Freedom Hunters

Kat Stewart is an Aussie household name due to her many stellar and powerful performances in the very best of Australian TV and theatre, which have led to her winning many accolades including AACTA and Logie awards.

Kat became known in Australia for her stunning performances as Roberta Williams in Underbelly, and as Billie Proudman in my favourite Australian series, Offspring. When we spoke she had just wrapped up filming the secon...

Lana Wilkinson is one of Australia's best-known celebrity stylists. Her client list includes some of Australia’s most stylish women, including Ruby Rose, Megan Gale and Nadia Bartel. 

Lana started her career in marketing and public relations until her side hustle of styling celebrities for events and media engagements took on a life of its own. She talks about how she changed from a high-powered corporate marketing role ...

Maria Hatzistefanis, founded her ground-breaking skincare group, Rodial, in 1999 by identifying a niche for treatments targeted to specific skin concerns. Maria has become a respected and sought-after opinion-leader as she is known for her mentoring and entrepreneurial guidance. Recently she was a judge for the British Fashion Council Vogue fashion fund, and has had guest appearances as a mentor on US fashion series, Project Runway...

Liz Ward is the UK’s first pivot coach and founder of Slick Pivot, a boutique coaching hub for career changers, startups and entrepreneurs. She has been the coach working behind the scenes of growing startups including, The Marshmallowist and Taylor Morris Eyewear. 

An AOC (Association for Coaching) recognised personal and business coach and NLP practitioner with over 12 years experience develop...

The world needs more people like Andy Griffiths. His work has taken him into brick kilns in India where he lead a team of freedom fighters rescuing people who had been subject to enforced slavery, and to the West Bank in Palestine where his organisation help run a program to create harmony and peace between Israelis and Palestinians through sport.

But Andy started out his career in a very different way. Andy studied law and went on...

Kristina is the founder of the stationary and lifestyle brand Kikki K, which has stores in Australia, New Zealand, the USA, UK, Singapore and Hong Kong. And it is available online in over 140 countries around the world. Kristina really is living her dream life.

But before she started Kikki K, Kristina tried different jobs in hospitality and travel, finding that none of them were the right fit for her. And it was during a sleepless ...

Most of my Australian listeners, and probably quite a few of my UK listeners will have heard of today’s guest on Freedom Hunters. You might have watched her come runner up in the first ever series of Australian Masterchef in 2009. Or you might have watched her subsequent TV cooking series, or made delicious dishes from one of her cookbooks. And if you’ve been to Adelaide in South Australia recently, you might have had c...

Olly Bengough started his first business in his twenties when he opened a bar on the King’s Road in Chelsea. From there he went on to set up venues which have become London institutions, including Infernos in Clapham and Koko in Camden. Along the way he started up the music festival Lovebox with members of Groove Armada.

 But it was Olly’s love of foreign and independent film that led him to set up the foreign film...

Anyone with a passing interest in fashion will have heard of Tash Sefton. She is one of Australia’s most successful fashion entrepreneurs.

Tash started out her career in fashion manufacturing, and moved into a business role, overseeing production, manufacturing and buying for one of Australia’s biggest streetwear brands, General Pants.

But it was when she started a blog called They All Hate Us with her friend and collea...

In episode 8, Suzanne talks to Sally Hepworth. Sally started out her career in event management and HR, but it was while she was on maternity leave with her first child that she finally followed her instinct for writing and penned her first novel.

Her first book, the Secrets of Midwives, was the top selling debut novel in Australia in 2015. Fast forward a few years later, and Sally is the best selling author of five books.

Sal...

In episode 7, Suzanne talks to Naomi Mdudu. Naomi started her career as a fashion editor for some of the UK’s biggest print publications. Several grueling years later, Naomi dreamt up a career which involved the creation of content which was meaningful to her. This led to her establishing the Lifestyle Edit, an online destination and podcast designed for and about women entrepreneurs, their experiences, their challenges and t...

Emily Johnston, blogger, columnist and digital content creator moved from South Carolina to London straight out of university to pursue her dream of forging a career in the art world. Early on, she found a role at an art auction house and ended up as a PR manager for the auction house.

But it was when she started her fashion industry news blog in her spare time, that life started to change for Emily. 

In this episode, Emily ta...

Today’s inspiring guest on Freedom Hunters is Lucy Beard. Originally from South Africa, Lucy started her career as a lawyer in London city law firms, and as an in-house lawyer for the UK’s largest commercial TV producer and broadcaster, ITV. She then spent two years as general manager of the broadcast technology company, SDN. It was during a grown up gap year of travelling around Europe that Lucy and her husband Leigh, ...

Bola Marquis started out his career as a business analyst and then programme manager in industries including oil and gas, travel and advertising. It was his entrepreneurial spirit and creative flair that led him to leave it all behind (although not quite entirely - more on that in the podcast) to start up Okun, an African inspired swimwear brand that is stocked in luxury stores and online stockists including Matches and Mr Porter. ...

Celeste Wong started out her career as an actress and barista. Since moving to London, she has been listed as one of London’s top five baristas in The Financial Times and has held top positions in artisan cafes.

In recent years, in pursuit of more fulfillment from her work, Celeste produced and presented her own web series based around coffee and people in the coffee industry. That was the catalyst for her to develop the ulti...

Chloe Roberts is a music industry executive in London. Her company has developed the careers of artists such as Zayn and Ellie Goulding and currently manages Rita Ora amongst other big names. Chloe also invented and launched a baby product, Lapbaby.

Chloe talks to Suzanne about how she got into the music industry, her style as an executive in a creative world, time's up in the music industry and what happened when she was pres...