The Uprising

The Uprising, the newsletter for the Ready to Rise Community delivers bold insights, real-world strategies, and empowering leadership lessons for ambitious professionals scaling their impact. Curated by Cathie Reid, it features practical tools, candid stories, and reflections from global events - all designed to help you grow, lead, and rise into your next level with clarity and confidence.

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I've spent more of this year outside my own time zone than in it, Munich for a Salesforce summit, Paris and Rome in the same fortnight, and long stretches in London for a consultancy project. Somewhere in the middle of all that, I noticed something shift that had nothing to do with jet lag. Being...

Sep 07, 2026 intentionality leadership perspective

The Number You Hope No-one Asks You About

I’ve sat around enough boardroom tables to know there’s a particular moment when you find out whether someone is really across their business. They can talk confidently about strategy, growth and market position. Then someone asks a relatively straightforward question. What’s the actual margin on...

Aug 31, 2026 leadership numbers scalability

Build to Leave, Even If You Never Do

Last week I wrote about the business that's outgrown the word startup but is still calling itself one, because keeping the label means nobody has to build the systems that should have existed years ago. If you dropped the label this week, there's a harder question sitting right behind it, could y...

Aug 20, 2026 exit strategy leadership scalability

Are You Scaling or Just Spinning?

On this month's Ready to Rise webinar, someone told a story that's stuck with me since about a business that they had encountered that was twelve years old but was still being introduced as a startup. Not as a throwaway line, but as how that business explained away the fact that there's no real p...

Aug 12, 2026 leadership scalability scale up start up

Personal Scalability - My Long Haul Travel Playbook

I’ve spent a lot of time on long-haul flights over the past year courtesy of a consultancy project, and one of the questions I’m asked most often is how I manage jet lag, productivity and the inevitable exhaustion that comes with crossing multiple time zones. The interesting thing is that the str...

Aug 05, 2026 leadership scalability travel

The Speech That Wasn't About Us

Last Thursday night, Stuart and I were inducted into the Queensland Business Leaders Hall of Fame, at a black tie dinner at the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre. Six new inductees, individuals and businesses, walked across that stage, joining a list of Queensland leaders the Hall of Fame...

Jul 30, 2026 founder life leadership qblhof queensland business hall of fame

The Power of Removing Friction

I've always been fascinated by businesses that remove friction. Whether it's healthcare, technology or hospitality, the organisations that consistently stand out are usually the ones that make life simpler for their customers. Last week I experienced one of the best examples I've seen - and it ha...

Jul 22, 2026 customer experience friction

The Thread That Doesn't Break

At a time when Stuart and I have been reflecting on the life of a wonderful man who played a pivotal role in shaping our business, I've also had the great fortune of spending the past week in Paris and then in Rome, where Dior and Fendi offered a timely reminder of why it matters to keep those th...

Jul 16, 2026 culture founders impact leadership values

Inherited Code

Last week I wrote about my dad, about turning 57 the same year he died, and about how much of the way I lead was set long before I ever ran anything. I ended on a question I didn’t answer: what impact have your parents, or whoever raised you, had on how you lead, and is it still influencing the w...

Jul 08, 2026 inherited code leadership values

The Habits We Never Chose

June 30th is the end of the financial year in Australia. It's also my dad's birthday. No lesson this week, no framework, no worksheet. Just a reflection, because some things don't fit into five key principles, no matter how hard I try. In the frenzy that always accompanies EOFY, no matter how pre...

Jul 01, 2026 habits influence leadership legacy

When Planets Collide

I went to Munich this week for Salesforce's Industry Summit, and when I arrived at the welcome reception I did a genuine double-take at the venue: the European Southern Observatory. For anyone who's been following along here for a while, you'll know that was already a gift. Then the evening got b...

Jun 26, 2026 leadership overview effect perspective space virgin galactic women in stem

The Ones Who Quietly Wreck the Place

Last week I wrote about the cost of the decisions we keep avoiding. This week I want to drill into one specific scenario that comes up more than almost any other when I talk to founders and leaders. The team member who is quietly undermining your values. Not dramatically. Not in ways that create ...

Jun 17, 2026 culture leadership values

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The Uprising

The Uprising, the newsletter for the Ready to Rise Community delivers bold insights, real-world strategies, and empowering leadership lessons for ambitious professionals scaling their impact. Curated by Cathie Reid, it features practical tools, candid stories, and reflections from global events - all designed to help you grow, lead, and rise into your next level with clarity and confidence.

The Uprising

The Uprising

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