From small-town Bega to the boardrooms of London and Hong Kong, Alexis George built a global career before taking on one of the toughest jobs in Australian business — rebuilding AMP. In this episode, she shares her story, the lessons she learned abroad, and how she’s reshaping AMP’s culture and strategy for the future.

Viktor Shvets on the end of cycles, the rise of the cloud of finance, and why politics may now be the greatest market risk.At Livewire Live 2025, Viktor Shvets delivered one of the most anticipated keynotes of the event. Over four decades, he has built a reputation as one of the sharpest minds in global finance, unafraid to challenge consensus. In this episode, Viktor explains why the old rules of cycles and mean reversion no longer apply, how financial markets have drifted into a “cloud of finance,” and why inequality and politics may prove the greatest risks ahead. It is a conversation that unsettles, but also clarifies what really drives markets today.

Four decades into his career, Paul Moore seems to be just getting started. Two years ago, he made the bold decision to vend his business, PM Capital, into Phil King’s Regal Partners. Many thought this was an exit plan for Moore. Instead, it proved to be the tonic he needed. PM Capital has since become a growth engine inside Regal, with close to $5 billion under management and performance that continues to deliver. In this episode of Success and More Interesting Stuff, Paul shares what keeps him motivated, why he believes the only true arbitrage in markets is time, and how he is positioning portfolios in today’s unpredictable environment.

The professional investment game is relentless. No matter where you are in the world, you cannot escape the endless procession of markets. Sure, you can go on holiday and attempt the concept of relaxation, but each morning when you wake up, Wall Street has just closed. It’s impossible not to sneak a peek. Each month your numbers are measured against the market and your peers. There is no hiding. After 27 years and more than 50 reporting seasons, one of the mainstays of the Australian share market, IML’s Simon Conn, is stepping aside for a well-earned break. It might be permanent. It might be a refresh. Only time will tell. Conn joined IML back in 1998 - teaming up with market legend and past guest Anton Tagliaferro. Before long, Conn found himself overseeing the tough end of town - small caps. In those 27 years he has seen the rise of the internet, the smartphone, the GFC, COVID, and now the AI revolution. Through all of that, investors like Conn have been told it’s a new world. Concepts like ARR, PCV and the Rule of 40 have taken hold, while old measures like PE ratios have been pushed aside for revenue multiples. Meanwhile, the Small Ords index has underperformed for decades. It all sounds like a torture chamber, but somehow Conn has come through it, delivering 12 percent returns for more than two and a half decades. In this episode of Success and More Interesting Stuff, Conn shares the lessons he learned over his career and how he adapted his approach as markets evolved and over the past three decades.

Nick Griffin’s path to fund management may have seemed preordained, his father worked in the industry, but his journey has been anything but ordinary. After completing a commerce degree, Griffin missed out on a graduate role with one of the big four accounting firms. That setback led him to the Commonwealth Bank’s investment team, where he cut his teeth before embarking on a backpacking trip that ultimately set the trajectory for his career. Landing in London, Griffin took on a role as an oil and gas analyst and soon found himself in Edinburgh, the traditional home of UK fund management. It was there he immersed himself in the world of long-term capital, working closely with some of the oldest and most respected investment houses in Europe. Eventually, Griffin returned to Australia and joined K2 Asset Management, where he ran the firm’s global fund. Then, in 2017, he co-founded Munro Partners with a clear mission, back companies set to double their earnings in five years or less by riding powerful structural tailwinds. In this episode of Success and More Interesting Stuff, Griffin shares how he built Munro from $20 million to more than $5 billion in FUM, the key signals he looks for in structural winners, and what comes next for AI, healthcare, and defence investing.

Jake Klein left a high-flying banking career to chase a hunch about gold, and it paid off in spades. From pioneering mining ventures in China to building Evolution Mining into a $16 billion powerhouse, Klein has made a habit of spotting value where others see risk. In this episode of Success and More Interesting Stuff, he shares how growing up in South Africa shaped his thinking, why Western democracies are unprepared for what’s coming, and what the gold price is really telling us.

We're often told that beating the market over the long term is impossible. A lucky year or two? Maybe. But doing it for more than two decades? That’s supposed to be out of reach. Paul Taylor has defied that logic. Managing a concentrated portfolio of 30 to 50 local stocks through everything from the GFC to the COVID crash. It sounds exhausting - but he shows no signs of slowing down. In today’s turbulent market, Taylor’s perspective is more relevant than ever. In this episode of Success and More Interesting Stuff, he shares the key ingredients for long-term success, explains why failure is inevitable in stock picking, and offers his view on why the current obsession with tariffs and trade tensions will ultimately be seen as little more than short-term noise. It’s a rare opportunity to hear from one of Australia’s most consistent and enduring investors.

Go back 20 years and consensus said that managing international equity portfolios from Australia was just too difficult.  Bob Desmond and his team at Claremont Global are proving that is yesterday’s thinking. Starting from scratch in 2012 the business has grown to over $1 billion and the style of picking the eyes out of quality growth has been able to outpace global markets. Desmond grew up in Rhodesia, the southern African country that was renamed Zimbabwe in 1980. He studied economics in Western Australia before heading back to his homeland to start working in markets. Life became difficult under the Mugabe regime and Desmond packed his bags and headed to London where his world view opened before his eyes. It was here that he developed his quality growth strategy for stocks. Always keen to relocate to Australia, Desmond got the green light for his migration in 2008 just in time to sidestep the worst of the GFC. He kicked off his career at financial group Evans and Co. Four years later Desmond and his colleagues set up Claremont Global. Desmond has used his vast experience garnered on three continents to identify the best growth stocks on the globe. He does not believe in too much diversification and thinks excessive trading is counterproductive. Tune in to the latest episode of Success and More Interesting Stuff to learn about Desmond's unique style of investing and some of the companies in the concentrated Claremont Global Fund.

Australia is obsessed with interest rates like no other country, and it is distracting us from tackling more pressing challenges, like productivity, that would have a greater impact on the cost of living crisis facing many Australians. That's the view of former Reserve Bank Governor Dr. Philip Lowe, who spent 43 years working at the RBA, including 7 years in the top job from 2016 to 2023. Dr Lowe believes the current policy settings from the RBA are suitably restrictive with risks remaining and the battle to tame inflation hasn't been won. Lowering interest rates may ease some of the pain households are feeling, but it isn't the silver bullet many perceive it to be. In this episode of Success and More Interesting Stuff, Dr Lowe discusses the lessons through his RBA journey and shares his thoughts on some of the pressing economic issues of 2025. 

Chris Corrigan has had his fingerprints all over corporate Australia for more than 50 years now. The boy from Bowral joined stockbroking firm Ord Minnett in the late 1960s to get the ball rolling. When Ords formed a joint venture with US fund manager Bankers Trust in the early '70s, Corrigan jumped in boots and all. He saw an opportunity to derail the establishment life insurance companies that dominated the Australian landscape. A disruptive force, Corrigan steered BT Australia to the top of the mountain before he started to get restless for his next adventure. Leaving BT in the late '80s, he formed his own investment vehicle, Jamison Equity, picking off opportunities as they arose. During the 1990s, a chance to buy into port operator Patrick Stevedores arose. Stevedoring had been a tough business in Australia, hamstrung by militant unions. Corrigan thought he would give it a go, and before long it was his sole focus. The election of the Howard government in 1996 was the green light he needed to challenge the Maritime Union of Australia front on. He restructured the business and went about removing union workers. A decision by the High Court forced the MUA to the trade table, and a significant agreement was struck that improved Australia's container movements forever. The battle was on the front page every day, and Corrigan took a major personal hit, but eventually got his way. In this episode of Success and More Interesting Stuff, Corrigan shares the story behind the growth of an Australian investment powerhouse and his fierce battle to reform the Australian waterfront.

Success and More Interesting Stuff is back in 2025 with new episodes being released on the first Tuesday of each month. We're excited for the year ahead and would love for you to subscribe to the podcast.

Welcome to the final episode of Success and More Interesting Stuff for 2024. In this episode, we’re closing out the year with a guest who knows how to deliver a knockout punch. Joe Aston spent 12 years as co-writer of the AFR’s Rear Window column, transforming it from a finance industry gossip page into a hard-hitting, no-holds-barred must-read. With a sharp wit and a fearless approach, Aston took on everyone from prime ministers and billionaires to untouchable institutions. In October 2023, Aston signed off from Rear Window with a bang, exposing Qantas and its CEO Alan Joyce for their conduct during the COVID pandemic. But Aston didn’t stop there. Instead of taking a break, he penned the bestseller The Chairman’s Lounge, a deep dive into how Qantas fell from national sweetheart to corporate villain.   Before journalism, Aston cut his teeth in politics, working with Joe Hockey and Liberal Party icon Bruce Baird. He also spent time inside the walls of Qantas, gaining firsthand insights that would shape his future career. It’s a conversation you won’t want to miss as we wrap up an incredible year. I hope you enjoy this podcast and I look forward to bringing you more episodes of Success and More Interesting Stuff in 2025.

Bega Cheese turned 125 this year. It started as the Bega Co-operative Creamery Company in 1999, and for over a century, things were pretty quiet. That all changed in 2000 when a young dairy farmer, Barry Irvin, took the reins as chairman. From then on, it’s been a whirlwind of growth and transformation. In 2011, Irvin took Bega to the Australian stock market, and under his leadership, the company made several key acquisitions. Today, Bega isn’t just a dairy business. It’s a major player in Australian food, owning brands like Vegemite, Peanut Butter, Dare Milk, and Yo Plait. Now, Bega has a market cap of around $1.6 billion. But Barry Irvin’s story is about more than business success. He’s faced significant personal challenges too. His son, Matthew, was born with profound autism. Irvin became a key figure in Giant Steps, a nonprofit supporting children with autism. In 2019, Irvin faced his own health battle, being diagnosed with bowel cancer. Despite a tough fight, he beat the disease and returned to lead Bega once again. In this episode of the Success and More Interesting Stuff podcast, I chat with Barry Irvin about his journey, both personal and professional. It’s a story of resilience, leadership, and the determination to succeed.

David Lyons has travelled around the world chasing a rugby ball. From the time he started to take the game seriously as a 15-year-old he was earmarked for success. Twice he toured Europe with the Australian schoolboys, opening his eyes to a world significantly larger than the one he experienced growing up in the NSW country town of Molong. Lyons played 46 tests for the Wallabies over 8 years including two World Cups and a British Lions tour. At just 28 years he picked up his ball and moved to Wales for a few seasons before settling in France for a longer stint. It was in Europe that he started to plan for his future. He studied at Oxford and in Monaco. This set him up for a career in finance. Heading back to Australia, Lyons picked up a role at KPMG before eventually deciding to pitch his own tent. In 2021 he joined with some other like-minded professionals and launched AAG Partners. The group specialises in the agriculture sector. Acutely aware from his farming days in Molong of the financial volatility in the agricultural industry, he has deliberately sought out ways to deliver higher returns with less risk. In this podcast, Lyons talks about the journey from rural NSW to representing Australia at an elite level on the global stage. He also shares his passion for continuous learning and how this is helping to uncover new opportunities through his agriculture investment firm AAG Partners. 0:00 - Introduction 1:30 - Growing up in Molong 7:00 - A passion for agriculture and entrepreneurship 9:15 - Building a career in Rugby 16:02 - What it takes to be truly great in any field 21:52 - Going global and moving to Europe 26:13 - Continuous learning and development 28:29 - Returning to Australia 29:30 - Starting AAG Partners 34:45 - A formula for higher returns for less risk in agriculture 39:45 - A revolution in cotton farming

Sometimes, misfortune can lead to opportunity.  Wes Maas was an aspiring young rugby league player trying to establish himself in the NRL. The kid from Dubbo had boundless energy and in his spare time, he worked in an equipment hire business. A football injury not only meant he was out of action on the field, but it also took him out of the hire yard and into head office. It was here that his world opened up.  The family-run business was successful. It concentrated heavily on return on total assets. Wes was quick to catch on. It wasn't long before he threw in his NRL dream and headed back to Dubbo for a fresh start.  Still in his early 20s, Wes spent his savings on a bobcat and borrowed twice that amount to buy a tipper. Suddenly, he was running his own business. Never happy to rest on his laurels, Wes expanded his fleet of equipment. He was keen to diversify and soon started an equipment hire business, leaning on his knowledge from his time in Sydney.  While Dubbo may seem to some to be a remote place to build an empire, Wes saw its potential. He was able to buy a quarry under the nose of an international giant. Then, his world expanded.  Property development and civil works followed in 2020. Wes looked to float the business on the share market, in the hope that a capital raise would help it grow even further. Maas Group (ASX: MGH) listed and started to expand.  Today, this former rugby league player runs a $1.5 billion business and he has amassed a personal fortune in the hundreds of millions of dollars.  The group has assets throughout regional New South Wales, Victoria, and Queensland, with Dubbo right in the middle. Still, only in his 40s, Wes' journey has a long way to go.  In this podcast, Wes takes investors through his early days as an aspiring rugby league player and the early days of running his own business - back when his family referred to him as "Neville No-Trade".  He also shares some of the plans the Maas Group team has for the future, and some of the greatest moments in the journey so far.  https://www.livewiremarkets.com/wires/the-former-rugby-league-player-who-now-runs-a-1-5-billion-business   Timecodes:  0:00 - Intro  1:54 - Early rugby days  4:18 - Major lessons Wes took away from this time  5:12 - Overcoming injury and why everything happens for a reason 7:17 - Learning the equipment hire game on the job  9:49 - Moving home to Dubbo 11:12 - Starting his own business 17:02 - Building an achievable long-term business plan  20:27 - Scaling the business  24:09 - Expanding into building materials  29:12 - Listing on the ASX and COVID experience 34:32 - Rising rate environment and impact on Maas Group 36:34 - Importance of "steady" not "rapid" growth  38:20 - Growth plans for the future  39:16 - What happens when an acquisition doesn't work 40:12 - Importance of good people  41:17 - Areas that are exciting over the next five years  43:46 - How Wes defines success 

It is rare for a person to spend the first half of their working life in the public service and then pivot to build a multi-billion dollar financial business. Making the story even more remarkable is that this person grew up in regional Queensland - where financial products are hardly the main course of the local economy.  Ian Macoun, the Managing Director and Founder of Pinnacle Investment Management (ASX: PNI) was born in Rockhampton - a city best known for its cattle production. He left town to work for the Queensland Treasury before being poached as a 33-year-old to run the newly constructed Queensland Investment Corporation (QIC).  It was here that he was introduced to the world of investing. With QIC up and running, Macoun headed to Sydney, joining the private sector. A stint at Westpac opened his eyes to the opportunity in funds management and in 2000, he struck out with Mike Crivelli forming Perennial Funds Management. It wasn't long though, and Macoun was thinking of an alternative funds management model. Taking minority ownerships in multiple managers, providing the onerous back office functions and accessing the key ingredient for any fund manager - funds.  He discovered this opportunity at stockbroker Wilsons Advisory. Macoun teamed up with Steve Wilson to change his fledgling Hyperion Funds Management arm into a multi-manager model. This was the birth of Pinnacle Investment Management.  Today, Pinnacle has been spun out of Wilson's and has 16 affiliates with a staggering $110 billion of total funds under management. It is growing rapidly and Macoun believes $200 billion is not out of the question.  In this episode of Sucess and More Interesting Stuff, Macoun opens up about his early years and upbringing, shares how he came up with the Pinnacle model and outlines his plans for the future.  Note: For disclosure purposes, the funds associated with Matthew Kidman own shares in Pinnacle Investment Management.  https://www.livewiremarkets.com/wires/no-shortcuts-how-ian-macoun-built-a-100-billion-funds-management-behemoth/

Traditionally, on the show, we talk to people involved in some shape or form with the share market. Today, we are excitedly going off-piste and delving into the unlisted world in one of Australia's outstanding success stories.  In 2008, Lina Calabria and two partners decided to start nine separate businesses as consultants. They had plenty of bright ideas and thought that creating a portfolio of companies, while unorthodox, was a low-risk path to success. Within a few years, they selected Bellroy, an accessories business that specialises in male wallets, as the pick of the bunch. From humble beginnings, Bellroy, named after combining Bell's Beach and Fitzroy, has grown into a global brand with more than $130 million in sales.  Bellroy sells in dozens of countries and has created its own category called Carry. In other words, they design products you carry around, such as slim wallets, backpacks, work bags, duffel bags, totes, passport holders, and phone cases. It's niche but nicely profitable.  Today, Calabria sees a great opportunity to expand Bellroy in both products and countries, and she believes doubling and possibly tripling the business is a realistic goal. Click on the player below to hear how Calabria and the team at Bellroy created their own category and navigated the trails of COVID-19 to build a business making a name on the global stage.

Stockbroking is a dangerous game. Investors depend on your advice, but the smallest slip-up can see the relationship turn nasty. As a result, most brokers tend to be as conservative as possible; not Hugh Robertson.  Robertson a 40-year veteran of the stockbroking scene in Melbourne, thrives at the risk end of the curve, specialising in micro and small cap stocks. He works like a gold prospector out in the field with his metal detector looking for the next big discovery. His list of wins includes Monadelphous (ASX: MND), Service Stream (ASX: SSM), Bellamy’s (ASX: BAL), Hub24 (ASX: HUB), Afterpay and PSC Insurance (ASX: PSIN). He found most of those companies well before they'd been researched by the investment community and, in some cases, even before they listed on the share market. Robertson has a unique style. He does not rely on numbers to make his decisions. To make matters harder, he has always found reading difficult. Instead, following his natural instincts, he garners information by getting to know people. His conversations are endless and his intuition for what might work is uncanny. Most investors would've run into Robertson on Collins Street, with a cigarette in one hand and his mobile phone in the other, on the scent of the next big thing. That doesn't mean he gets all his stock calls right – far from it. Like anyone dealing in small companies, there are always disappointments. His troubled children include Envirosuite (ASX: EVS) and Maggie Beer (ASX: MBH), but the ledger sits firmly in the positive. Interestingly, Robertson is comfortable sitting on the boards of the companies he backs. Some people in the investment community would describe this as unorthodox, but Robertson likes to make sure he knows the people running the companies he's recommending to his clients. And if the company heads down the wrong path, he's prepared to make the changes required to right the ship. His other great love is the land. Like most Collins Street farmers, it has been a rocky road. Early setbacks, though, have subsequently led to some prize properties in rural Victoria and probably the best garden in the state. In this episode of Success and More Interesting Stuff, I speak with Hugh about his path to stockbroking, his passion for prospecting and some of the incredible stories he has brought to the market. Hugh also shares a few of the emerging companies catching his eye right now.

Richard White always wanted to be a rockstar. He was still young when it dawned upon him that it might be more profitable and realistic to become a tech titan instead.  Sounds simple enough, but the journey has taken many twists and turns. Over 40 odd years, White thought life was perfect, hanging out in a rock band and rubbing shoulders with the likes of ACDC and The Angels. Unfortunately, he was going broke.  A problem solver, he pivoted and thought repairing guitars for established rock stars was a way to make an interesting living. The business was a resounding success, but it wasn't perfect. It couldn't be scaled. And another salient lesson was learned.  Nexy, a lighting business was built and sold, and then a stint in the computer hardware distribution game rounded out some much-needed business skills.  In between ventures, White took on some consultancy work. Just by chance, some of his clients were in the freight forwarding game and White, ever alert, identified things could be done a lot better.  So he got to work again and started writing software. Even though he had little practical training, he had twigged the entire freight forwarding industry needed a hand, and he took his products and started selling them more broadly. It is rare that one individual can write the software and then sell it. That was way back in the late 1980s.  During the 1990s, his business became the platform for many major transport companies. Not satisfied, White decided to disrupt his own business. In the early 2000s, he rebuilt his product suite before forging into North America and Europe with a name changed to WiseTech.  The company followed its customers and spread its tentacles around the globe. In 2016, White decided to list on the ASX. He thought publicly traded shares would give him the currency he needed to buy the missing bits to cement a global empire.  And he was right. Close to 50 acquisitions later, WiseTech owns the space. The share price has risen a staggering 26 times from $3.35 to $90. Today WiseTech is valued at $30 billion and is the largest software company listed on the ASX.  According to White, the music is still playing. And WiseTech has a few hit songs to knock out yet.  Note: This podcast was recorded on Wednesday 24 April 2024.  Timecodes:  0:00 - Intro  2:29 - Richard's favourite musicians  4:27 - Richard's on his enduring love for music  6:46 - The influence of Richard's upbringing on his career 11:17 - The importance of being able to put ideas into practice  13:58 - How Richard taught himself how to build hardware  16:01 - On sales (and lessons learnt from his previous businesses) 17:18 - Why cash is king  19:36 - The importance of persistence  21:59 - How Richard identified a problem he could solve in freight forwarding 26:14 - Why good sales is actually marketing  27:42 - The beginnings of WiseTech 30:38 - On the importance of education and how it helped grow WiseTech 32:46 - Taking WiseTech global 34:35 - External investment in the company and an IPO 40:16 - On signing DHL pre-IPO 41:37 - Dealing with volatility: commentary on the 2019 short attack and early COVID-19 struggles  44:45 - WiseTech has acquired 49 companies since listing  45:48 - Why people are a business's most important intellectual property 49:13 - Educating the next generation (and why "STEM" isn't working) 52:08 - The DNA of WiseTech Global today... 53:09 - ... And what could disrupt that 55:38 - Richard on his succession/retirement and legacy   

A revolution has taken place in share investing since the turn of the century. American firms have led the charge with the likes of Vanguard and Blackrock taking passive investing around the globe.  Disenchantment with active fund managers has seen funds flow into the passive sector, accelerated by the emergence of exchange traded funds, or simply ETF’s. In Australia, the revolution arrived late. Active managers held sway for many years before eventually the dam wall broke. The American behemoths came hard, but they didn’t have it their own way.  Aussie startup Betashares grew out of the GFC and took up the fight. Cobbled together by Alex Vynokur, an immigrant from the former Soviet Union, it wasn’t long before Betashares captured the attention of market participants around the country. 15 years on and Betashares has more than 90 ETF’s, $37 billion assets under management and 150 employees. It is the second largest ETF provider in the Aussie market and in 2023 managed to rank number one for inflows with 37 per cent market share. As a 16-year-old Vynokur and his family left the Ukraine as the walls of the former Soviet Union came crumbling down. Alex had no English and had to start from scratch. He caught on quickly and in a few short years was studying Law at UNSW.  A brief stint working as a lawyer was followed by a job at finance house Pengana with Malcolm Turnbull and Russell Pillemer. He deduced that not all active managers were able to beat the market. Around the same time, he latched onto the emergence of ETFs. Mortgaging his house and taking time for a fact-finding tour of the US saw him kick off Betashares. In this episode of Success and More Interesting Stuff, Alex discusses his view on the future of both passive and active investment styles, the incredible growth of Betashares and his passion for making an impact on war-stricken Ukraine.