Success and More Interesting Stuff

Manny Pohl may well be the 'father of growth investing' in Australia, but his journey began thousands of miles away as an electrical engineer in South Africa. From a chance meeting on the Gold Coast to co-founding the $17-billion-dollar powerhouse Hyperion Asset Management, Manny has spent decades proving that 'quality growth' is the ultimate winning strategy. But in a new era of rising interest rates and AI disruption, the old rules are being rewritten. In this episode, Matthew sits down with the founder of ECP Asset Management to discuss the early experiences that shaped his philosophy, the evolution of the Australian market, and why he’s doubling down on growth in an age of uncertainty.

Jillian Broadbent has worked at the heart of Australia’s financial and policy institutions for decades. She began at the Reserve Bank under Nugget Coombs, helped build Bankers Trust during deregulation, and later served three terms on the RBA board through the Asian and global financial crises. She also chaired the Clean Energy Finance Corporation from inception and served as Chancellor of the University of Wollongong. In this episode, Broadbent reflects on central banking, board life, clean energy finance and why Australia still needs meaningful economic reform.

To mark the 50th episode of Success and More Interesting Stuff, Matthew Kidman is joined by Chris Judd, Jun Bei Liu and Dr Shane Oliver for a panel discussion focused on four timely issues facing markets as we approach 2026.

From small-town Bega to the boardrooms of London and Hong Kong, Alexis George built a global career before taking on one of the toughest jobs in Australian business — rebuilding AMP. In this episode, she shares her story, the lessons she learned abroad, and how she’s reshaping AMP’s culture and strategy for the future.

Four decades into his career, Paul Moore seems to be just getting started. Two years ago, he made the bold decision to vend his business, PM Capital, into Phil King’s Regal Partners. Many thought this was an exit plan for Moore. Instead, it proved to be the tonic he needed. PM Capital has since become a growth engine inside Regal, with close to $5 billion under management and performance that continues to deliver. In this episode of Success and More Interesting Stuff, Paul shares what keeps him motivated, why he believes the only true arbitrage in markets is time, and how he is positioning portfolios in today’s unpredictable environment.

Nick Griffin’s path to fund management may have seemed preordained, his father worked in the industry, but his journey has been anything but ordinary. After completing a commerce degree, Griffin missed out on a graduate role with one of the big four accounting firms. That setback led him to the Commonwealth Bank’s investment team, where he cut his teeth before embarking on a backpacking trip that ultimately set the trajectory for his career. Landing in London, Griffin took on a role as an oil and gas analyst and soon found himself in Edinburgh, the traditional home of UK fund management. It was there he immersed himself in the world of long-term capital, working closely with some of the oldest and most respected investment houses in Europe. Eventually, Griffin returned to Australia and joined K2 Asset Management, where he ran the firm’s global fund. Then, in 2017, he co-founded Munro Partners with a clear mission, back companies set to double their earnings in five years or less by riding powerful structural tailwinds. In this episode of Success and More Interesting Stuff, Griffin shares how he built Munro from $20 million to more than $5 billion in FUM, the key signals he looks for in structural winners, and what comes next for AI, healthcare, and defence investing.

We're often told that beating the market over the long term is impossible. A lucky year or two? Maybe. But doing it for more than two decades? That’s supposed to be out of reach. Paul Taylor has defied that logic. Managing a concentrated portfolio of 30 to 50 local stocks through everything from the GFC to the COVID crash. It sounds exhausting - but he shows no signs of slowing down. In today’s turbulent market, Taylor’s perspective is more relevant than ever. In this episode of Success and More Interesting Stuff, he shares the key ingredients for long-term success, explains why failure is inevitable in stock picking, and offers his view on why the current obsession with tariffs and trade tensions will ultimately be seen as little more than short-term noise. It’s a rare opportunity to hear from one of Australia’s most consistent and enduring investors.

Australia is obsessed with interest rates like no other country, and it is distracting us from tackling more pressing challenges, like productivity, that would have a greater impact on the cost of living crisis facing many Australians. That's the view of former Reserve Bank Governor Dr. Philip Lowe, who spent 43 years working at the RBA, including 7 years in the top job from 2016 to 2023. Dr Lowe believes the current policy settings from the RBA are suitably restrictive with risks remaining and the battle to tame inflation hasn't been won. Lowering interest rates may ease some of the pain households are feeling, but it isn't the silver bullet many perceive it to be. In this episode of Success and More Interesting Stuff, Dr Lowe discusses the lessons through his RBA journey and shares his thoughts on some of the pressing economic issues of 2025.

Success and More Interesting Stuff is back in 2025 with new episodes being released on the first Tuesday of each month. We're excited for the year ahead and would love for you to subscribe to the podcast.

Bega Cheese turned 125 this year. It started as the Bega Co-operative Creamery Company in 1999, and for over a century, things were pretty quiet. That all changed in 2000 when a young dairy farmer, Barry Irvin, took the reins as chairman. From then on, it’s been a whirlwind of growth and transformation. In 2011, Irvin took Bega to the Australian stock market, and under his leadership, the company made several key acquisitions. Today, Bega isn’t just a dairy business. It’s a major player in Australian food, owning brands like Vegemite, Peanut Butter, Dare Milk, and Yo Plait. Now, Bega has a market cap of around $1.6 billion. But Barry Irvin’s story is about more than business success. He’s faced significant personal challenges too. His son, Matthew, was born with profound autism. Irvin became a key figure in Giant Steps, a nonprofit supporting children with autism. In 2019, Irvin faced his own health battle, being diagnosed with bowel cancer. Despite a tough fight, he beat the disease and returned to lead Bega once again. In this episode of the Success and More Interesting Stuff podcast, I chat with Barry Irvin about his journey, both personal and professional. It’s a story of resilience, leadership, and the determination to succeed.

Sometimes, misfortune can lead to opportunity. Wes Maas was an aspiring young rugby league player trying to establish himself in the NRL. The kid from Dubbo had boundless energy and in his spare time, he worked in an equipment hire business. A football injury not only meant he was out of action on the field, but it also took him out of the hire yard and into head office. It was here that his world opened up. The family-run business was successful. It concentrated heavily on return on total assets. Wes was quick to catch on. It wasn't long before he threw in his NRL dream and headed back to Dubbo for a fresh start. Still in his early 20s, Wes spent his savings on a bobcat and borrowed twice that amount to buy a tipper. Suddenly, he was running his own business. Never happy to rest on his laurels, Wes expanded his fleet of equipment. He was keen to diversify and soon started an equipment hire business, leaning on his knowledge from his time in Sydney. While Dubbo may seem to some to be a remote place to build an empire, Wes saw its potential. He was able to buy a quarry under the nose of an international giant. Then, his world expanded. Property development and civil works followed in 2020. Wes looked to float the business on the share market, in the hope that a capital raise would help it grow even further. Maas Group (ASX: MGH) listed and started to expand. Today, this former rugby league player runs a $1.5 billion business and he has amassed a personal fortune in the hundreds of millions of dollars. The group has assets throughout regional New South Wales, Victoria, and Queensland, with Dubbo right in the middle. Still, only in his 40s, Wes' journey has a long way to go. In this podcast, Wes takes investors through his early days as an aspiring rugby league player and the early days of running his own business - back when his family referred to him as "Neville No-Trade". He also shares some of the plans the Maas Group team has for the future, and some of the greatest moments in the journey so far. https://www.livewiremarkets.com/wires/the-former-rugby-league-player-who-now-runs-a-1-5-billion-business Timecodes: 0:00 - Intro 1:54 - Early rugby days 4:18 - Major lessons Wes took away from this time 5:12 - Overcoming injury and why everything happens for a reason 7:17 - Learning the equipment hire game on the job 9:49 - Moving home to Dubbo 11:12 - Starting his own business 17:02 - Building an achievable long-term business plan 20:27 - Scaling the business 24:09 - Expanding into building materials 29:12 - Listing on the ASX and COVID experience 34:32 - Rising rate environment and impact on Maas Group 36:34 - Importance of "steady" not "rapid" growth 38:20 - Growth plans for the future 39:16 - What happens when an acquisition doesn't work 40:12 - Importance of good people 41:17 - Areas that are exciting over the next five years 43:46 - How Wes defines success

Traditionally, on the show, we talk to people involved in some shape or form with the share market. Today, we are excitedly going off-piste and delving into the unlisted world in one of Australia's outstanding success stories. In 2008, Lina Calabria and two partners decided to start nine separate businesses as consultants. They had plenty of bright ideas and thought that creating a portfolio of companies, while unorthodox, was a low-risk path to success. Within a few years, they selected Bellroy, an accessories business that specialises in male wallets, as the pick of the bunch. From humble beginnings, Bellroy, named after combining Bell's Beach and Fitzroy, has grown into a global brand with more than $130 million in sales. Bellroy sells in dozens of countries and has created its own category called Carry. In other words, they design products you carry around, such as slim wallets, backpacks, work bags, duffel bags, totes, passport holders, and phone cases. It's niche but nicely profitable. Today, Calabria sees a great opportunity to expand Bellroy in both products and countries, and she believes doubling and possibly tripling the business is a realistic goal. Click on the player below to hear how Calabria and the team at Bellroy created their own category and navigated the trails of COVID-19 to build a business making a name on the global stage.

Richard White always wanted to be a rockstar. He was still young when it dawned upon him that it might be more profitable and realistic to become a tech titan instead. Sounds simple enough, but the journey has taken many twists and turns. Over 40 odd years, White thought life was perfect, hanging out in a rock band and rubbing shoulders with the likes of ACDC and The Angels. Unfortunately, he was going broke. A problem solver, he pivoted and thought repairing guitars for established rock stars was a way to make an interesting living. The business was a resounding success, but it wasn't perfect. It couldn't be scaled. And another salient lesson was learned. Nexy, a lighting business was built and sold, and then a stint in the computer hardware distribution game rounded out some much-needed business skills. In between ventures, White took on some consultancy work. Just by chance, some of his clients were in the freight forwarding game and White, ever alert, identified things could be done a lot better. So he got to work again and started writing software. Even though he had little practical training, he had twigged the entire freight forwarding industry needed a hand, and he took his products and started selling them more broadly. It is rare that one individual can write the software and then sell it. That was way back in the late 1980s. During the 1990s, his business became the platform for many major transport companies. Not satisfied, White decided to disrupt his own business. In the early 2000s, he rebuilt his product suite before forging into North America and Europe with a name changed to WiseTech. The company followed its customers and spread its tentacles around the globe. In 2016, White decided to list on the ASX. He thought publicly traded shares would give him the currency he needed to buy the missing bits to cement a global empire. And he was right. Close to 50 acquisitions later, WiseTech owns the space. The share price has risen a staggering 26 times from $3.35 to $90. Today WiseTech is valued at $30 billion and is the largest software company listed on the ASX. According to White, the music is still playing. And WiseTech has a few hit songs to knock out yet. Note: This podcast was recorded on Wednesday 24 April 2024. Timecodes: 0:00 - Intro 2:29 - Richard's favourite musicians 4:27 - Richard's on his enduring love for music 6:46 - The influence of Richard's upbringing on his career 11:17 - The importance of being able to put ideas into practice 13:58 - How Richard taught himself how to build hardware 16:01 - On sales (and lessons learnt from his previous businesses) 17:18 - Why cash is king 19:36 - The importance of persistence 21:59 - How Richard identified a problem he could solve in freight forwarding 26:14 - Why good sales is actually marketing 27:42 - The beginnings of WiseTech 30:38 - On the importance of education and how it helped grow WiseTech 32:46 - Taking WiseTech global 34:35 - External investment in the company and an IPO 40:16 - On signing DHL pre-IPO 41:37 - Dealing with volatility: commentary on the 2019 short attack and early COVID-19 struggles 44:45 - WiseTech has acquired 49 companies since listing 45:48 - Why people are a business's most important intellectual property 49:13 - Educating the next generation (and why "STEM" isn't working) 52:08 - The DNA of WiseTech Global today... 53:09 - ... And what could disrupt that 55:38 - Richard on his succession/retirement and legacy