Tanya Kunze, the 391st person I've met on my quest to have lunch with 500 strangers, had an idea for a TV show, which she pitched to CNBC Africa. Tanya was running a company that was the market leader in corporate wellness, and was passionate about the subject, so she suggested that CNBC Africa broadcast a [...]
Wally Gebrael, the 390th person I've met on my quest to have lunch with 500 strangers, builds more than 200 granny flats per year with his award-winning business, Granny Flat Solutions. Wally began life as a designer, before co-founding Granny Flat Solutions in 2011, two years after the NSW government introduced legislation that made it much [...]
Kiki Paul, the 389th person I've met on my quest to have lunch with 500 strangers, moved to Australia in 1994 for a temporary working holiday, in part to shake off a failed romance. It's funny how life works out – she met a wonderful man two months later; he proposed 13 days after that; and [...]
Margarita Pavlou, the 388th person I've met on my quest to have lunch with 500 strangers, told me that, in her experience, you catch more flies with honey than vinegar. This remark says a lot about her personality, which values cooperation, openness and connection, in both her personal and professional life. When Margarita was a teenager, [...]
Stan Giaouris, the 387th person I've met on my quest to have lunch with 500 strangers, found a novel way to gain experience during his two decades as a builder – he worked 80- to 100-hour weeks, which meant he was able to learn twice as fast as the average person. Stan worked his way up [...]
Madeleine Steel, the 386th person I've met on my quest to have lunch with 500 strangers, experienced 18 months of anguish when her loveable teenage son went off the rails. All of a sudden, he started engaging in truancy, drug-taking and lawbreaking, which Maddy seemed powerless to stop. Feeling confused and ashamed, she withdrew from the [...]
Like many people, Emma Shipley and her husband had dreamed for years of starting their own wine label. Unlike most people, they actually had the courage to turn their dream into reality. Emma, the 385th person I've met on my quest to have lunch with 500 strangers, had spent more than two decades working as an [...]
Back in 2016, Jacqui Carias, a professional violinist, was upgraded to first class on an international flight and seated near a high-profile couple. The man, noticing Jacqui’s violin, covertly explained that he was planning to pop the question to his girlfriend during the flight and asked if Jacqui would perform during the proposal. Jacqui said yes [...]
Alvin Rajakumar, the 383rd person I've met on my quest to have lunch with 500 strangers, has a revealing insight into business, which is that most companies – even mature ones with seven-figure revenues – don’t have a marketing plan. Alvin is the owner of a full-service digital marketing agency, Your Business Live, so this is [...]
While I’m having lunches with strangers, Antonia Ruffell is having coffees with tech start-up founders. Antonia, the 382nd person I've met on my quest to have lunch with 500 strangers, is CEO of StartGiving, a not-for-profit that encourages and supports successful tech founders to establish their own charitable foundations. Antonia is an active networker partly because [...]
