Christine Wan, the 445th person I’ve met on my quest to have lunch with 500 strangers, has a love for communicating and education.

Christine used to be a financial adviser, before deciding she could do more meaningful work as a teacher. Unfortunately, though, the public school system can be very bureaucratic, which can make it hard for teachers to have as much of an impact as they’d like. As a result, in 2004, Christine founded her own tutoring business, C3 Education Group.

From her own experience as a refugee, the plan was to teach English literature to people who spoke English as a second language, but C3 Education quickly started attracting students from a cross section of society. These days, C3 teaches English, maths, science and humanities to students from pre-kinder to year 12.

When you spend years tutoring students who are struggling in the official school system, it’s only natural to eventually wish you could reach those boys and girls sooner. So, in 2023, Christine founded C3 Childcare Group, to nurture children aged zero to six.

Running two businesses and parenting four children would be more than enough for most people, but Christine wants to give back even more. That’s why, since 2020, Christine has progressed to coaching aspiring speakers and coaches to build their business by identifying their niche and communicating their message. She is now creating a business called Speakworthy to do just that.

When you meet Christine, it’s easy to see why she’d be a good teacher, coach and business leader, because she has very good people skills and is an excellent communicator. She’s also passionate about her work: for her, it is a mission to impact more lives through authentic and meaningful communication and storytelling.