Scaling Up: Lessons From The World's Best CEOs and Founders

Very rarely do you get to tell the story of a wildly successful entrepreneur that is largely unknown beyond the immediate circle of influence. Today on Scaling Up, Greg Boorer, the CEO and Founder of CDC, formally Canberra Data Centres, which is in some rarefied air among companies globally, having compounded earnings at over 30% for the last 15 years. It's now valued well in excess of $10 billion and is at the centre of the beating heart of Australia's critical infrastructure. All this, and it still has a massive growth runway ahead of it. Greg's story in many ways is the CDC story from an aspiring cyclist and reluctant it graduate. Greg has become the face and often lead salesperson of a business that has rewritten industry standards as it relates to innovation and security. In what is seen from the outside as a commoditised industry, CDC has thrived by listening to customer needs and adapting accordingly. This is a story of initial hustle and belief in an opportunity, but ultimately it's about resiliency and delivering on promises. Greg has undoubtedly built one of Australia's best businesses from the ground up, and to hear him speak about this scaling journey with the knowledge and passion that he does will undoubtedly be inspiring to all our listeners. Transcript: CHAPTERS:   (00:55) – Greg’s beginnings   (05:50) – A foreign start   (11:32) – Moving back to Australia    (18:40) – Building Canberra Data Centres , now CDC (22:40) –Tactics, tips and techniques (24:12) – Technological and competitive ddvantage    (30:54) – Solidifying CDC’s Future   (36:58) – CDC’s scaling journey  (44:08) – Why you need to partner with the right people   (47:33) – CDC’s sustainability commitment 

Bill Beament grew up in a working class family out of Esperance in Western Australia. He dreamed of being a general manager of a mine one day. Instilled at a young age with a deep work ethic and an acute commercial sense, he achieved much, much more than this as CEO and Executive Chair of Northern Star. Bill reshaped the underground gold mining industry and built from scratch a $16b, ASX 50 behemoth. Not resting on his laurels though, Bill has more recently turned his attention to wrapping up all his learnings about mining, about people and about leadership to his own venture Develop Global (ASX:DVP), which is on the precipice of replicating Northern Star's success in critical minerals with its unique business model of both mining services and mine ownership. This is one of Australia's great stories, largely unknown and untold outside the resource community so heavily centred in Perth, but the scaling lessons, as you'll hear, are applicable to all sectors and leaders of businesses, of all shapes and sizes. This episode takes you underground into a world unfamiliar to most, but applicable to all. I hope you enjoyed this episode of Scaling Up with Bill Beament, CEO and founder of Develop Global.  Show Notes: CHAPTERS:   (00:55): Bill’s upbringing in country WA (04:09):  Starting in the underground industry   (06:19): Lessons from Barminco  (09:11): Building Northern Star    (14:03): What makes a world-class underground mine operator (18:48): Operational excellence at Northern Star and starting Develop Global    (24:23): Unearthing critical minerals   (29:14): DVP's business model (32:34): Buying Woodlawn mine (35:59): Best in class hiring and retaining talent (41:47): Remuneration philosophy

Hiroki Takeuchi, the co-founder and CEO of GoCardless started in 2011. GoCardless is a star of the blossoming UK FinTech scene- last valued at $2.1b, the business is on a mission to take the pain out of payments for businesses of all shapes and sizes – from your local gym collecting monthly membership right through to the Uk’s biggest utility companies. Payment collection is a problem as old as time, and in creating a bank payment network to rival the card networks like Visa and Mastercard , it is also an incredibly complex ecosystem to navigate and operate in. But Go Cardless has seen tremendous success – it currently processes over $35b in payments annually from close to 100,000 customers. Aside from regulatory complexity that is only heightened when you throw cross border payments into the mix, the challenge of scaling a business that form day one  has had such a variety of customer shapes and sizes gives rise to some wonderful lessons for operators. Hiroki’s personal story is incredibly inspiring. The founder’s journey always involves a level of grit and determination to overcome adversity, but Hiroki takes it to a new level; five years into the Go Cardless journey, a bike accident resulted in a spinal cord injury. If anything, it gave him a him a perspective on life and leadership that has enabled Go Cardless to flourish like it has. Show Notes: (02:12): Founding Story (06:45): Why direct debit? (10:03): Unraveling the complexity around cloud-based payments (12:31): Navigating the rules and regulations on collecting payments (14:02): GoCardless’ competitive advantage (19:00): Scaling challenges when expanding internationally (21:52): G2M success via partnerships (24:21): GoCardless’ culture journey (26:55): Embedding and living company values (28:26): Leading the business post bicycle accident (31:10): Evolution of leadership when scaling a business

What is a high-performing culture? It's a question some think as straightforward as it is philosophical. In these special episodes, we explore high performing cultures;  what they are, how to create them, and most importantly how to not just maintain them, but scale them. By drawing upon the wisdom of the previous CEOs, founders, leaders who I have had the pleasure of interviewing over the last six years between them have created some $150b in market capitalisation. After 42 episodes of Scaling Up and 300,000 words of transcripts we now have a database of knowledge to dive into to pull some common threads together. This second episode of the Culture Scaling Playbook is wholly dedicated to the integral culture scaling topic of hiring and retaining great talent. The crux of every scaling success is great people, and this episode aims to give operators meaningful and tangible best practise ideas for them to execute upon when it comes to attracting and retaining top talent - be it from onboarding, feedback or remuneration (and everything in between). Culture Scaling Workbook: Includes show notes, links to sources and other interesting thought starters - ⁠DOWNLOAD Chapters: (02:00) The importance of belonging in high performing teams (06:56) What makes for great hiring and why is it the centre of successfully scaling culture? (13:56) The role of the Chief People Officer and the right time to hire one (16:29) The importance of onboarding when it comes to building a cohesive culture (20:12) Let's talk remuneration (23:43) Building trust through feedback (30:34) Diversity of thought and why it produces better outcomes (33:23) The wrap up For more content and insights: ⁠www.tdmgrowthpartners.com⁠ ⁠https://twitter.com/TDM_Growth