A CEO is a chief executive officer, the highest-ranking person in a company or other institution, ultimately responsible for taking managerial decisions.
Check out more careers!
What’s It Like To Be a CEO?
What does your organisation do?
Provide real world education for parents, teachers and students.
What does your role involve?
Being able to identify the needs of our audience and the needs of our team. To get the right people in the best places to make their greatest contribution.
What road did you take to get to your current role?
Circuitous and winding route for me via retail, wholesale, fashion, building, hospitality, photography, travel, publishing and writing, until a trip to Antarctica in 2005 set me on a different trajectory. After spending three weeks man hauling sledges at 80 degrees South and writing a subsequent book about my adventures I was shocked to learn what an appalling job we humans are doing as stewards of our planet. What could I do about it? The answer was education. To get us all to understand that our planet is our life support system, critical for our very existence, yet we treat it like an open sewer. I quickly learned about the three pillars of sustainability: environment, social and economic that all need to be invested in for us to thrive.
What hurdles did you overcome?
Have you got an hour? Funding, indifference, incompetence, small thinking, negative mindsets, idealogues, finding an audience, getting support, funding, government regulations, lack of knowledge, lack of skills, finding quality people. Did I mention funding?
What’s one thing you love about your job and one thing you would leave behind if you could?
Love: Our wonderful team.
Leave behind: The pressure of making it all work.
What gets you out of bed in the morning?
The knowledge that we are turning the dial and improving lives through sharing important knowledge every day.
What advice would you give your 16-year-old self?
Don’t rush. Take time with life and discover the things that you find rewarding. Don’t live a life that you think someone wants you to live. Take charge and be yourself.
Tell us your fave quote…
‘If it is to be, it is up to me’ – Ron Barassi, VFL Legend.
