Humans of Purpose

428 Henry Shukman: Embracing the Whole Ox — How Suffering, Zen, and Radical Openness Can Transform Your Life

My guest this week is Henry Shukman — poet, novelist, authorised Zen master in the Sanbo Zen lineage, and co-founder of The Way meditation app. His work has moved through boardrooms, retreat centres, and living rooms across the world, helping people find what lies on the other side of their suffering.
Henry's path here was anything but direct. A spontaneous awakening experience at nineteen, years of chronic illness, childhood trauma, and family rupture became not obstacles to his spiritual life — but doorways into it. His memoir, One Blade of Grass, recounts that journey with unflinching honesty, and was named a Times Literary Supplement Book of the Year. His poetry has appeared in the New Yorker and the London Review of Books.
But what we really wanted to talk to Henry about in this conversation is something simpler and harder than any of that. What does it mean to stay genuinely open in a world that seems to be doing everything it can to close us down?

426 Jan Owen: The Hidden Power of Informal Systems in Social Impact and Community Resilience

In this episode, Jan Owen reflects on her journey - from setting up illegal drop-in centres in Brisbane to pioneering Australia's first lived experience advocacy organisations. She unpacks how philanthropy evolved from government funding to innovative impact investing, revealing surprising shifts in funding models that continue to influence social change. You'll discover why informal community networks are as vital today as ever, and how the modern reliance on formal systems can sometimes undermine the profound power of grassroots care.Jan is an esteemed social innovator with decades of experience in impact advocacy, policy reform, and community-led movements. Her pioneering work with Create Foundation and her leadership in shaping Australia's social impact landscape make her insights invaluable for navigating today’s complex challenges.Perfect for social impact leaders, educators, policymakers, and anyone committed to making a difference, this episode will inspire you to see systemic change as a collective journey, grounded in community, trust, and the unstoppable power of human adaptability. 

425 Josh Ross: Why Refusing a Hedge Fund Partnership Led to a Purposeful $20 Million Impact

To premiere Season 2 of the Humans of Purpose Podcast, Mel sits down with Josh Ross from Humanitix. Josh Ross walked away from a hedge fund partnership at 26, turned down a lucrative career, and co-founded one of Australia's most radical companies with his best friend. Humanitix is an online event ticketing platform with one extraordinary difference: 100% of profits from booking fees go directly to charity. Not some. All of it. To date, they've donated over $20 million to education programs, health initiatives, environmental causes and indigenous affairs around the world.
In this conversation, Mel sits down with Josh to talk about what it actually takes to leave behind a version of success the whole world recognises — and build something the world genuinely needs. They explore the pact Josh made with his co-founder on a hiking trip in Sri Lanka that changed the direction of both their lives, what it means to challenge the conventional wisdom that business and social good can't coexist, and why the most powerful lever for change might just be the booking fee on your next event ticket.
This one is for anyone who has ever felt the pull of a more purposeful life and wondered whether it was actually possible.

424 Rachel Ball: Economic Justice, Collective Action, and Changing the System

My guest this week is Rachel Ball, CEO of the Reichstein Foundation, where she works at the forefront of social, economic, and environmental justice through collaborative philanthropy and systems-level change.
Rachel’s path into this work was shaped early. Growing up in Sydney in a family grounded in education, and later experiencing global inequality firsthand during a Rotary exchange in Brazil, she developed a deep commitment to justice and collective action. Those early experiences, combined with a strong community of peers engaged in activism continue to shape her leadership today.
In this episode of Humans of Purpose, we explore what it takes to create meaningful change in a complex and often fragmented world.
We discuss:
key themes from the Progress social change conference, including the need for unity across differences
why economic justice is foundational to solving broader social challenges
how philanthropy can move beyond grant-making to align investment with purpose
and the role of tax reform as a powerful (and often overlooked) lever for fairness and redistribution
Rachel also shares insights into the Reichstein Foundation’s approach, from funding long-term advocacy work to supporting First Nations-led organisations and treaty processes, and rethinking how over $50 billion in philanthropic capital can be used to drive systemic change.
This conversation is a thoughtful reflection on power, responsibility, and what it means to build an economy that works for people, not just markets.
It’s also a reminder that lasting change doesn’t happen overnight. It requires persistence, collaboration, and a willingness to work together, even when it feels uncomfortable.
🔗 Explore more from Rachel’s work here:https://reichsteinfoundation.org.au/
 

423 Amanda Cahill: Building a Fair and Rapid Transition to the Next Economy

My guest this week is Amanda Cahill, CEO of The Next Economy, where she works with regional communities across Australia to support a rapid, responsible, and fair transition away from fossil fuels.
Amanda has spent more than 15 years working at the intersection of community, climate, and economic development. Her work focuses on helping regions navigate complex change, ensuring that as industries shift, people and communities are not left behind.
Her commitment to this work is deeply personal. Growing up in regional Queensland, and later experiencing poverty firsthand during a Rotary exchange in Brazil, shaped her lifelong focus on justice, equity, and creating systems that allow everyone to thrive.
In this episode of Humans of Purpose, we explore what it really takes to transition toward a new kind of economy, one that is both sustainable and fair.
We discuss:
the tension between speed and fairness in the energy transition
what a “just transition” looks like in practice for workers and communities
how regional communities are leading the way in designing future-focused solutions
and why local, community-owned initiatives from renewable energy to food systems are key to long-term resilience
Amanda also shares a broader vision for “the economy we could have”, one where access to essentials like housing, food, education, and healthcare is not determined by circumstance, but treated as a foundation for a thriving society.
This is a thoughtful and grounded conversation about systems change, leadership, and the role of community in shaping a more equitable future.
🔗 Explore more from Amanda’s work here:https://nexteconomy.com.au/
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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.
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422 Melanie Greblo & Bella Borello: Purpose, Storytelling, and the End of Impact Washing

This week Melanie Greblo and Colleague Bella Borello,
Two purpose-driven leaders at Humans of Purpose, working at the intersection of storytelling, marketing, and social impact.
In this episode, Melanie and Bella step into a different format, a shared conversation rather than a traditional interview exploring what it really means for organisations to communicate purpose in a way that is honest, credible, and impactful.
Best known for their work supporting purpose-led organisations, they unpack how storytelling can move beyond polished messaging to something far more meaningful: the creation of community.
In this episode of Humans of Purpose, we explore:
what truly changes when organisations implement effective storytelling
how to distinguish real impact from “impact washing”, and why the “so what” question matters
what makes purpose in business lived and credible, rather than performative
and how brands can build trust by embracing honesty, tension, and imperfection in their stories.
The conversation also looks ahead to the future of storytelling in an AI-driven world, where content is becoming increasingly abundant, and authenticity may become the most valuable currency of all.
Melanie and Bella reflect on a potential shift away from traditional social platforms toward more human, connected ways of sharing stories from in-person spaces to deeper, more meaningful conversations.
This is a thoughtful and reflective episode for leaders, marketers, and purpose-driven organisations looking to build connection, credibility, and community in a rapidly changing landscape.
🔗 Explore more from Humans of Purpose here:https://www.humansofpurpose.com/
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.
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.
 
 

421 Charlie Syme: Marketing for Good and Building Brands That Actually Matter

My guest this week is Charlie Syme — a marketing strategist, founder of Pigface Marketing, and chair of the Common Ground Project, working at the intersection of marketing, creativity, and social impact.
Charlie’s work is grounded in a simple but powerful idea: marketing should be a force for good. Through Pigface Marketing, they partner with purpose-driven organisations, B Corps, and social enterprises to help them connect with the right audiences through authentic storytelling and clear strategy.
Charlie is also deeply involved in the Common Ground Project — a regenerative farming social enterprise that grows, cooks, and shares food while creating pathways into hospitality for migrant women and building connection within the community.
In this episode of Humans of Purpose, we explore what marketing looks like when it’s driven by purpose rather than growth for growth’s sake. Charlie challenges the idea of perpetual growth and instead advocates for finding your audience, building relationships, and using storytelling as a genuine tool for connection.
We also discuss:
why authenticity and conviction are essential in a content-saturated world
how leaders can build trust and cut through by standing for something specific
why CEOs should prioritise their personal profile and thought leadership
and how the concept of stakeholder primacy — central to the B Corp movement — is reshaping the role of business in society.
This is a thoughtful and practical conversation about how organisations can move beyond traditional CSR models and build deeper, more meaningful connections with the communities they serve.
🔗 Explore more from Charlie’s work here:https://www.pigface.au/
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.
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 feedRemoval of all three ads per episodeEarly access to all episodesFull transcripts of all episodesBrokered intros to all podcast guestsAsk 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.

420 Meghal Shah: Venture Philanthropy and Scaling Solutions to Global Poverty

My guest this week is Meghal Shah — CEO of Action on Poverty, an Australian international development organisation focused on tackling global poverty through innovative, scalable solutions.
Meghal brings an unusual perspective to the social sector. Originally trained as a chartered accountant, he began his career in the corporate world at PwC and Commonwealth Bank before making a bold pivot into purpose-driven work. His hypothesis was simple but powerful: the non-profit sector often struggles to scale impact because it lacks the commercial thinking needed to build sustainable funding models.
That belief led Meghal to take a major risk early in his social sector career, stepping in as interim CEO of a struggling disability services organisation during the rollout of the National Disability Insurance Scheme. By focusing on financial sustainability and strategic growth, he helped turn the organisation around and secure an acquisition that expanded the entity by 150%.
Today at Action on Poverty, Meghal applies venture capital principles to global development challenges through a model known as venture philanthropy,  identifying high-potential solutions, supporting them through stages of growth, and ultimately helping them become self-sustaining systems that continue delivering impact long after philanthropic funding ends.
In this episode of Humans of Purpose, we explore:
Meghal’s journey from corporate finance to international development
why commerciality is essential for lasting social impact
how venture philanthropy helps scale solutions to global poverty
and the powerful stories behind initiatives tackling issues from clubfoot treatment in Bangladesh to dengue prevention through the World Mosquito Program.
This conversation is a thoughtful look at how bold ideas, strategic funding, and local leadership can come together to create solutions that don’t just help people today but transform systems for the future.
🔗 Explore more from Meghal’s work here:https://actiononpoverty.org/
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.
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 feedRemoval of all three ads per episodeEarly access to all episodesFull transcripts of all episodesBrokered intros to all podcast guestsAsk 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.

419 Bruce Maynard: Regenerative Agriculture and No-Kill Cropping

My guest this week is Bruce Maynard — a leading voice in regenerative agriculture and landscape restoration in Australia, known for pushing beyond “doing less harm” and into farming systems that actively rebuild nature while still producing food.Bruce shares how his journey into regenerative practice wasn’t just an idealistic shift, it was forged through pressure. In the late 1980s, severe economic hardship and changing seasonal reliability made one thing clear: conventional farming often drives further displacement of natural systems, and it’s farmers (and communities) who carry the cost.Best known for his work on regenerative grazing, animal behaviour, and the controversial innovation of no-kill cropping  producing broadacre grains in grassland without external chemical inputs, Bruce makes the case that the future of agriculture depends on creative, practical pathways that deliver results across a triple bottom line: social, environmental, and business outcomes.In this episode of Humans of Purpose, we explore:
what “regenerative” really means (and how it’s evolved from conservation and sustainability)
why progress can’t be measured by economics alone
how animal distribution shapes landscape health and what happens when animals choose where they spend time
the human side of farming: wellbeing, leadership, and staying connected to country
why no-kill cropping challenges everything we think we know about growing grain
and what a “desirable and plentiful” future could look like if we stop treating nature and productivity as an either/or.
 
🔗 Explore more from Bruce’s work here:https://soilsforlife.org.au/no-kill-cropping-restoring-grasslands/
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.
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 feedRemoval of all three ads per episodeEarly access to all episodesFull transcripts of all episodesBrokered intros to all podcast guestsAsk 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.
 

418 Paul Lacaze and Jane Tiller: The Future of Preventive DNA Screening

My guests this week are Professor Paul Lacaze and Jane Tiller - two leading voices shaping the future of public health genetics in Australia.
Professor Lacaze is a Professor of Genetics and part of the team behind DNA Screen, a major initiative exploring how preventive DNA testing could help identify people at high genetic risk of cancer and heart disease while they’re still young and healthy. Jane Tiller is a lawyer and genetic counsellor with deep expertise in the policy and ethical frameworks needed to make genomic screening safe, trusted, and accessible at scale.
Best known for their work on the DNA Screen pilot study, Paul and Jane are helping drive a shift from reactive healthcare, where genetic testing often happens after disease appears to anticipatory healthcare that uses genetics as a preventive screening tool, alongside existing public health programs like mammograms and bowel cancer screening.
In this episode of Humans of Purpose, we explore what preventive DNA screening could mean for Australia, including:
what the DNA Screen pilot found (including the number of young adults carrying high-risk, actionable genetic variants)
why early screening gives people time to make informed decisions about surveillance, prevention, and family planning
what “actionable” genes really means (and why lifestyle changes alone can’t remove certain risks
the importance of protecting Australians from genetic discrimination
and why data governance, privacy, transparency and participant choice are essential if a program like this is to earn public trust.
Tune in to hear how Paul and Jane are working to mainstream genomic risk management into the health system and what it could take to move from pilot to national scale.
🔗 Explore more from Paul and Jane’s work here:https://dnascreen.monash.edu/our-team.html
 
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 
 
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.