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Matters Journal •

Anna Neklesa: Living Cotton —

When Anna Neklesa left behind her successful interior design business in Russia to study at London’s prestigious Royal College of Art (RCA), she had one thing in mind: to open up new ideas around material design. And, in particular, to see if she could bring textiles to life. Inspired by the works of the ‘grow your own clothes’ fashion designer, Suzanne Lee, material manipulator, Bart Hess, and the inventor of Spray-on fabric, Dr Manel Torres, Neklesa studied alchemy looking for ways to create a
Matters Journal •

Vincent Stanley: Director of Philosophy, Patagonia —

For smaller companies who want to be more responsible but can’t cover the cost, what’s the one thing they can do to be more socially and environmentally responsible?

I think that everybody can do something. Even if you’re not making any money you can do something. People ask me when they should become a member of 1% for the Planet [an international organization whose members contribute at least one percent of their annual sales to environmental causes], and I tell them to join right at the begi
Matters Journal •

Meeting a Death Doula — Matters Journal

Death. I could take it or leave it, really, but I’m pretty sure it’s not for me. Do I want to talk about it? Nope. Think about it? Not really, unless it’s 3am and then, yes, thank you, I do that all the time. Yet, death is coming for me and, I’m sorry to say, it’s coming for you, too. It’s the one bond we all share and I bet, like me, you’re doing everything you can to avoid thinking or talking about it. Yet the story goes that it’s this refusal to talk about it that’s causing all the angst, whi

Client stories: One Small Step: Behaviour Change at Scale

One Small Step is an app helping people build green habits, cut their carbon footprint and reduce their environmental impact through small behavioural changes.

Harvey loves the work Lily and her team are doing and worked with her on branding for One Small Step, previously known as The Neighbourhood Effect, the brand’s marketing strategy, digital marketing and strategy.

We so admire Lily’s passion and drive for change that when we were pulling together our panel for Pause Fest, she was at the t

Our learning journey: Patagonia: Ethical Outerwear

Over the next few weeks, we’ll be catching up with our Pause Fest panellists – Patagonia, Jaunt, ATEC and One Small Step and delving a little deeper into how their businesses thrive while looking after the planet at the same time.


We’ll also be asking them for advice on how business owners can lead the way when it comes to environmental change.


If ever there was a poster child for ethical business it would have to be Patagonia. A company as famous for taking the planet into consideration w
B Lab Australia & New Zealand •

Supply chain resilience: Building a sustainable future

As part of our ‘Friday Connect’ series, we caught up with Sam Jones, founder of New Zealand-based uniform company Little Yellow Bird, Justin Cudmore, a partner at Marque Lawyers and co-chair of the Australian Fashion Council, and James Bartle, founder of Outland Denim.

Could things be shifting in the fashion industry? Socially-conscious consumers are already using their dollars to support ethical fashion, but it looks like luxury brands could finally be catching up.

Gucci’s Creative Director,

Client stories: Jaunt: Converting Land Rovers to Electric

We caught up with Dave Budge, co-founder of Jaunt and talked to him about all things EV and why Australia should be getting on board.

How does someone with a background in design, filmmaking and storytelling end up up-cycling cars?

My career has always been about the application of emerging technology whether that’s been through interaction design, digital storytelling, apps or websites. I’ve always loved the challenge of humanising emerging technology and making it approachable and user-frien
Matters Journal •

Mushrooms: A Natural Alternative to Cement? —

Nikki Stefanoff: Tell us a little bit about what you’re getting up to at Monash Uni.

Chloe Badger: I’m studying biomedical science and materials engineering as a double degree – I’m in my final year. Because my engineering degree has built in honors, we spend the last year working on a final individual project and mine is on mycelium ‘concrete’.

For the layperson (me!) what exactly is mycelium?

Think about it as if the mushroom is like the apple and the mycelium is like the tree. The mycelium
drowsysleepco •

Meditation for time poor beginners

Here’s a little secret for ya — setting yourself up for a good night’s sleep doesn’t start the moment you get into bed. In fact, it starts with a sleep schedule and a good sleep environment as well as your mindset and thought processes throughout the day.

If you’re thinking ‘uh-oh, they’re going to talk to me about meditation,’ you’re right we are but WAIT…we promise we’re not just going to tell you to sit still for 20 minutes every day with your eyes closed.

Instead we’re going to talk about
B Lab Australia & New Zealand •

Friday Connect: Beyond Bank and Latrobe Valley Bus Lines

Every Friday during lockdown, we brought together members of the B Corp community to share their stories and experiences of running a business in the time of coronavirus.

This Friday Connect conversation was with Nick May, General Manager Customer Experience at Beyond Bank and Anna Tyben, General Manager of Latrobe Valley Bus Lines.

The chat gave us a behind-the-scenes look at how essential services adapted to the challenges of a pandemic and their role in the community during times of crisis.
Matters Journal •

Why Kester Black Became a B Corp — Matters Journal

Do you think that being a B Corp has made a difference to your business?

No, I don’t think that anybody really knows what a B Corp is and I don’t think that too many people care – something I think is changing. I don’t know any young person at the moment that isn’t interested in the social side of a business.

So, was your decision more of a personal one.

Yes, it was at the start. And, you know, it’s not great for us, profit wise, because there are restrictions in place which mean that we can’
drowsysleepco •

Perimenopause and sleep: why your sleep suffers and what to do about it.

For women in their 40s and 50s, perimenopause (when your body starts to shift into menopause) and menopause (when you stop having periods) is a topic often discussed among friends.

Remember the ‘menopause’ episode in And Just Like That? Well, if Carrie, Charlotte and Miranda are happy to talk, albeit briefly, about one of the most obvious shifts in a woman’s life, then we are, too.

In fact, let’s get into it.

What used to be referred to as ‘the change’ is now better known as midlife. And inst
Matters Journal •

Better Business: The Power of B Corps —

Matters Journal: ‘Financial institution’ and ‘ethical business’ aren’t words you expect to see in the same sentence. Can you tell me a little about how the idea was formed?

Allyson Lowbridge: Yes, that’s probably true! But we really are very different. Australian Ethical was created in 1986 to advocate for a better financial system, where financial outcomes are achieved while being conscious of their impact on the world around us. Our belief is that you can have both a positive financial outcom
drowsysleepco •

How to manage your sleep as a shift worker

As night falls and nocturnal animals start to slowly emerge there’s another, often forgotten, creature of the night heading out into the dark just as the rest of us begin our nightly wind-downs — the hardworking shift worker.

A shift-worker is someone who tends to play outside the 9-5 working rules and so has to get their sleep, generally, when we’re all awake. It’s a lot. And as we all know, getting enough sleep is a struggle for the majority of us but if you’re a shift-worker then a deep slee
drowsysleepco •

5 dreamy places where you can sleep under the stars

As the clocks get ready to ‘spring’ forward and the nights begin to warm up there’s no better time to start planning a weekend experience of sleeping under the stars. And we’re not talking about sleeping under a leaky canva, either — we’re talking full blown lux.

Because it turns out that sleeping in nature is not only an incredibly grounding experience but it's also good for your sleep health. A scientific study found that a couple of nights under the stars is the ideal antidote to our modern
Matters Journal •

Gwen Gordan: The Future of Work is…play —

Nikki Stefanoff: I’m fascinated by the work you did with Sesame Street. What did designing and building muppets teach you about the importance of play?

Gwen Gordon: The whole workshop was bursting with creativity and just sheer wackiness. Finally I wasn’t the wackiest person in the room anymore. While that raised my game and made whole new levels of creativity possible, it also helped me to see where my own blocks to play and creativity were. I discovered how I could turn a dream job into a str
Matters Journal •

Biomimicry for the Modern World: Lee Djumas —

The way Djumas looked to combine materials was bio-inspired, particularly through the natural form of nacre. “Nacre is part of the mollusc shell and made almost entirely of calcium carbonate [chalk], so it should be very brittle,” he says. “But it also has a bit of bio-polymer in there, which is really just glue. The way in which all this is arranged makes the shell tougher than it should be, making it a beautiful example of nature’s architecture.”

People have been trying to understand nacre fo
Matters Journal •

100 Story Building: Early Harvest —

The story behind Melbourne’s 100 Story Building, a centre for young writers, begins back in 2009 and over 12,500 km away on the streets of San Francisco.

Jenna Williams and Lachlann Carter had headed overseas to complete internships with 826 Valencia, best-selling author Dave Eggers’ not for profit writing centre in San Fran’s Mission District. After returning to Australia and, inspired by their time with Eggers and his team of volunteers, they founded their own not-for-profit creative writing
Matters Journal •

Tomás Saraceno's Floating Cities — Matters Journal

Argentinian artist Tomás Saraceno has an interdisciplinary approach to his gravity-defying structures, which makes a lot of sense when you hear that he’s a trained architect.

His work In Orbit (2013) is the perfect example of this passion for mixing art with form and structure and saw him suspending floating spheres 20 meters above the ground of the K21 Ständehaus, a public arts space in Düsseldorf, Germany. Here Saraceno combined his famous spider web structures with his vision for an ongoing

News reporting: B Corps & the social sector

Technology

Atto •

5 no-code tools to help create a membership site

In a previous post, we talked about why, as a founder, you don’t need a technical co-founder to launch your startup. Now, we’re taking that message one step further and exploring the best no-code tools to use if you’re looking to create a membership site.

Whether you’ve got a large social media following, a connected network of experts or you’re looking to share your expertise, a membership site can support you in reaching the right audience.

Membership sites are often based on access to exper
Atto •

The Benefits of Female-Founder Accelerators

While the message that ‘the future is female’ is one displayed proudly on t-shirts all over the world, it’s still one that hasn’t quite made it into the global boardrooms and offices of big tech companies. So, sick of waiting for the patriarchy to welcome them in with open arms, more and more female entrepreneurs and first-time founders are making the decision to get out there and do it for themselves. 🙌

The rise of the female-led startup has been a steadily-increasing phenomenon over the last
Matters Journal •

Who Do We Trust Online? — Matters Journal

I’m fascinated by the question ‘Who can we trust?’. I started off thinking that this was just a personal question I had relating to being online but then as I branched out with my thinking I realised that, actually, the majority of social media is about presenting an ‘untruthful’ version of ourselves to our peers as well as our followers. If we can’t trust institutions, banks, the church, Facebook, our media sources and, really, each other – who can we trust?

It’s a really good question. Can we
Matters Journal •

Artificial Intelligence Helping Us Work Smarter — Matters Journal

“The problem lies in the fact that a face has distinct features, which are arranged in a fairly distinct pattern that for the most part don’t change. If you were asked to draw a face you would have eyes, nose and a mouth because, well, a face is a face. Corrosion, however, has this problem where it doesn’t share that many features and under different conditions, different light for example, it will look different. It has a distinctive colour, but even the texture can change depending on how long
Matters Journal •

The Future of 3D Printing Is Clear — Matters Journal

Darren Feenstra is a long way from home. The co-owner of 3D glass printing company, Maple Glass, and PhD candidate at Melbourne’s Monash University grew up on a small farm just south of Toronto. “I’m from a hard-working family. My dad was a landscaper and my mum cleaned houses until they had a mid-life crisis, quit their jobs and started a perennial farm,” he says. “They are true entrepreneurs.”

While studying his Masters of Applied Sciences at McMaster University, Feenstra started conducting r

Travel

Discover the Kimberley, Australia’s wild, wild west

Ah, Australia. The Lucky Country. Home to Sydney’s iconic Opera House; Melbourne’s famous food culture; Queensland’s Great Barrier Reef; and a world-renowned surf scene. Plus, more deadly flora and fauna per square metre than in any other part of the globe. Yet there’s a part of this sunburnt country that few people visit. A vast and beautiful landscape of red dirt as ancient as the country’s Aboriginal history and as far away from the Aussie stereotypical cork hat, laid-back attitude, and stubb

48 hours in Melbourne

Author: Nikki Stefanoff is a Melbourne-based journalist, editor and contributor to A&K’s biannual Sundowner magazine

It may seem contrary to arrive in Melbourne and then immediately leave the city, but there’s just so much to see and do in the surrounding areas, starting with a trip to the Yarra Valley. Whether you’re travelling with children or sans enfants, time spent at Healesville Sanctuary is never wasted. Home to every Australian native animal you can imagine, it’s the place to go if you

Interviews & Profiles

SmartCompany •

How b.box for kids turned a single product into a global brand

Filer and Michaels first met in London in the early noughties. Both from Australia, and with mutual friends in common, they instantly hit it off. Filer was working in finance and Michaels in sales and marketing, so it wasn’t long before they started talking about working together. They just didn’t know what they would do. The duo looked into importing kids shoes but didn’t follow the idea through. “I’m so pleased we didn’t do that,” says Filer. “It was a good process to go through, however, beca
Atto •

The 20-year overnight success: Adore Beauty’s Kate Morris

We caught up with Kate to talk about her journey from starting Adore Beauty in her garage to her recent IPO, which has gone down in the history books as being the largest Australian IPO by a female founder.

When you launched Adore Beauty in 1999, you were years ahead of the game. Do you think you realised that at the time?

Well, that’s one way of putting it! When I launched Adore Beauty it was because it just seemed like a no-brainer. I was a student and working on the Clarins counter and cou
SmartCompany •

How to seal deals and raise money while working remotely

Both 2020 and 2021 have been full of surprises. As a country we’ve lived through the devastating bushfires and, of course, a global pandemic. However, something else came along that took everyone by surprise — the worldwide pivot to doing (and growing) business from our homes.

As the pandemic spread, founders, CEOs and SMEs moved their organisations online and sent their teams home and onto Zoom.

This pivot to remote working has become a case of business as usual (kind of) ever since.

We aske
The CEO Magazine •

Bob Hall and Violet Yu, CEO and Managing Director of Sandstone Technology

People and Performance ,respectively, Bob and Violet have a global staff approaching 350, and have gone on to create digital banking solutions for every bank you can think of. However, back then it was just the two of them in a home office, fresh off the back of years of working for IBM. “Sandstone Technology is only my second ever job,” laughs Bob.

“I joined IBM as a sales engineer straight after completing my mathematics degree. Violet and I both worked at IBM servicing the banking industry,
Atto •

Meet the Founder: Adeline Yeak, Zove Beauty

Adeline Yeak (Atto Accelerator 2019) launched Zove Beauty with the mission statement - confidence breeds beauty. Ever since she left the accelerator program, Adeline’s Jade Rollers and Gua Sha tools have been relieving the stress and improving the skin of women all over Australia. It was good to catch-up with Adeline, find out what she’s been up to and hear more about Zove Beauty’s success.

Tell me more about where the idea for Zove Beauty came from.

My family has been in the beauty industry
The CEO Magazine •

Steve Koekemoer, CEO of Open Country Dairy

Open Country Dairy is in the milk business, no question. It works in partnership with 1,000 New Zealand independent dairy farmers to turn two billion litres of milk annually into high quality products like cheese, whey powders and milk powders.

This makes Open Country Dairy the largest independent dairy processor in New Zealand. It is also the second largest whole milk powder exporter worldwide. CEO Steve Koekemoer is originally from South Africa and is a qualified mechanical and electrical eng
Matters Journal •

Gwen Gordan: The Future of Work is…play —

Nikki Stefanoff: I’m fascinated by the work you did with Sesame Street. What did designing and building muppets teach you about the importance of play?

Gwen Gordon: The whole workshop was bursting with creativity and just sheer wackiness. Finally I wasn’t the wackiest person in the room anymore. While that raised my game and made whole new levels of creativity possible, it also helped me to see where my own blocks to play and creativity were. I discovered how I could turn a dream job into a str
Matters Journal •

Vincent Stanley: Director of Philosophy, Patagonia —

For smaller companies who want to be more responsible but can’t cover the cost, what’s the one thing they can do to be more socially and environmentally responsible?

I think that everybody can do something. Even if you’re not making any money you can do something. People ask me when they should become a member of 1% for the Planet [an international organization whose members contribute at least one percent of their annual sales to environmental causes], and I tell them to join right at the begi
Atto •

Meet the Founders: Jenny Le and Pam Yip, Bubble Tea Club

Jenny Le and Pam Yip (Atto Accelerator 2020) launched Bubble Tea Club in 2020 as a way to give everyone access to store-bought quality bubble tea at home. We chatted to Jenny about where the idea came from and how it’s all going.

Where did the idea for Bubble Tea Club come from?

Pam and I wanted to make bubble tea at home but we also wanted it to taste as good as when you get it from the shops! We also wanted to make it accessible because we found that it’s really difficult to get every ingre
The CEO Magazine •

Simon Hupfeld, CEO of AMES Australasia

Simon Hupfeld’s career path to eventually become the CEO of AMES Australasia began when he was the part owner of Northcote Pottery, a business he ran alongside his wife Renae and Andrew and Jenni McMahon.

Over a period of 10 years, Simon and his fellow co-owners grew the business fivefold and at the end of 2013 made the decision to sell it to AMES, a part of Griffon Corporation. “Andrew and Jenni were the majority shareholders of Northcote Pottery and so they moved on to something new after the
Matters Journal •

Meeting a Death Doula — Matters Journal

Death. I could take it or leave it, really, but I’m pretty sure it’s not for me. Do I want to talk about it? Nope. Think about it? Not really, unless it’s 3am and then, yes, thank you, I do that all the time. Yet, death is coming for me and, I’m sorry to say, it’s coming for you, too. It’s the one bond we all share and I bet, like me, you’re doing everything you can to avoid thinking or talking about it. Yet the story goes that it’s this refusal to talk about it that’s causing all the angst, whi
The CEO Magazine •

Marc Kenney and Matt Hoffman, Managing Director & Director New South Wales of Mettle

When Marc Kenney (pictured left) and Matt Hoffman (right) came together to lead Mettle into its new chapter, they didn’t realise just how quickly things would take off. Marc first got involved with the Brisbane-based construction business in 2014, when he acquired a shareholding in what would become Mettle, while Matt came on board in 2016.

They had worked together previously and had remained friends, so when Marc recognised a growing need for an office in New South Wales, Matt was the first pe
The CEO Magazine •

Tom Walley, Director of Hunter Medical Research Institute

Few would argue the importance of funding medical research, but if there ever was a year to prove its worth, 2020 would be it. As the world focuses on handwashing and social distancing, research teams from all corners of the globe are working hard to find a COVID-19 vaccine, or successful treatment – Tom Walley and his colleagues at Hunter Medical Research Institute (HMRI) are one of those teams.

“We have researchers looking at mechanisms of drug delivery in COVID-19, and because HMRI has a ver
The CEO Magazine •

Ross Higgins, CEO of Futurity

Much like a large proportion of financial services executives, Ross Higgins started his career as a lawyer, spending 12 years working for IOOF as corporate counsel. His role with IOOF was varied and he discovered that he was not only a dab hand at creating financial products but that he also really loved the work.

He moved on to become IOOF’s product development leading hand before leaving in 1998. A spell with Australian Unity came next, followed by 18 years as CEO of Austock Life, which under
The CEO Magazine •

Karl Brown, CEO of Instyle Solar

For the past three years, Karl Brown has cleaned up during Brisbane’s business awards season. His solar panel business, Instyle Solar, has been named retailer of the year for three years in a row, while a second business he runs, Rokkit Performance Marketing, won the startup of the year award in 2019.

That same year, he took out the crown for Brisbane Young Entrepreneur of the Year. Not bad for a guy who jokes that he only went to the ceremony to have a few drinks. “I entered the awards back in
The CEO Magazine •

Gary Denton, Managing Director of Marble Group

Gary Denton’s successful career in recruitment wasn’t so much driven by a burning desire to work in the industry but more as a reaction to personal loss. “When I was in my final year at university I lost my father, and the time I took off from my studies meant that I missed the boat when it came to applying for jobs,” Gary explains.

“When I finally finished my degree, I found myself in a position where I needed some money. So, I took a sales job on a commission-only basis selling people acciden
The CEO Magazine •

Len Fiori, CEO of St John Ambulance

Over a period of more than 50 years, St John Ambulance’s Len Fiori has gone from being a St John cadet to the CEO. Albeit, with a few stops along the way. “I started as a cadet back in the 1960s and have stayed involved with the organisation throughout my adult life.

“St John Ambulance has definitely played a huge part in shaping my career; I would go so far as to say that being part of the organisation was the reason I decided to go into nursing. I started out as a young person looking for som
The CEO Magazine •

Bill Beament Executive Chairman of Northern Star Resources

The role of Northern Star Resources’ Executive Chair was always part of Bill Beament’s plan, but he’s the first to admit that it took a few people by surprise.

“I wasn’t the smartest kid in the class at university and when I graduated, with honours, there were a lot of people who were thinking, ‘How the hell did he do that?’” he laughs. “But I’ve got common sense, a great work ethic and a practical way of thinking that always wins out. There’s no doubt that I’ve encountered forks in the road al
The CEO Magazine •

Kees Weel, CEO of PWR

Maybe it’s because he’s one of 11 kids or perhaps it’s his Dutch heritage and pure Aussie spirit, but nothing seems to faze Kees Weel, a self-described “kid from Warrnambool”.

“I didn’t finish school; it wasn’t working for me. One day, I walked into a car dealership just outside Timboon, Victoria, and asked for an apprenticeship. Luckily, I got it,” Kees explains.

“From there, I went to Papua New Guinea to earn some money and learn about a different culture. One day, after I got back, I was lo