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    Lunch with the AFR

    This Month

    Lorna Jane Clarkson at Sydney’s Park Hyatt.

    Activewear queen Lorna Jane on why debt is a downer

    The fitness advocate and athleisure pioneer celebrates 35 years in business this year – with no plans to stop.

    • Lauren Sams
    Terri Irwin: At 60, would she retire?

    How Terri Irwin defied pundits with debt-free success

    The wildlife warrior discusses business strategies that helped Australia Zoo navigate the shock death of her husband – and the zoo’s frontman – Steve.

    • Liam Walsh

    June

    Paul Compton.

    How this Australian banker thrived on Wall Street for 30 years

    Queenslander Paul Compton, who started a job at Jamie Dimon’s JP Morgan in 2007, knows that the industry can be a rough ride.

    • Matthew Cranston
     Tash Oakley at Ursula’s in Paddington.

    The day everything changed for Young Rich Lister Tash Oakley

    For the 33-year-old who made her millions in swimsuits and Pilates, her business was literally her body, then suddenly it simply couldn’t take it any more.

    • Lucy Dean
    Niny Borges: “I always apply myself, and I think that’s been my motto in life. Every opportunity is just work harder, and people recognise it, I guess.”

    Meet the Timorese lawyer chasing Australian wind licences for Norway

    A former refugee carried out of East Timor on her mother’s back has returned to Australia as country head of Norwegian energy giant Equinor to chase offshore wind licences.

    • Ben Potter
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    Westpac chief economist Luci Ellis having Lunch with the AFR at Regazzi in Sydney’s CBD.

    Westpac’s chief economist Luci Ellis’ sliding doors moment

    It is rare people can point to a single, pivotal, life-changing moment but two events, 30 years apart, have shaped her career.

    • Ronald Mizen

    May

    David Atkin is chief executive of the Principles for Responsible Investment, a UN-backed lobby for socially responsible investing.

    ‘Every country is worried about what’s happening in the US’

    ESG champion David Atkin runs a global organisation with 5300 signatories that manage a total of $US121 trillion – about half of global funds under management.

    • Ben Potter
    William Raduchel: “China is run by engineers. The US is run by political lawyers. If you’re on a rocket ship, you’d rather have the engineers running the rocket ship.”

    ‘China is run by engineers, US by political lawyers’: Tech pioneer’s warning

    As senior exec at AOL and Sun, William Raduchel spent 60 years at the forefront of the tech revolution - and once dated Janet Yellen. Here’s what he’s learnt.

    • Nick Bonyhady
    Beth Sanner: “If you … start influencing policy more than informing it, then it’s a slippery slope.”

    ‘We don’t know the truth’, says senior CIA officer

    Beth Sanner was Donald Trump’s daily intelligence briefer for two years. Few people know the boundaries between secrecy and democracy so well.

    • Kevin Chinnery
    International Energy Agency executive director Fatih Birol.

    The world’s wiliest climate warrior? It’s not who you think

    International Energy Agency boss Fatih Birol, a lifelong bureaucrat with roots in the oil industry, has made the net zero transition a personal mission.

    • Hans van Leeuwen
    Opera star Teddy Tahu Rhodes at Golden Boy restaurant on Adelaide’s North Terrace.

    ‘I loved’ my old accounting job – surprise confession from opera star

    Baritone Teddy Tahu Rhodes is nostalgic about his days working with spreadsheets before he quit the world of finance to fulfil his musical ambitions.

    • Simon Evans

    April

    “I always look at the bill,” says Ita Buttrose about reading Lunch with the AFR interviews.

    Why Ita Buttrose used to spy on ABC hosts’ Twitter posts

    The former ABC chairwoman has strong views on lots of topics, but social media use by journalists is a particular bugbear.

    • Sam Buckingham-Jones
    dylan alcott lunxch

    This former tennis champ is chasing unicorns and dancing pantless

    Dylan Alcott has a dizzying list of achievements from 15 tennis Grand Slams to being Australian of the Year. Now, he’s chasing start-ups and performing with Jason Donovan.

    • Updated
    • Gus McCubbing
    Patricia McKenzie initially wanted to study science because she did not want to follow her older brother into law.

    Why AGL chairman Patricia McKenzie couldn’t get a job in a law firm

    She almost didn’t take up legal studies in the first place, but didn’t expect to find job hunting so difficult.

    • Sally Patten
    Jonathan Biggins says the Wharf Review will end next year.

    How to make money being Paul Keating

    Thank god for writing royalties, says Jonathan Biggins, who reckons politics is stuck on repeat and the new puritanism is hard to poke fun at.

    • Emma Connors
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    March

    Tanya Monro: “I’d always loved maths. From a very young age I saw it as patterns and beauty.”

    Meet Australia’s version of James Bond’s Q

    After a stellar career as an academic researcher, Professor Tanya Monro now heads Canberra’s top-secret Defence Science and Technology Group.

    • Julie Hare
    Mike Vacy-Lyle

    CBA’s business bank boss explains why ‘saffers’ can be good CEOs

    Mike Vacy-Lyle says his South African upbringing has instilled a can-do attitude and the confidence to take on any competition.

    • James Eyers
    Peter Francopan

    ‘Asian countries feel their time has come’: why the West must adapt

    The best-selling historian Peter Frankopan says that the rise of Asia and rising global temperatures will force the West to rethink its future and its history.

    • Kevin Chinnery
    BlackRock global chief stategist Wei Li thinks the slump in values for energy transition stocks is a passing phase.

    Meet Wei Li, the maths nerd who became BlackRock’s chief strategist

    Wei Li’s rise from Shenzhen maths nerd to the upper echelons of the asset manager by 35 relied on an unusual strategy: making sure she was replaceable.

    • Hans van Leeuwen
    Tanya Hosch, the AFL’s general manager of Inclusion and Social Policy, at Peel St Bistro in Adelaide.

    AFL inclusion boss says Paul Keating was wrong on the Voice

    Eight years into her role, and still recovering from the amputation of her lower right leg last year, Tanya Hosch keeps pushing on in a job where there is no finish line.

    • Simon Evans