazed glass ceiling" for women who are also introverts. • Charity reflects on the double-edged sword of working for yourself, including the freedom, the self-motivation challenges, and what she misses about being in a team. • She shares how a late ADHD diagnosis helped explain earlier struggles with university and formal education, and the unexpected career value of years spent in hospitality. • She and Luella discuss financial security as the foundation for ethical decision-making at work, and why asking people to challenge the status quo without that foundation is unreasonable. • Charity's best piece of career advice: do what makes your heart sing. Charity's coaching philosophy: "I help you remember that you have hard earned wisdom and ask you questions to draw that out of yourself. So it's a flip in. Who is the expert in the room?" Resources mentioned: • Megumi Miki — researcher and author on leadership and the double-glazed glass ceiling for women who are also introverts: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/double-glazed-glass-ceiling-megumi-miki • IECL (Institute of Executive Coaching and Leadership) — global coaching training organisation: iecl.com All opinions are the guest's own. New episodes on a Wednesday, with interviews with leaders or experts every week and a monthly discussion on what we've heard in the last week of the month. We'd love to hear from you. Share your thoughts on recent episodes or questions you'd like Luella and Michelle to answer at stories@the-career-library.com. Support this podcast by becoming a member at www.the-career-library.com/join and get access to bonus episodes containing work-related advice from Luella, Michelle and expert guests, plus a monthly newsletter with tools and guidance from this week's advice episode. Use FOUNDING as a discount code before 1 July for 1/3 off. Help other people find this podcast by subscribing in your podcast app and leaving a review. Career Stories is brought to you by The Career Library.

This week's guest is: Creators & Guests Dr Luella Forbes - Host More detailed show notes with links to information discussed by guests can be found here. New epiosodes on a Wednesday, with interviews with leaders or experts every week and a monthly discussion on what we've heard in the last week of the month. We'd love to hear from you. Share your thoughts on recent episodes or questions you would like Luella and Michelle to answer to stories@the-career-library.com . Support this podcast by becoming a member and get access to bonus episodes containing work related advice from Luella, Michelle and expert guests as well as a monthly newsletter with access to tools and guidance from this week's advice episode. Help other people find this podcast by subscribing in your podcast app and leaving a review. Career Stories is brought to you by The Career Library .