Brett Summerell, the 402nd person I've met on my quest to have lunch with 500 strangers, has spent the past 35 years working for one of Sydney’s most beloved organisations, the Botanic Gardens of Sydney. Brett joined the organisation in 1989 as a plant pathologist, or “tree doctor” as he describes it. Today, Brett serves as [...]
Malcolm Auld, the 401st person I've met on my quest to have lunch with 500 strangers, is one of Australia’s great marketers. When Mal was only 28, he became the youngest ever managing director of an Ogilvy & Mather office throughout the world. As a result, he got to meet the legendary David Ogilvy – whom [...]
A quarter of a century ago, Sandy Macken, the 400th person I've met on my quest to have lunch with 500 strangers, was working as a PE teacher and was very unhappy with the career path she’d chosen. One night, Sandy happened to bump into a group of paramedics and instantly realised this was the job [...]
Marie Alessi, the 399th person I've met on my quest to have lunch with 500 strangers, received a phone call that changed her life – the coroner was calling to inform her that her beloved husband, Rob, had died unexpectedly on a work trip. Immediately, Marie thought of a conversation she’d had with Rob three years [...]
“What could go right?” Ursula Crowley, the 398th person I've met on my quest to have lunch with 500 strangers, likes to ask herself. That shift in mindset encourages Ursula to override her risk-averse lawyer’s brain and try things that might deliver novelty, happiness or growth. Ursula is the founder of Armara Advisory, which provides general [...]
John Kugel, the 397th person I've met on my quest to have lunch with 500 strangers, told me something that I already vaguely understood but had never been able to articulate. When we meet someone, John explained, we’re quick to put that person in a box – and if we believe that box is not useful [...]
When I asked Adrian Harrington, the 396th person I've met on my quest to have lunch with 500 strangers, why he was so passionate about housing affordability and social housing, he told me about a poignant incident from a few years ago. Adrian was attending the opening of a new community housing development when he heard [...]
Della Stanley, the 395th person I've met on my quest to have lunch with 500 strangers, was hoping to become a partner in her law firm, when two key events happened. The first was the Global Financial Crisis, which drastically affected the firm’s profitability and made it put all partnership promotions on indefinite hold. The second [...]
It took a near-death experience for Anne Gately, the 393rd person I've met on my quest to have lunch with 500 strangers, to realise that Australia needed to make a profound cultural shift. In 2018, Anne was diagnosed with an incurable stage four melanoma. Historically, people in that situation survived for only 12-24 months; but Anne [...]
The day before I met Tim Hewson for lunch, the mental health charity he founded, Mongrels Men Health & Wellbeing, set a goal of helping one million men per year by 2034. Tim, the 392nd person I've met on my quest to have lunch with 500 strangers, founded Mongrels in 2021 as a side project. After [...]
