359 'Snowie Series' Ren Fernando: The Power of Choice in Rehoming Vulnerable Communities

My guest this week is Ren Fernando – a passionate social entrepreneur and advocate for sustainable living. Ren is the founder of ReLove, an organization focused on creating meaningful impact through pre-loved furniture stores and innovative initiatives. Ren’s mission is to foster community connection and reduce waste while creating sustainable income streams to fund vital community work. Snow Entrepreneurs You can read all about the 17 Snow Entrepreneurs here, and we urge you to visit their websites and learn more about the innovative work each of them is undertaking to tackle some of the pressing social challenges of our times, and impress the impact that can be made when we harness business as a force for good.  Growing Your Business and Impact Talk to us today about how we can grow your capacity to level up your business and impact with our fully trained and managed outsourced marketing solutions - delivered by our digital heroes armed with good strategy, the latest tech and big smiles.  Learn more at humansofpurpose.com Promotional Partnerships Like what we are serving up on Humans of Purpose? Our promotional campaigns have delivered great marketing and sales outcomes and ROI for our partners to date.  Whether you're seeking a 1-month, 2-month or season sponsorship, follow the flow below to become a partner before we run out of our remaining promotional slots for 2024.  Click Here to learn more about collaborating on a custom campaign package. Ready to partner? Just complete this short Partner Enquiry Form and we'll be in touch. Gold Membership Want a premium listening experience that directly supports us to keep making the podcast?  Join current members Michael, Pravati, Noel, Kathy, Andrew 1, Andrew 2, Chris, Nikki, Margaret, Ben, Misha, Sarah and Geoff and enjoy our range of member benefits:  Premium dedicated podcast feed Removal of all three ads per episode Early access to all episodes Full transcripts of all episodes Brokered intros to all podcast guests Ask me anything page access To take up this great offer, just head to our Gold Member page today. CREDITS Music intro and outro on this podcast was written and performed by Keyo Rhodes, with Harrison McGregor on drums and percussion. Sound engineering and mastering by Lachlan McGregor.

My guest this week is Tony Rothacker - a qualified civil engineer who previously founded an Internet service provider, and led the Coffs Coast Innovation Hub alongside his son Finn (Co-Founder and CTO at Youngster.co). Tony aims to provide purpose, employment and technical assistance across generations, using technology as a tool for genuine human connection to build stronger and healthier communities. Snow Entrepreneurs You can read all about the 17 Snow Entrepreneurs here, and we urge you to visit their websites and learn more about the innovative work each of them is undertaking to tackle some of the pressing social challenges of our times, and impress the impact that can be made when we harness business as a force for good.  Growing Your Business and Impact Talk to us today about how we can grow your capacity to level up your business and impact with our fully trained and managed outsourced marketing solutions - delivered by our digital heroes armed with good strategy, the latest tech and big smiles.  Learn more at humansofpurpose.com Promotional Partnerships Like what we are serving up on Humans of Purpose? Our promotional campaigns have delivered great marketing and sales outcomes and ROI for our partners to date.  Whether you're seeking a 1-month, 2-month or season sponsorship, follow the flow below to become a partner before we run out of our remaining promotional slots for 2024.  Click Here to learn more about collaborating on a custom campaign package. Ready to partner? Just complete this short Partner Enquiry Form and we'll be in touch. Gold Membership Want a premium listening experience that directly supports us to keep making the podcast?  Join current members Michael, Pravati, Noel, Kathy, Andrew 1, Andrew 2, Chris, Nikki, Margaret, Ben, Misha, Sarah and Geoff and enjoy our range of member benefits:  Premium dedicated podcast feed Removal of all three ads per episode Early access to all episodes Full transcripts of all episodes Brokered intros to all podcast guests Ask me anything page access To take up this great offer, just head to our Gold Member page today. CREDITS Music intro and outro on this podcast was written and performed by Keyo Rhodes, with Harrison McGregor on drums and percussion. Sound engineering and mastering by Lachlan McGregor.

This is a truly exciting episode in the seven year life of the humans of purpose podcast. I’m thrilled to kickstart our first "Snowie Season", with an introduction to the woman who made it all possible, Georgina Byron, CEO at the Snow Foundation. Georgina grabbed the reigns of her family office foundation in 2006 and has significantly grown the Foundation’s reach and impact from its origins in Canberra. Through Georgina’s leadership, the Foundation has deepened its commitment to the local Canberra region, broadened into other key regions close to the family (Sydney and South Coast) and backed dynamic start-up social entrepreneurs with bold national agendas.  Never complacent, Georgina has led further expansion into social justice issues and championed major social change projects rallying with many others; marriage equality, Raise the Rate campaign, the Voice Referendum and the elimination of rheumatic heart disease and crusted scabies in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. Georgina is passionate about creating social change to improve the lives of Australians, especially women, girls, and First Nations Australians.  She is Co-Chair of Deadly Hearts Ltd, Deputy Chair of Sydney Community Foundation, Chair of Sydney Women’s Community Fund Advisory Council, Philanthropy Australia board member and previous Chair of their Family Foundation Network.  Before boldly shaping the future of the Snow family legacy and her roles in philanthropy, Georgina had 13 years in the corporate sector holding senior executive positions at David Jones and AMP. She is a graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors, holds a Bachelor of Business Degree, major in Marketing and a Graduate Diploma in Applied Finance & Investment. In 2021, was awarded a Member of the Order of Australia. Georgina lives in Sydney with her husband and four daughters. Snow Entrepreneurs You can read all about the 17 Snow Entrepreneurs here, and we urge you to visit their websites and learn more about the innovative work each of them is undertaking to tackle some of the pressing social challenges of our times, and impress the impact that can be made when we harness business as a force for good.  Growing Your Business and Impact Talk to us today about how we can grow your capacity to level up your business and impact with our fully trained and managed outsourced marketing solutions - delivered by our digital heroes armed with good strategy, the latest tech and big smiles.  Learn more at humansofpurpose.com Promotional Partnerships Like what we are serving up on Humans of Purpose? Our promotional campaigns have delivered great marketing and sales outcomes and ROI for our partners to date.  Whether you're seeking a 1-month, 2-month or season sponsorship, follow the flow below to become a partner before we run out of our remaining promotional slots for 2024.  Click Here to learn more about collaborating on a custom campaign package. Ready to partner? Just complete this short Partner Enquiry Form and we'll be in touch. Gold Membership Want a premium listening experience that directly supports us to keep making the podcast?  Join current members Michael, Pravati, Noel, Kathy, Andrew 1, Andrew 2, Chris, Nikki, Margaret, Ben, Misha, Sarah and Geoff and enjoy our range of member benefits:  Premium dedicated podcast feed Removal of all three ads per episode Early access to all episodes Full transcripts of all episodes Brokered intros to all podcast guests Ask me anything page access To take up this great offer, just head to our Gold Member page today. CREDITS Music intro and outro on this podcast was written and performed by Keyo Rhodes, with Harrison McGregor on drums and percussion. Sound engineering and mastering by Lachlan McGregor.  

David Ritter is the chief executive officer of Greenpeace Australia Pacific. He is also an adjunct professor in the Sydney Democracy Network at Sydney University; an affiliate of the Sydney Environment Institute; an associate of the Sydney Policy Lab at Sydney University and an honorary fellow of the Law Faculty at UWA.  A few weeks ago we published a conversation I had with David back in 2020, at the height the pandemic lockdowns. The world had seemingly turned on its axis, but in David’s view was already spinning prior to covid19 sweeping the planet. As David last month began a new conversation with Greenpeace people and supporters, a monthly letter with love, I thought it was timely to chat again and check in with him post pandemic, but still very much in urgent crisis. David is a widely published writer, including three books, The Coal Truth, Contesting Native Title and the The Native Title Market, his insights into the climate emergency have been published in The Guardian, The Griffiths Review, Independent Australian and The Quarterly Essay. A frequent and highly regarded keynote speaker, David uses his platform to take audiences on a journey; through the wonder and awe of the natural world, the powers that threaten it and his profound belief in the human capacity for good.  David also wrote a wonderful essay for the book, Living with the Anthropocene, a powerful anthology of writing from some leading writers, thinkers and doers.     Growing Your Business and Impact Talk to us today about how we can grow your capacity to level up your business and impact with our fully trained and managed outsourced marketing solutions - delivered by our digital heroes armed with good strategy, the latest tech and big smiles.  Learn more at humansofpurpose.com Promotional Partnerships Like what we are serving up on Humans of Purpose? Our promotional campaigns have delivered great marketing and sales outcomes and ROI for our partners to date.  Whether you're seeking a 1-month, 2-month or season sponsorship, follow the flow below to become a partner before we run out of our remaining promotional slots for 2024.  Click Here to learn more about collaborating on a custom campaign package. Ready to partner? Just complete this short Partner Enquiry Form and we'll be in touch. Gold Membership Want a premium listening experience that directly supports us to keep making the podcast?  Join current members Michael, Pravati, Noel, Kathy, Andrew 1, Andrew 2, Chris, Nikki, Margaret, Ben, Misha, Sarah and Geoff and enjoy our range of member benefits:  Premium dedicated podcast feed Removal of all three ads per episode Early access to all episodes Full transcripts of all episodes Brokered intros to all podcast guests Ask me anything page access To take up this great offer, just head to our Gold Member page today. CREDITS Music intro and outro on this podcast was written and performed by Keyo Rhodes, with Harrison McGregor on drums and percussion. Sound engineering and mastering by Lachlan McGregor.

Piroska Bisits-Bullen is Director and co-founder at ZapCat and currently serves also as the Secretariat at Syndics, Non-Executive Director at Umbo and Advisor at Youngster.Co. With a background in data and technology, they were the Head of Data, Technology & Growth at Umbo and Data Science Director at Mable. As the Co-founder of tools4dev, they provided resources for international development professionals. With experience in program management, technical advising, and project implementation, Piroska has made significant contributions in various sectors such as child health and economic opportunities for low-income women. Their education includes a B.Sc in Neuroscience from UNSW and a PhD in Public Health from Walden University. Growing Your Business and Impact Talk to us today about how we can grow your capacity to level up your business and impact with our fully trained and managed outsourced marketing solutions - delivered by our digital heroes armed with good strategy, the latest tech and big smiles.  Learn more at humansofpurpose.com Promotional Partnerships Like what we are serving up on Humans of Purpose? Our promotional campaigns have delivered great marketing and sales outcomes and ROI for our partners to date.  Whether you're seeking a 1-month, 2-month or season sponsorship, follow the flow below to become a partner before we run out of our remaining promotional slots for 2024.  Click Here to learn more about collaborating on a custom campaign package. Ready to partner? Just complete this short Partner Enquiry Form and we'll be in touch.   CREDITS Music intro and outro on this podcast was written and performed by Keyo Rhodes, with Harrison McGregor on drums and percussion. Sound engineering and mastering by Lachlan McGregor.

Tim Silverwood is an award-winning environmentalist committed to reducing human impacts on Planet Ocean. As co-founder of Ocean Impact Organisation, Tim is supporting innovative startups with game-changing solutions to transform ocean health. Tim was previously co-founder and CEO of celebrated non-profit organisation, Take 3 for the Sea and continues to support as a board director. Tim is highly regarded for his skills and contributions to conservation and, broadly as an Ocean Futurist. Ocean Impact Organisation (OIO) helps startups make their greatest impact through funding and growth opportunities. Headquartered in Australia with a focus on the Asia-Pacific region, their commercialisation programs and support initiatives accelerate the best solutions to transform ocean health.   Growing Your Business and Impact Talk to us today about how we can grow your capacity to level up your business and impact with our fully trained and managed outsourced marketing solutions - delivered by our digital heroes armed with good strategy, the latest tech and big smiles.  Learn more at humansofpurpose.com Promotional Partnerships Like what we are serving up on Humans of Purpose? Our promotional campaigns have delivered great marketing and sales outcomes and ROI for our partners to date.  Whether you're seeking a 1-month, 2-month or season sponsorship, follow the flow below to become a partner before we run out of our remaining promotional slots for 2024.  Click Here to learn more about collaborating on a custom campaign package. Ready to partner? Just complete this short Partner Enquiry Form and we'll be in touch. Gold Membership Want a premium listening experience that directly supports us to keep making the podcast?  Join current members Michael, Pravati, Noel, Kathy, Andrew 1, Andrew 2, Chris, Nikki, Margaret, Ben, Misha, Sarah and Geoff and enjoy our range of member benefits:  Premium dedicated podcast feed Removal of all three ads per episode Early access to all episodes Full transcripts of all episodes Brokered intros to all podcast guests Ask me anything page access To take up this great offer, just head to our Gold Member page today. CREDITS Music intro and outro on this podcast was written and performed by Keyo Rhodes, with Harrison McGregor on drums and percussion. Sound engineering and mastering by Lachlan McGregor. At the forefront of the ocean health innovation ecosystem, OIO is passionately driving impact and investment into the rapidly emerging sustainable blue economy.

In this episode, Mel talks with Elise Sernik, founder of Leadership Space. Elise is an executive and team coach, strategy consultant, leadership and culture change facilitator and trainer with a long history of specialising in the social purpose sector. She founded Leadership Space to help the sector fulfil its critical role in the Australian and global economy. Over the past 15 years, Elise has worked with hundreds of leaders across the sector helping them to unlock their ability to set strategic direction, lead, team, partner and accelerate the achievement of meaningful social impact.   Prior to establishing Leadership Space, Elise had the pleasure of contributing to the early foundation of People for Purpose - colleagues from her years at Social Ventures Australia where she was an internal and external consultant, providing strategy and operational consulting and program design. Prior to SVA Elise was General Manager of Nonprofit Australia where, amongst other things, she designed and delivered a large-scale mentoring program for social purpose CEOs. Elise’s first career was in the commercial sector managing corporate partnerships with BBC Worldwide, followed by consulting and the design of a production-finance-digital joint partnership. She left commercial roles in 2002, becoming Assistant Director of Marketing and Fundraising of the London based non-profit, Asthma UK.   Growing Your Business and Impact Talk to us today about how we can grow your capacity to level up your business and impact with our fully trained and managed outsourced marketing solutions - delivered by our digital heroes armed with good strategy, the latest tech and big smiles.  Learn more at humansofpurpose.com Promotional Partnerships Like what we are serving up on Humans of Purpose? Our promotional campaigns have delivered great marketing and sales outcomes and ROI for our partners to date.  Whether you're seeking a 1-month, 2-month or season sponsorship, follow the flow below to become a partner before we run out of our remaining promotional slots for 2024.  Click Here to learn more about collaborating on a custom campaign package. Ready to partner? Just complete this short Partner Enquiry Form and we'll be in touch. Gold Membership Want a premium listening experience that directly supports us to keep making the podcast?  Join current members Michael, Pravati, Noel, Kathy, Andrew 1, Andrew 2, Chris, Nikki, Margaret, Ben, Misha, Sarah and Geoff and enjoy our range of member benefits:  Premium dedicated podcast feed Removal of all three ads per episode Early access to all episodes Full transcripts of all episodes Brokered intros to all podcast guests Ask me anything page access To take up this great offer, just head to our Gold Member page today. CREDITS Music intro and outro on this podcast was written and performed by Keyo Rhodes, with Harrison McGregor on drums and percussion. Sound engineering and mastering by Lachlan McGregor.

In this episode, Mel talks with pioneering social entrepreneur, Mandy Richards, founder and CEO at Global Sisters. Mandy is a social entrepreneur fiercely passionate about human rights, animal welfare, eradicating poverty and empowering women. She established Global Sisters to democratise entrepreneurship in 2013 – with the goal of creating a scalable and efficient model for supporting women to create an income stream via self employment, when mainstream employment wasn’t accessible.   Mandy’s diverse career path over the past 20+ years has spanned the commercial and not-for-profit sectors where she has worked internationally on government business incubation programs in Botswana and New Zealand, as well as for high profile charities including the Hamlin Fistula Hospitals in Ethiopia and locally as National Marketing Manager for the RSPCA.   Mandy established the ACT Social Enterprise Hub while working at Social Ventures Australia and was Director for Place Based Philanthropy with the Sydney Community Foundation. Following securing the highest investment on Channel 7’s Dragons Den, Mandy launched a $3.5 million startup and has commercialised an invention internationally.   She has also been voted one of the 25 most inspiring and influential poplin the for-purpose sector as a Pro Bono Australia Impact 25 winner for 2022.   A country girl who spent her younger years growing up on a small farm outside Armidale, NSW before her family moved to Indonesia, Mandy now lives in Sydney.   Growing Your Business and Impact Talk to us today about how we can grow your capacity to level up your business and impact with our fully trained and managed outsourced marketing solutions - delivered by our digital heroes armed with good strategy, the latest tech and big smiles.  Learn more at humansofpurpose.com Promotional Partnerships Like what we are serving up on Humans of Purpose? Our promotional campaigns have delivered great marketing and sales outcomes and ROI for our partners to date.  Whether you're seeking a 1-month, 2-month or season sponsorship, follow the flow below to become a partner before we run out of our remaining promotional slots for 2024.  Click Here to learn more about collaborating on a custom campaign package. Ready to partner? Just complete this short Partner Enquiry Form and we'll be in touch. Gold Membership Want a premium listening experience that directly supports us to keep making the podcast?  Join current members Michael, Pravati, Noel, Kathy, Andrew 1, Andrew 2, Chris, Nikki, Margaret, Ben, Misha, Sarah and Geoff and enjoy our range of member benefits:  Premium dedicated podcast feed Removal of all three ads per episode Early access to all episodes Full transcripts of all episodes Brokered intros to all podcast guests Ask me anything page access To take up this great offer, just head to our Gold Member page today. CREDITS Music intro and outro on this podcast was written and performed by Keyo Rhodes, with Harrison McGregor on drums and percussion. Sound engineering and mastering by Lachlan McGregor.  

David Ritter is the chief executive officer of Greenpeace Australia Pacific. He is also an adjunct professor in the Sydney Democracy Network at Sydney University; an affiliate of the Sydney Environment Institute; an associate of the Sydney Policy Lab at Sydney University and an honorary fellow of the Law Faculty at UWA.  Greenpeace has launched and executed a number of highly successful and deeply collaborative campaigns during David's time as CEO, including most recently: - Stopping big oil companies from drilling in the Great Australian Bight, wholly preventing the opening of a new oil frontier. - Persuading Australia's worst climate polluter, AGL Energy, to agree to early coal closures - which will result in roughly an 8-10% drop in annual domestic emissions, and; - shifting 21 major Australian corporations to adopt 100% renewable energy electricity commitments by 2025 - shifting around 5% of the National Electricity Market from fossil fuels to renewable energy. A widely published writer, including three books, The Coal Truth, Contesting Native Title and the The Native Title Market, his insights into the climate emergency have been published in The Guardian, The Griffiths Review, Independent Australian and The Quarterly Essay. A frequent and highly regarded keynote speaker, David uses his platform to take audiences on a journey; through the wonder and awe of the natural world, the powers that threaten it and his profound belief in the human capacity for good.  This conversation took place back in 2020, in the midst of Covid lockdowns. We've been reflecting on it and its potency still to this day and hope you enjoy it.  David's essay referred to in the episode is from the book, Living with the Anthropocene, a powerful anthology of writing from some leading writers, thinkers and doers.     Growing Your Business and Impact Talk to us today about how we can grow your capacity to level up your business and impact with our fully trained and managed outsourced marketing solutions - delivered by our digital heroes armed with good strategy, the latest tech and big smiles.  Learn more at humansofpurpose.com Promotional Partnerships Like what we are serving up on Humans of Purpose? Our promotional campaigns have delivered great marketing and sales outcomes and ROI for our partners to date.  Whether you're seeking a 1-month, 2-month or season sponsorship, follow the flow below to become a partner before we run out of our remaining promotional slots for 2024.  Click Here to learn more about collaborating on a custom campaign package. Ready to partner? Just complete this short Partner Enquiry Form and we'll be in touch. Gold Membership Want a premium listening experience that directly supports us to keep making the podcast?  Join current members Michael, Pravati, Noel, Kathy, Andrew 1, Andrew 2, Chris, Nikki, Margaret, Ben, Misha, Sarah and Geoff and enjoy our range of member benefits:  Premium dedicated podcast feed Removal of all three ads per episode Early access to all episodes Full transcripts of all episodes Brokered intros to all podcast guests Ask me anything page access To take up this great offer, just head to our Gold Member page today. CREDITS Music intro and outro on this podcast was written and performed by Keyo Rhodes, with Harrison McGregor on drums and percussion. Sound engineering and mastering by Lachlan McGregor.  

We know how groupthink, politics and inertia can feed costly and unproductive ways of thinking and doing. Through reframing, Josie Gibson and her team at CatalystFX gets right to the root causes so that we address the right problem, not a symptom of something deeper. Josie has an illustrious career in corporate and leadership, she builds communities and helps clients build change capability.  Josie Gibson established CATALYSTFX to address an urgent need for different thinking and responses to complex business, social, and environmental issues. Josie runs The Catalyst Network, a membership community of accomplished changemakers, and mentors graduates and creative entrepreneurs. She is a Senior Industry Fellow at RMIT University’s FORWARD Centre for Future Skills and Workforce Transformation in Australia, and is active in national and international initiatives exploring new work, community and economic models. Josie co-created Australia’s first leadership index at an internationally ranked business school and established and helped to build successful businesses, including communities of chief financial officers, HR directors and senior women in global multinationals. It was a pleasure to have this conversation with Josie, and get to the nuts and bolts of embodied leadership and why now is the time for connecting to the wisdom of ancient traditions and cultures. Growing Your Business and Impact Talk to us today about how we can grow your capacity to level up your business and impact with our fully trained and managed outsourced marketing solutions - delivered by our digital heroes armed with good strategy, the latest tech and big smiles.  Learn more at humansofpurpose.com Promotional Partnerships Like what we are serving up on Humans of Purpose? Our promotional campaigns have delivered great marketing and sales outcomes and ROI for our partners to date.  Whether you're seeking a 1-month, 2-month or season sponsorship, follow the flow below to become a partner before we run out of our remaining promotional slots for 2024.  Click Here to learn more about collaborating on a custom campaign package. Ready to partner? Just complete this short Partner Enquiry Form and we'll be in touch. Gold Membership Want a premium listening experience that directly supports us to keep making the podcast?  Join current members Michael, Pravati, Noel, Kathy, Andrew 1, Andrew 2, Chris, Nikki, Margaret, Ben, Misha, Sarah and Geoff and enjoy our range of member benefits:  Premium dedicated podcast feed Removal of all three ads per episode Early access to all episodes Full transcripts of all episodes Brokered intros to all podcast guests Ask me anything page access To take up this great offer, just head to our Gold Member page today. CREDITS Music intro and outro on this podcast was written and performed by Keyo Rhodes, with Harrison McGregor on drums and percussion. Sound engineering and mastering by Lachlan McGregor.