Empowering Leaders

This week’s guest is Jess Bala, the former Managing Director of General Motors Australia and New Zealand.

In this deeply personal episode, Jess opens up about the devastating loss of her brother, beloved sports journalist Sam Landsberger. She shares how Sam’s passing has impacted her family, and shaped the way she approaches leadership, vulnerability and the relationship between work and life.

Jess tells us about her unwavering passion for the Western Bulldogs, and the special way football connected her family, and continues to today. She reflects on building a global career with GM, her...

This week, Luke Darcy sits down with one of Australia’s most respected investigative journalists and two-time Gold Walkley Award winner, Hedley Thomas.

For over four decades, Hedley has been pursuing stories that matter, with a career that has taken him from the fall of the Berlin Wall, to the groundbreaking investigation into the disappearance of Lynette Dawson in The Teacher’s Pet podcast.

In this episode, you’ll hear about the experiences that shaped Hedley’s career, including the influence of his parents on both his storytelling style, and commitment to facts and detail. He refle...

What does it take to build a winning culture, and then sustain it at the highest level?

In this special live episode of Empowering Leaders, we sit down with NFL legend and San Francisco 49ers General Manager John Lynch during the team’s historic visit to Melbourne.

John shares the lessons behind his extraordinary journey; from struggling to establish himself as an NFL player, to helping transform the 49ers into a consistent championship contender. He reveals why culture starts with the people you surround yourself with, how the 49ers assess the character and “spirit” of potent...

For best-selling author, life coach and sociologist Dr. Martha Beck, living a successful and meaningful life isn't found in status or other people's expectations. It's found by discovering your own truth, and having the courage to live it.

In this episode of Empowering Leaders, Martha explores why so many highly successful people often feel empty, how social and cultural expectations can pull us away from who we really are, and why small "one degree turns" can help us move towards a more authentic life.

She shares deeply personal stories from her own journey, including the...

Chris Judd is one of the most decorated players in AFL history, but his second chapter is proving to be equally as compelling as his first.

In this conversation, Chris discusses his transition from elite sport to the world of finance and investing, and the attributes and lessons he has carried across both careers. From the discipline required to think differently and stay calm under pressure, to why great leaders are the most important factor when investing in a business, you’ll hear the mindset behind Chris’s approach to success.

He also shares how he g...

Nick Truelson's career has taken him from a university work experience placement at Cadbury Schweppes, to senior leadership roles at some of Australia's most iconic sporting organisations. He has played integral roles at the AFL’s Essendon and Western Bulldogs football clubs, and now, he serves as CEO of the NBL’s Melbourne United basketball team.

During his time as CCO of the Western Bulldogs, Nick played a pivotal role in the development of the Sons of the West Men’s Health Program, using the power of sport and community to support the health and wellbeing of men in...

Ben Cousins and Scott Miller have both experienced the extraordinary highs that come with sporting greatness. However, behind the wins and accolades, they were both fighting personal battles that would eventually play out on a very public stage.

In this conversation, Ben and Scott open up about their experiences with finding (and losing) their identity through sport, the terrifying spiral into addiction, and the role that prison played in forcing the change they both needed to recover.

Ultimately, this conversation is one that looks at the most important leadership of all - self-leadership, and the...

Dr Lucy Hone has spent her career researching resilience, wellbeing and human flourishing. But when her 12-year-old daughter Abi was tragically killed in a car accident, the science she had dedicated her life to suddenly became deeply personal.

In this profoundly moving conversation, Lucy shares the lessons she has learned from both decades of research and her own experience of grief. She speaks about why adversity is an unavoidable part of life, how we can become active participants in our own recovery, and the practical habits that help us navigate both death and the "living losses" that...

Tom Allen has spent more than 15 years at the highest level of professional football, including leadership roles at Aston Villa and Arsenal FC, where he helped shape one of the Premier League's most admired high-performance environments.

Tom shares the leadership principles that transformed Arsenal from a club in turmoil, into Premier League champions under Mikel Arteta. You’ll hear some of the creatively brilliant strategies used to deliver messages with lasting impact, and the importance of curiosity, connection and clarity in creating a club where culture, not tactics, are their biggest competitive advantage.

This episode ex...

Former professional footballer and Socceroo Bruce Djite knows what it takes to perform at the highest level on the field, but his most impressive achievement may be what came AFTER football.

After retiring from a sporting career that saw him play across five countries, including representing Australia on the world stage, Bruce made the successful transition from elite sport into executive leadership.

In this conversation, Bruce shares the mindset that made that transition possible, and the leadership lessons he's carried from the football pitch into the boardroom, where he now serves as Executive Director of...

For more than two decades, Chris Lendrum has been immersed in the world of elite sport. A significant period of that time was spent leading the systems, culture and people behind one of the world's most successful high-performance sporting organisations, New Zealand Rugby, where he worked with the All Blacks, Black Ferns and the Olympic gold medal-winning sevens teams.

In this episode of Empowering Leaders, Chris shares the leadership principles that have driven sustained success at the highest level of world sport. From building trust through connection and creating teams that thrive under pressure, to making difficult...

As an intensive care paramedic, Sally Gould has spent over 15 years on the front lines of emergency medicine, witnessing both the chaos of life-and-death situations and the quiet resilience that defines her profession.

In this episode of Empowering Leaders, Sally reveals how she stays calm in high-pressure situations, the role humour and humanity play in managing trauma, and why empathy is one of the most important skills in a crisis.

She also shares her thoughts on why building trust through great leadership, camaraderie and emotional support isn’t just advised - it’s critical.

Wh...

What happens to our relationships when the most available, most responsive, most patient listener in our lives is an AI?

Bryony Cole has been sitting with that question longer than almost anyone. As the founder of the Future of Sex platform, she stepped into one of the most uncomfortable conversations a person could choose to have, more than a decade ago, and never looked back. What started as a curiosity about technology and sexuality has expanded into something far broader: a serious, global reckoning with what intimacy, loneliness, and human connection look like in an increasingly digital...

There's a moment in this conversation where Matt Wadewitz describes getting a phone call at 3am. He'd saved the name in his phone just in case - because he'd hoped it was coming. The voice on the other end had a beautiful Spanish accent. It was Mikel Arteta.

That call is a good entry point into who Matt is and what he's built. Because Aleda Connect - the global leadership program he co-founded with Luke - didn't find Mikel Arteta through a cold pitch or a clever marketing strategy. It found him the same way it's found...

Brad Johnson holds the Western Bulldogs games record - 364 games. 558 goals, six All Australian selections, a Hall of Fame inductee. He is, by any measure, one of the greats of his generation.

This is a beautiful conversation with a genuinely extraordinary person that still trains like he's trying to earn his spot - he drove an hour to be first at the track the morning this conversation was recorded. He's genuinely, almost inexplicably, one of the happiest people you'll ever come across - and, according to Luke, has been that way since he was seventeen years old.<...

Timmy Bristow was nine years old when he ruptured his pancreas playing footy at recess, crawled to the tap, and waited alone in a dark staffroom until his mum finished her shift. By the time she arrived he was blue. A few hours later he was on an ambulance plane to the Royal Children's Hospital in Melbourne with a thirty percent chance of surviving surgery. 

While Timmy was in hospital, of the young AFL players who showed up on the ward to help cheer up the young patient was… Luke Darcy. But in that moment - neither of...

When Lexi Edmondson walked down to Bondi Beach to celebrate finishing her master's degree, she had no idea her life was about to change forever. What began as a summer evening by the water for hundreds of people became one of Australia's most devastating acts of violence - and Lexi ran towards it.

In her most in-depth interview since the December attack, Lexi sits down with Luke Darcy to take us inside the night itself. She talks about the chaos, the moment her training kicked in, and about how the iconic Bondi community responded in the aftermath...

Harry Moffitt spent decades inside one of the world's most demanding institutions - Australia's Special Air Service Regiment. He's served in conflict zones across the Middle East including Afghanistan, lost friends, mentored some of the country's most elite operators, and now works as a corporate psychologist helping leaders, athletes, and organisations perform under pressure. He's also the author of Eleven Bats and The Fourth Pillar, a book about a pillar he believes most high performance programs are missing entirely.

In this conversation on Empowering Leaders, Luke and Harry explore what it means to train the whole human...

What separates the leaders and athletes who perform under pressure from those who crack? According to Dr Phil Hopley, it comes down to one overlooked discipline: daily recovery.

Phil is a consultant psychiatrist and one of the world's leading experts in mental performance. Through Cognacity - the specialist psychology organisation he leads - Phil has worked inside elite sport, global boardrooms and high-performance teams across Premier League football, Formula One, rugby and Olympic sport. His organisation was the appointed specialist team for the London Olympics and Paralympics.

In this conversation with Luke Darcy, Phil unpacks...

Alisa Camplin is one of Australia's most decorated and driven high performance leaders - an Olympic gold medallist in aerial skiing, Australia's first female winter Olympic gold medallist, and most recently, the first woman to lead an Australian Winter Olympic team as Chef de Mission at the 2026 Milano Cortina Games.

Alisa shares so many of the mental frameworks that powered her greatest performances - and how those same skills carried her through the unimaginable loss of her son Finnan, who passed away after just 10 days following open heart surgery. Together with her husband, she channelled that grief...

The AFL dream ended in tears at 20. A decade later, he was lifting the World Test Championship. Alex Carey's journey to becoming one of Australian cricket's most trusted performers is one of the sporting world’s great second-act stories.

A talented junior who played both codes at a high level, Alex took a chance on AFL and moved to Sydney as one of the GWS Giants' foundation players - only to be let go with barely 24 hours' notice. Back in Adelaide, he drifted through a football pre-season and a stint in finance before a quiet conversation with th...

Jakara Anthony is Australia's most successful Winter Olympian…ever. A two-time Olympic gold medallist in mogul skiing, she's the first Australian to defend an Olympic title, doing it on the world stage against competitors from countries where skiing is practically a birthright. 

And she's 27.

In this conversation with Luke Darcy, Jakara pulls back the curtain on what being that successful actually takes. 

Recorded live at Adelaide Oval in front of a packed Aleda Connect audience during one of the most talked-about weekends in Australian sport, South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas sits down with Luke Darcy for a rich and candid conversation.

In this episode, he reflects on:

If your team wins, who gets the credit… and what does your answer say about the culture you're building?

​​Ian McKeown has spent more than two decades at the cutting edge of elite sport…  from the AFL to the NHL's Philadelphia Flyers, and back to Australia as General Manager of Performance at the Adelaide Crows. 

He holds a PhD in strength and conditioning, has published extensively on ecological dynamics and applied sports science, and is widely regarded as one of the most sophisticated performance architects in global sport. But spend five minutes with him and what strik...

What separates a good wine from a truly world-class one? 

According to Adam Wadewitz, it comes down to balance, finesse… and a relentless commitment to the vineyard.

Adam is the Chief Winemaker and Joint CEO at Shaw + Smith, one of Australia's most iconic cool-climate wineries, and one of the most decorated winemakers of his generation. In this episode, he takes us from the footy fields of Willunga in South Australia to the vineyards of Europe… sharing what drove him to the top of his craft, how great teams are built, and why he believes Australian Grena...

Last week, our guest Luke Tunnecliffe told the story of his son Jack… eight and a half years old, non-verbal and autistic… and the search that brought his family to a clinic in Lake Charles, Louisiana.

This week, our guest is the doctor who runs that clinic.

Dr Kyle Daigle is a clinician, author and global thought leader in functional neurology. From his clinic in Louisiana, which attracts families and athletes from over 78 countries, Kyle is doing what many doctors said couldn't be done. He's helping non-verbal children find their voice, uncovering the hidden connections betw...

Luke Darcy sits down with Luke Tunnecliffe - a man who has spent most of his career behind the scenes shaping the biggest moments in Australian sport and media.

From walking into Collingwood at 17 to decades in the Triple M Footy chair and building JamTV alongside Eddie McGuire, Luke is a steady hand. A connector. A storyteller.

He’s been in rooms with Usain Bolt. Backstage with John Farnham. In Shane Warne’s man cave while Ed Sheeran played DJ.

But this conversation isn’t really about any of that.

It’s about...

What does it actually take to perform at the highest level - not just once, but across a career?

Luke Darcy sits down with Cate Campbell, four-time Olympic gold medallist and one of the most respected voices in Australian sport. Cate doesn't just talk about the wins. She reflects on the dream she and her sister Bronte cooked up as children in Malawi, the surreal experience of becoming an Olympian at 16, and what it meant to carry the Australian flag at Tokyo. But she also goes somewhere far more honest - into the parts of elite sport...

Are we paying enough attention to our young men? Do we know how to raise healthy, confident young men in the world we live in?

Luke Darcy sits down with Scott Galloway, professor at NYU Stern, entrepreneur, bestselling author and host of the wildly successful Prof G and Pivot podcasts.

In this conversation on Empowering Leaders, Luke and Scott explore the pressures facing young men right now and why the path to adulthood seems harder than it once was. Scott reflects on the role his mother played in shaping his life, why learning to handle...

Recorded live overlooking the 18th at LIV Golf Adelaide 2026, Luke sits down with Scott O’Neil, CEO of one of the most talked about organisations in global sport.

Scott has led at the highest levels of the NBA, NFL and NHL, and now finds himself as CEO of LIV Golf, guiding a competition that has challenged golf’s traditions while attracting a new generation to the game.

In this conversation, he reflects on disruption and humility, the balance between innovation and respect for history, and why free agency matters in modern sport. He shares the phil...

What does it really take to build a championship organisation in one of the most competitive leagues in the world?

On this episode of Empowering Leaders, Luke sits down with Jon Horst, General Manager of the Milwaukee Bucks and one of the most respected executives in the NBA.

From starting as an intern to becoming the youngest GM in the league, Jon shares the mindset that shaped his rise - and the leadership principles that helped deliver an NBA championship and sustained excellence.

He reflects on building a team around Giannis Antetokounmpo, what...

What’s it like to be part of a small, trusted leadership group?

Inside Aleda Connect, leaders from more than 20 countries come together each month in small groups to learn, reflect and collaborate.

In this episode of Empowering Leaders, Luke Darcy shares the voices of ten leaders who are part of the Aleda Connect Global Leadership Program. From elite sport to global business, from diplomacy to AI, they offer honest reflections on what it means to step into a trusted leadership community.

You’ll hear from Adam Driussi, Dan Rutstein, Emma Hayes, Jeremy Kodom...

When you listen to leaders long enough, certain names keep coming up.

In this Success Leaves Clues episode of Empowering Leaders, Luke asks a simple question: who has been the greatest leader in your life? The answers are intimate and often unexpected. A television director who kept a young host’s ego in check. A boss who held a job open throughout chemotherapy. A father with “magic dust.” A partner who quietly led the family while the world watched the cricket. A wife building programs for kids with neurodiversity. A dad who could walk with kings and keep t...

Sometimes the best leadership wisdom fits on a Post-it note.

In this Success Leaves Clues episode of Empowering Leaders, Luke asks his guests for the one piece of advice they keep returning to. The answers range from the disarmingly simple to the deeply strategic. “Wake up each day and don’t be a wanker.” Keep the team at the centre but honour the individual. Keep dreaming and prepare for your chance. Catch people doing things right. Coach the way you’d want someone to coach your own kids. Lean into authenticity, even when it costs you. Say yes to l...

True collaboration is not just getting along. It is committing to a mission together.

In this episode of the Empowering Leaders Success Leaves Clues, Luke talks with people who have lived collaboration in very different ways. Peter Rea explores character, growth and post-traumatic growth. Mikel Arteta reflects on a simple object, a football, and how it can change a life and even a country. Adam Driussi explains why his most important business relationship feels like a marriage. Paul Barnes talks about clarity and communication under race pressure. Dixie Marshall shares what happens when creatives, strategists and data...

Everyone says communication is important. But how do you master it?

In this episode of the Empowering Leaders Success Leaves Clues, Luke brings together people who think deeply about how words land. Dan Rutstein talks about the power of three. Julian Treasure shares why listening is a radical act. Steve Kerr explains why he sometimes writes letters instead of speeches. Michael Cheika leans into honest conflict. Yasmin Poole walks toward hard truths. Suzanne Eyler Williams reminds us to say less and hear more. And Gilbert Enoka talks about the internal shift that needs to happen before any e...

Some leaders feel the pressure to have all the answers. The most interesting ones stay curious instead.

In this Success Leaves Clues episode of Empowering Leaders, Luke sits with people who’ve built entire careers on asking better questions. From future-of-work expert Dr Ben Hamer to AI advisor Dr Ayesha Khanna, cave diver Craig Challen, Paralympic champion Curtis McGrath, artist Vincent Fantauzzo and coach Lorena Bernal, they all talk about staying open, not finished.

They share how curiosity makes you more agile, more humble and more collaborative, whether you’re trying to save lives, win gold...

In leadership, everyone talks about high performance. Fewer people talk honestly about what it actually costs.

In this Success Leaves Clues episode of Empowering Leaders, Luke brings together a powerful mix of coaches, athletes and leaders who all start in the same place: self leadership. From the NFL to elite netball, from politics to BMX gold, they talk about managing energy, filling your own cup, and knowing who you are before you try to lead anyone else.

You’ll hear about meditation, vitamins and morning routines, but also about boundaries, honesty and the strange balance be...

This special episode of Empowering Leaders brings together some of the world’s most forward-thinking voices to explore one of the biggest shifts of our time: artificial intelligence.

Across dozens of conversations on the show, we’ve been asking leaders how they’re navigating this moment. Their answers are honest, energising, sometimes confronting... and full of clues about what great leadership will require next.

You’ll hear from Andy Walshe, Adam Driussi, Dr Ben Hamer, Tyson Ballard, Brad Harrison, Julian Treasure, Dr Ayesha Khanna, Jeremy Kodomichalos and Dan Rutstein - each offering a unique perspective on what...

On this episode of Empowering Leaders, Luke Darcy sits down with one of the greatest figures in world hockey, dual Olympic gold medallist and champion coach Alyson Annan.

Alyson reflects on her journey from superstar player to leading the Dutch and now Chinese women’s national teams, and why she never once thought of herself as “the best in the world” - even though she was! She shares the deceptively simple goals that drove her playing career, and how curiosity has become the secret to sustaining performance over decades.

Luke and Alyson explore what high-performance sport...