Build It. They'll Come.

Flight Centre co-founder Graham Skroo Turner witnessed bookings & sales in the giant global travel company’s leisure division plunge 97%, within just 1 week in March, as nations, Governments & states closed borders; ordered citizens & businesses into lockdown; and planes essentially stopped flying. How Skroo Turner & his leadership team went straight into survival mode to shore up capital & protect the jobs & company he’s built up, after starting with just 1 shop 38 years ago. The toughest decision? Standing down a staggering 70% of his 20,000-strong workforce. While the respected serial entrepreneur & business veteran reckons he’s faced several disasters to hit travel sector – 9/11, the GFC, 2 Gulf Wars – and come through them, in Part 1 of our interview, he says nothing NOTHING compares to the Covid19 crisis that engulfed the world in March, April & May 2020.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Carolyn Creswell started her entrepreneurial journey young… she was just 18 years old, working part-time as a student mixing up small batches of muesli for a mum & dad operation. When that business was about to fold, with her job threatened, she and a pal bought it for just $1,000 each. But it was no overnight success. After several years of hard grind -- perfecting muesli recipes, sourcing quality local grains, nuts & fruits, carrying around bags full of her product to court potential supermarket customers, and mostly being constantly broke-- Carolyn Creswell prevailed. Fuelled by passion, she says, to put delight into a brekkie bowl every day, Carolyn built that tiny operation into an impressive empire now selling breakfast & snack products, across 8 different ranges, in some 34 countries. Over the last 25 years Carolyn says she’s never lost sight of her customer, nor the importance of her young family, as she pursued her foodie dream.verySee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Four Pillars Gin entrepreneur & marketing whizz Stuart Gregor and his co-founders LOVE making craft gin, pouring heart and soul, plus the best local & exotic botanicals into their boutique Aussie brand. In just over 6 years, Four Pillars has won prestigious international awards, become a local G&T favourite, and was selling an impressive 600,000 bottles of gin a year. That is, until COVID-19 knocked them for six. Find out HOW the pandemic lockdown led to their saviour: when Gregor & co turned their beloved gin-making distillery in country Victoria into a hand sanitiser factory for hospitals and health care workers, overnight!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Young, 3rd-Year Resident, who is yet to graduate in her Specialty training, Dr Daniela Petraglia talks candidly about the almost crushing challenges faced by frontline doctors & nurses caring for the avalanche of ill Covid-19 patients which threatened to collapse the entire hospital system of Emilia-Romagna, one the hardest hit regions of Northern Italy. The heart-breaking decisions forced on senior doctors as to who gets ICU ventilator care and who doesn’t during the crisis peak of late March, April, early May is an experience that haunts her still. Called away from General Practice to come back & work in one of Piacenza’s busiest small hospitals at Castel San Giovanni -- the first COVID19-dedicated hospital in Italy -- Dr Petraglia speaks of the distressing reality of patients crying into their ventilator helmets, fearful & isolated from loved ones for weeks & weeks. How she and her colleagues, many of whom caught the virus themselves, managed in the storm of this disease, and the lessons to learn from Italy. Courageous and incredibly dedicated during these past 2 months, a young doctor’s perspective.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Professor David Isaacs, senior Sydney pediatric specialist in respiratory virus infections and immunisations, at the Children’s Hospital at Westmead, bluntly assesses WHY Australia has managed this pandemic pretty well so far compared to many world-leading nations and HOW only minor, firmly-controlled COVID-19 infection breakouts might occur once lockdown lightens. Plus he calmly explains the evidence on whether children spread this virus; the case for schools to stay open; and is asymptomatic spread a huge danger for our community as we venture more outside our homes.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Melbourne-based medical device entrepreneur Jefferson Harcourt talks of the heroic collaboration going on right now between normal business competitors, to build from scratch and then deliver 2,000 invasive breathing Ventilators: new, much-needed “weapons” in the frontline fight against COVID-19, which will contribute to the Federal Government’s National Medical Stockpile. But what’s amazing about this extraordinary effort by several Aussie high-tech manufacturers, is that this entire project, from concept to complete execution, is taking just a few months! Not only will these ventilators better protect Australians, but possibly our Pacific neighbours too. Not bad for a tech innovator who started his advanced engineering company while still a uni student, 2 decades ago.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

With less than 2 years as a practicing doctor, Internal Medicine Physician Dr Anna O’Kelly talks candidly about the heart-breaking challenges faced by frontline doctors & nurses in ICU caring for Covid-19 patients, who need to be invasively ventilated, to hopefully breathe again. Working in one of Boston’s busiest hospitals in the USA - now the global epicentre of this highly infectious, dangerous virus - Dr O’Kelly talks of the distressing reality of patients dying without families by their sides, and with only the caring doctors and nurses to stand by them, and the difficult yet touching conversations they must have with families and loved ones. Resilient, warm, highly dedicated and ultimately positive, take a listen.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

3D-printing entrepreneur Paul Docherty speaks about HOW his small advanced medical manufacturing facility is currently trialling their new 3D-printed swabs for much-needed Covid-19 tests, in conjunction with the Doherty Institute and University of Melbourne, to test the swab’s efficacy, and await TGA approval. 3DMEDiTech is also 3D-printing parts for the crucial breathing ventilators, all part of a collaborative approach by governments to get the best medical and business know-how together to make essential medical tools right here in Australia, to combat this disease.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Making it onto Deloitte’s Technology Fast 50 List for 2019 shows just how rapidly Kristy Chong’s baby, Modibodi reusable leak-proof underwear, is growing: from a humble start-up 7 yrs ago to a global star. But what really drives this young entrepreneur is giving customers what they want & need: a solution to personal hygiene leaks and spills, and a solution to the billions of fem hygiene tampons and pads dumped in landfill globally each year. Modibodi’s turnover is now close to $50million a year.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

New mum Kristy Chong wanted to solve an everyday, often embarrassing, problem for women, & men, without the massive amounts of disposable personal hygiene products eventually being dumped in landfill. With passion & perseverance she created revolutionary underwear that promises to soak up leaks, periods and perspiration, building Modibodi into an empire growing recently by up to 400% a year.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.