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The launch and rise of TinyBeans with co-founder SJ Kurtini

Women on Boards - Leaders and Directors in Conversation

Release Date: 04/27/2020

Woman of Honour: Board recruitment specialist Bernadette Uzelac AM show art Woman of Honour: Board recruitment specialist Bernadette Uzelac AM

Women on Boards - Leaders and Directors in Conversation

‘If the door is closed, climb through the window’. That’s the message from board recruitment specialist and director, Bernadette Uzelac, who has been made a member of the Order of Australia (AM), for significant service to the community of the Barwon Southwest region in Victoria. Growing up in Geelong, Bernadette was married with a baby and selling Mary Kay products by the time she was 18. Three years later she had completed a commerce degree and welcomed her second child. By the 1980s, driven by a hunger to put her own stamp on something, Bernadette started her own recruitment business...

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Julie Adams OAM: Dad’s legacy brightens future for cancer patients show art Julie Adams OAM: Dad’s legacy brightens future for cancer patients

Women on Boards - Leaders and Directors in Conversation

Warning: This podcast discusses suicide A curious child who grew up with an older brother, Julie Adams OAM started challenging gender stereotypes at an early age. “I felt empowered to speak up if I thought I was being treated differently because I was a girl,” said Julie. It was this curiosity, she says, that led to her success as an entrepreneur as the co-founder of Chemo@home -  which offers cancer patients the convenience and flexibility of receiving treatment in the comfort of their own home - and in 2024 being awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) for service to...

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Avril Henry AM - Levelling the playing field - Women of Honour Series show art Avril Henry AM - Levelling the playing field - Women of Honour Series

Women on Boards - Leaders and Directors in Conversation

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Architect Helen Lochhead AO - Building a career with purpose - Women on Honour series show art Architect Helen Lochhead AO - Building a career with purpose - Women on Honour series

Women on Boards - Leaders and Directors in Conversation

Make every day count. That’s the advice from architect and urbanist , who was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) in the 2024 Australia Day Honours for distinguished service to architecture and urban design, to building regulation reform, to tertiary education, and to professional organisations.   A graduate of both the University of Sydney and Columbia University in New York, Helen is a woman who has certainly made every day count. A recipient of many prestigious travel scholarships and Fellowships including Fulbright, Bogliasco and the Harvard Lincoln/Loeb...

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Georgina Gubbins OAM, ‘The accidental farmer’ - Women of Honour Series show art Georgina Gubbins OAM, ‘The accidental farmer’ - Women of Honour Series

Women on Boards - Leaders and Directors in Conversation

In this Women on Boards Honours series, WOB Executive Director talks to the 12 WOB members who were recognised in the 2024 Australia Day Honours. In this episode Claire speaks to Warrnambool cattle and sheep producer and founding member and chair of , , who was awarded an OAM for service to primary industry, and to the community. As she tells Claire “I wouldn't probably be sitting here having received this award if it hadn't been for Women on Boards!.” Georgina started her career as a nurse then moved to Victoria’s Western District in the mid-90s to help on the family farm with husband....

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Professor Ngaire Elwood AM, Beating the Odds - Women of Honour Series show art Professor Ngaire Elwood AM, Beating the Odds - Women of Honour Series

Women on Boards - Leaders and Directors in Conversation

Associate Professor Ngaire Elwood AM is driven by a strong sense of purpose that grew out of a life-changing experience that inspired her, as an inquisitive science-loving teenager, to dedicate her life to improving therapies for kids with cancer.  As a teenager, she was treated for osteosarcoma, a common form of bone cancer that had a survival rate of about five per cent prior to the advent of chemotherapy. After her bone cancer diagnosis, her treatment involved an above-knee amputation, followed by 18 months of high-dose chemotherapy. Even with this ‘aggressive therapy’ the survival...

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Emerita Professor Lesley Hitchens AM - Women of Honour Series show art Emerita Professor Lesley Hitchens AM - Women of Honour Series

Women on Boards - Leaders and Directors in Conversation

In this first episode of the new Women on Boards Honours Podcast Series - featuring the 12 WOB members recognised in the 2024 Australia Day Honours - WOB co-founder and Executive Director, , chats with . Lesley was made a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) for significant service to tertiary education, and to the law. This is only the second year that the majority of honours were awarded to women since the national system formally began on 14 February 1975 – nearly 50 years ago. Lesley had a long and distinguished legal career, starting in Sydney at Allens before she headed overseas...

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Claire Braund in conversation with Lisa Carlin - Transformational change and the importance of community show art Claire Braund in conversation with Lisa Carlin - Transformational change and the importance of community

Women on Boards - Leaders and Directors in Conversation

Growing up in South Africa Lisa Carlin experienced apartheid in its truest form.  “I just felt this complete sense of unfairness of it all, and that's really carried with me today” she says.  Through this she has become extremely passionate about transformation to give a voice to those who don’t have one. Lisa is the cofounder and CEO of global advisory FutureBuilders Group and author of . Her portfolio includes mentoring founders and CEOs in the HRTech, EdTech and workplace talent sector, she is on the Advisory board for Rebelliuz and Chair of the University of Cape Town...

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Optus blame game: Do we treat male and female CEOs the same? show art Optus blame game: Do we treat male and female CEOs the same?

Women on Boards - Leaders and Directors in Conversation

Is there less of a tolerance for failure for women at the top than there is for men? In the wake of former Optus CEO’s Kelly Bayer Rosmarin’s resignation from the telco following a nationwide outage that took down phone and internet services for 14 hours, Women on Boards Executive Director Claire Braund spoke with ABC Canberra Radio’s  about the blame culture around CEOs following a crisis and asks, do we treat our male and female CEOs differently? Find out more about  Visit our   Women on Boards Follow us on 

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Claire Braund in conversation with Tom Elliot on 3AW show art Claire Braund in conversation with Tom Elliot on 3AW

Women on Boards - Leaders and Directors in Conversation

Claire Braund spoke to 3AW Drive Host, Tom Elliot on 23 Sept 2023 about a decision by HESTA that they will vote against select director re-elections of ASX300 companies where the board has less than 30 per cent of female representation. Claire says HESTA and other investment firms are taking a stance on “merit”, “We like to think of merit as something objective … but it’s actually defined by culture, values and expectations … which means only some parts of merit are to do with how hard one works,” she told Tom Elliott. Read HESTA's four key expectations for ASX300 companies in...

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Sarah-Jane “S-J” Kurtini and Stephen O'Young founded  Tinybeans in 2012.  After moving to Australia with her husband and small daughter, SJ built a reputation as a savvy social media strategist while taking on part time work that she could do while her daughter was napping.  This led to an introduction to Stephen O’Young.

Stephen had the idea for TinyBeans as he sought to track his second son's developmental milestones. Finding that no one would take him seriously as an Asian male trying to launch an App for children, he was looking for a female business partner with marketing expertise. He outlined his concept to SJ, who was sold on the idea after a 30-minute meeting. And the rest they say is history.

Hear how Stephen and SJ built TinyBeans to have more than three million users, 100+ million memories, App of the Day three times, AND how they learned about governance, drew straws to be on the board, flipped the board and listed on the ASX. 

SJ gives a warts and all account of the eight year journey, which saw her move from Australia to New York (which she says was an amazing experience for her family) and now back to Australia's Central Coast, where she is now taking  step back and having a six month sabbatical as she ponders her next project.