The Future is Brighte - Katherine McConnell, CEO and Founder, Brighte [S5.E2]

I'm at Cowan and this is scaling up. It's really simple to be laser focused when you're small, but as you get bigger, I think that the focus is the biggest risk that you have to address, and you need people in the business that can call you out on it. So, I think it just comes down to great, people choosing some people as well, that have that experience that have been through that scale up Journey.

This podcast aims to educate and Inspire by telling the stories of great growth companies As Told by their CEOs. And Founders TDM is an Australian based investment firm that invests globally in fast-growing public, and private companies for more insights visit our website TDM growth

partners.com. Catherine McConnell, the founder and CEO of bright is my guest today on scaling up, bright is revolutionizing how Australians are financing and decentralizing, sustainable energy solutions in their homes. A former Macquarie banker and mother of two Catherine, initially mortgage, the family home to go after the opportunity of becoming the leading Consumer Finance business in the space,

and that she has bright has now. Financed 10% of the solar installations in Australia and processed over Billion dollars of applications across 90 thousand homes. Recently having secured a hundred million dollar, funding round, brightest driven deeper into the value chain, becoming an energy retailer. This is a far-reaching conversation from the business itself being at the Forefront of sustainable investing. In Australia to the scaling.

Challenges of remote onboarding at scale, bright is a beacon on so many fronts as to what is possible as one of Australia's fastest-growing private companies. Here at TDM, were always trying to create content relevant for Founders leadership teams and investors alike. And since our last podcast series, you may have missed some of this including Harry moots. Look at why the title acquisition by square makes perfect sense. Despite at first glance and audio streaming platform being

bought by a payments business. Not feeling the most natural of fits the best place to find. All our TDM content is on our website or across our social channels. The links are in the show notes and as always, you can get in touch with me. On Twitter at Eddie Cowan.

I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Kathryn McConnell. Catherine, welcome to scaling up. I must admit I have wanted to have you on this show for a couple of Seasons now, but thankfully, finally have managed to track you down. I would love as a great place to start. To learn more about you, your own green Journey, your personal background and your reason for why. When it came to founding bright and great to be here, great, to be able to finally have this chat.

So, I've been on this journey since And so it's six years now that I've been the founder and CEO at bright. And so before being the founder and CEO at this Gala, I had a really long career in investment banking at Macquarie bank. So I was there, 14 years in total also had worked in the government Treasury and Department of Finance. And so never had aspirations to be an entrepreneur and you know, never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined that?

I'd be where I am today. The background that I had in Investment Banking, particularly at Macquarie Bank I gave me a really strong understanding of risk structuring credit products and particularly the area that I was in. I had really great insights into customer problems and customer friction points. And so, it was there that it was really a testing ground for me to be able to develop some

different products. Be able to get some feedback on the ground and it was there that I personally got involved in solar and batteries. So, in 2010 at home, we got solar in 2015, we got our first battery. So we were there. You know, very, very early

adopters for home batteries. And so at that point, I guess by 2015, it was a combination of you know, deep technical understanding of the energy industry, the energy financing industry and problems on the ground combined with just personal interest in solar personal interest in batteries. And just the understanding of their financial sustainability that can provide, you know, when you get that feel home.

And so, I left because I saw that, the current products on the market weren't capable of solving the friction, and the problems that Existed. And I was a big believer in the future of batteries and I thought if they weren't solving the problems of solar today, you know, batteries were never going to be taken up. And so I left because I thought that with my background and my personal interest that I could could solve these problems. And the first problem I wanted

to solve was The Upfront cost. And so, if you could remove The Upfront cost for people that wanted to make their home, sustainable and wanting to get solar removing that upfront cost and spreading those Repayments over time, enabled that customer to be able to align the repayments With the Energy

savings. They be making from solar and so it was pretty much a no-brainer, it was just, you know, economically made sense and then it had all of these other environmental and sustainable benefits. And so, for me, it just made sense. And I've been really lucky that I was able to build the business that solved that initial challenge that customers had in accessing a sustainable home. Well, dig into bright. I'm going to stick with this founding story for the moment, like so many. Founders.

It feels as though you saw the problem initially from the consumer lens and there was a problem to be solved for the consumer. And then your domain expertise around financing got plugged into what became evidently an obsession around. Solving this did you feel like a repressed entrepreneur in many ways at any stage, nothing smells like a vanilla corporate job. Like Macquarie Bank in Australia. There must have been something deep inside.

That said, I want to break free. No, I never did Lemonade's those never never had side businesses. I was actually really happy taking home a paycheck and a bonus once a year. I thought it was, you know, a lot of financial stability. There was a lot of prestige Associated working there. And for me, you know, I would have been really happy to have risen up those ranks to be honest. And so it's quite interesting when I reflect on like, how I left, why I left like, what was that trigger?

That's the most intriguing part still? When I look back. It doesn't all make sense. It's why I left and I know I have the raisins and I know why I say I did it, but it's quite a powerful thing. I guess that happened. That gave me the confidence to leave. It was their thread of personal values, amongst that was there something just wanting to do

something better for the world. I had a strong belief that the benefits of solar were real and Battery opportunity and uptake was going to be huge and I felt, I guess that at that time it was a A fringe issue and then absolute need for this type of product, wasn't a priority and the absolute need for why it needed to be available at the point-of-sale, like just wasn't understood and the risk was saying, but the opportunity was

insane. And so all of those things I guess, made me frustrated, and it made me frustrated because the benefit to the customer was just so real. That the opportunity ahead was so big and I just couldn't couldn't do my day job anymore because I just couldn't see past that opportunity. And pass that problem. Sorry that was really the impetus for why I made the move in Australia and ultimately the world will be grateful for that. Let's dig into the business. Correct me if I'm wrong but act

14 bright. Let's say the first four or five years as you are starting to scale up was about this Consumer Finance piece for solar and batteries buy now pay later products for, not only those but also Home Improvements of which you've think Finance, maybe one in 10 new residential solar installations in. Australia, which is incredible and now Australia leads the world in rooftop solar penetration and you've been at the Forefront of that act to it.

Seems from the outside is not just about financing the assets. It's about becoming a retailer. And also helping the customers realize revenue from their solar and batteries. And so this sort of Jen tailing is going to create a huge

opportunity. The question is massive Market when you were sitting down thinking about bright and what Could become was it always the plan or has it just evolved that you really saw that the value chain was broken and needed fixing I'm absolutely fascinated by how the business plan in a sense has evolved over time actually found my first pitch that I did when I was trying to raise seed investment and so I've gone back and challenge myself, you know, because

sometimes I think you can lose Clarity along the way, but I found it and the big story was bright. Believes in the battery opportunity and brights, being created to enable the acceleration and the uptake of batteries. And so, what I believed in was that opportunity in the benefits that customers could get from, not just generating your own energy but storing that energy, just that storage of the energy that everyone.

Believed in Zola everyone believed, you know, in 2010 there was a solar boom and everyone knew that you can create your own energy but what was missing was like storing that energy so you could save that power When the Sun Goes Down, And you can power your own home and not just generate your own energy during the day, but use it during the night. And so that's what I wanted to unlock. And when I started the business, I thought Finance would unlock

everything. So I thought the biggest barrier was just The Upfront cost. Absolutely was for solar 3 million homes. We passed a milestone in Australia, this week, 3, million homes have solar, but 110,000 homes, have batteries in 2021. And so, you know, when I look back at 2015, I at 2020 would be the year would be in a battery. Boom. And it's not happening.

And so, when I reflect on, you know, the problem I was all-in when I set up the business, the problem I was solving was I wanted people to get batteries and I want to remove the friction that stop people from getting batteries and to do that, I set up capabilities to remove The Upfront price, which was financed. And so I thought Finance would solve everything and I guess the realization is last year.

Finance isn't unlocking batteries and so as we dig deeper to look at why I guess the biggest reason that I say is that solar has a revenue stream that's packaged into that purchase. And so you get revenue from government STC, certificates up front set off against the out front price. You can also earn a revenue stream via a feed-in tariff, which is earned over time, and

that's packaged in there. You know, with high confidence in that ongoing Revenue stream, that batteries don't have that. And so there's a problem there that we need to solve around how we can help our customers. I have power shift to their home and make sure it's fair that they earn the revenue stream that batteries can generate. And so that's the part that we need to unlock and also just that Simplicity around how we can just make it such a simple experience for customers.

When they buy that battery, that they can truly power their home, they can generate, they can store and all of their energy needs, all of the revenue, they can generate. I just packaged up seamlessly for that home. Love how you're thinking about it and just to kind of dig into the business model a little Bit more and the key competitive advantages of it and the opportunities.

As you see them, you keep calling out this frictionless customer experience because ultimately you are a consumer brand and so I'm really Keen to understand how you're thinking about building a consumer brand and that's obviously the tip of the iceberg and below. It is this really powerful business model both on the consumer side and the funding side. So let's kind of walk through that but maybe to start with how you're thinking about building a

brand For bright. That was a probably a realization last year to be honest. And so when I started the business, I started the business by solving the customers problems through the distribution channel. So, developing a network of Partners around the country. So we've got about two and a half thousand companies that work with us and with their team, there's about seven or eight thousand people here on the ground who can use bright to unlock their customers sales and

Ambitions to access solar. So that was Like what we focused on in the first phase of our growth, building up that channel. And so, it was only last year that we realized we hadn't really thought about brand awareness. I think last year I'd had prior to the start of last year I had spent 300,000 dollars in marketing and had one and a half people in the marketing team. And so part of our series see was to bring in the team, to develop the brand to identify what that brand was going to be

in the value proposition. And we just a couple of weeks ago, launched the new logo the brand. And we've got some TV ads coming on next week, ads on radio. So we now have our plan and we're starting to roll that out. It's a testament to how great a customer experience. It is to think that six years in is the first real time that you've had to do any kind of above the line advertising that, that speaks volumes to the product Market fit.

And you called out part of this frictionless experience is this Marketplace of Supply being the installers and obviously the demand coming The consumers. So not only are you trying to scale Consumer Finance company? But there's this Marketplace element but that, of course provides a wonderful Network effect. Once it starts flowing, it does you often have the Chicken and the Egg problem? Effectively, what do you build first?

What do you grow first? Do you go first with brand so then you can attract the partners you know or do you go first with partners and and so that's something that I've definitely been conscious or and I chose the former to go first. However Are you need brand awareness to help those Partners at the point of sale? You know, when they're saying how about bright? And so you have to co-invest in both sides and both sides, add weight to each other.

So the more direct relationships we have with customers. What we do is we're able to provide qualified leads to our vendors. That helps them increase their sales and I was speaking to one of the vendors a couple of weeks ago and he was saying he's getting so many qualified leads through bright that he's stopped his Google and Facebook ads because he can't actually service all of them. That he's getting through now. And so that's that's where we

want to land. That's a great example, that just that benefit that you can provide to both sides, both of our customer bases and then how that can create network effects effectively, and be this continuous cycle that effectively supports and feeds, both consumers, and also Partners who operate in that space.

Of course, the more supplies you have or Partners as your calling and the more utility for the consumers and also gives you more permission I guess to I add greater features and you know that creates more utility and all of a sudden that flywheel can really start spinning quickly and it feels as though. That's probably where you're almost at at this point in time, things are really getting going for bright. I guess the only other thing I want to call out on the business

model front. We've kind of touched on this consumer side. There has to be some secret sauce on the financing side and that I'd call that the back end, the less sexy stuff, but ultimately the solar or the Home Improvements, or the batteries need to be financed. This is where your domain expertise. Probably shines. Can you talk through the secret sauce of the financing? Peace, Fulbright. Yeah, absolutely. It's like the iceberg.

What's underneath is so much bigger than what presents on the surface. And from day one, I knew that in order to have a compelling proposition for consumers for our customers, that we had to have a pathway to having very cost-effective capital. And so we also had to To effectively own the criteria around who we can lend to and then how we manage those customers. So, we effectively had to build our own debt warehouse and we have to have a pathway to public debt markets.

And so, right from day one, when I was Raising Equity, I was also raising debt. And so when I did my first seed round, I was also concurrently raising my first 10 million dollar debt warehouse. And so it was only, you know, so really three three to four years of being in the market. We did our first 190 million Issuance. And it's very complex. It's very expensive to be able to put the structures in place to enable that from day one.

And you know, I can do a whole session on this round, what you need to put up. But yeah, it's very expensive and it's more complex actually than the equity and then thinking through how you set up the procedures behind that. So effectively when people give you money to be able to put in these debt warehouses, they want to have the confidence that the policies that you have will be executed and so consistently.

How we write our owned, how we, you know, create credit, how we service those customers who are in our portfolio. When people are late in paying do we follow our policies around how we're going to collect that fun. And then, can we keep our number of customers who are paying late or aren't paying within the, the forecast that we've committed to? And so there's a lot of complexity there as an additional two regulations that you have to follow and so that in itself is a Minefield.

But, you know, I think we're doing a great job. Evidenced by the fact. This year, we got a Triple-A rating in a green bond which shows it's really high. Quality credit, you know, the underlying portfolio. Absolutely. I think one thing to call out that is Australia's first, 100% green, asset-backed, securitized Bond. So not just making it easy for the consumers, but on the financing side, you're really breaking new ground. Absolutely.

And so, what that does is initially when I started, I was using Equity, the McDonald family home loan, Maybe it was dead, but so I was using equity and to be able to fund that's not a scalable solution. Catherine, it's not. And then I, when I raised Equity, I was using equity and so, you know, it's fantastic to be able to access this step that's scalable. It's cost-effective.

And then it means that the equity that I have, I can use in other areas of the business so I can use to be able to look at data and Automation and product creation. It's just not sustainable having a business where you have a high cost of funds to be able to fund your, you know, loan, And created a lot of freedom and opportunity. Now, to be able to use that Equity to scale other parts of the business. It seems to me that this is really where the competitive Advantage is driven home for

your business. Do you think that from a debt financing point of view that in fact you are at the Forefront of maybe the greatest Tailwind of Our Generation that is green investing. I think there was a statistic in The Economist the other day that investors have poured more than 500 billion dollars this year alone into energy Position. And that's sort of shorthand for decarbonizing. Everything from energy to transport, you name it.

It must feel as though the wind is in your sales when it comes to the financing peace. Yeah, I remember when I started I thought 2020 onwards. The towel wins would be there and I think that's why I left the urgency was there that he just had to see this in 2015 or you're going to miss the window of opportunity that I thought would come from 2020 and Beyond. And so, the opportunity comes on many fronts.

It's not just with our customers who Wanting to be empowered and owning their own power, you know, they wanting to be power generators. So it's not just with our customers. It is also with people who want exposure to this underlying asset class so they have ESG requirements as companies. They may also have requirements that are pushed on them as fart of government. The cop 26 or Net Zero targets and then you will.

So, you know, we're really lucky because our employees particularly Millennials and gen said they also want to Work for companies with purpose and and they need this and they want this. So you've got Tailwinds on so many fronts. We've got a war on Talent. We can actually hire the best people because they can work. In businesses that are have exposure to sustainability.

We can actually support people corporates who want to invest in this type of asset class by creating a machine that can continue to deliver this type of debt opportunity and Underneath It, All were solving customers problems and creating, you know, greater affordability and sustainability for them. So it's this. Triple threat and overnight success story. Everything always is, you're listening to scaling up with Ed coward, a podcast. Brought to you by TDM growth Partners.

Visit the website TDM growth Partners.com or for interesting insights and commentary. Follow us on Twitter at TDM underscore growth. We'll come back to the the hiring piece because I do want to carve out some time, specifically from that. But while on the business model, are there any other scaling challenges you want to call out that I've kind of missed around, you know, the Consumer Finance piece or the marketplace piece, or the energy piece.

But what have been the really big challenges that you've had to face as a founder and as a business over the last five or six years. So some of the challenges have been around automation, the underlying customer demographic that we're Dealing with and also how we've approached the market. It's been via third parties so we weren't physically present at that point of sale. There's a lot of risk there that you're exposed to and as you scale.

It's not you know you know exposed to hundreds of millions of dollars over this type of risk. And so that's been something we've absolutely focused on as we scale and I think it's a super power of our business but also the automation is really interesting because a lot of the demographics of the homeowners that we deal with, they don't trust you. No, sir. Where you have to do, bang, verification. They don't trust giving their password away to their bank

account to someone. And so, you know, you do have a lot of customers who want to interact with you and their preferences are. I think they've been accelerated through covid. Getting more comfortable with digital, but it's been something that we've had to navigate and we asked or navigating around Automation and just how to make it easy and a great experience that streamlined and scalable given the underlying demographics and sales environment. So, you know, I think there's

been something we have. And we are getting better and better at to be able to do this on an even bigger. Scale, you know, along the way that's created different problems and you don't want to pile on people, you want to, you know, create automation but then how you kind of balance this along the way when you are in this this type of growth, that's a good call out particularly around trying to scale the

technology. It's something that I certainly hadn't touched on and maybe we can touch on it in the hiring peace. Let's change gears a little bit to the scaling of the people and culture of this is Probably the biggest scaling pain point for most Founders, particularly ones that are going through hyper-growth like yourself. Let's start with your own leadership. Scaling Journey may be what the company vision for the culture was and how those values of the business came about.

Yeah, as I've reflected along the way, a lot of my values at bright have been formed by how I have or have not been treated prior to starting bright in the last 11 years, I've always worked in a team that had only males. You know, Mauser great. But, you know, the only thing on the team and I went through two pregnancies to maternity leaves, I needed flexibility, after I came back and it was really a different world than it is today.

You know, I got promoted once in 11 years once in 11 years. And so it was quite frustrating because, you know, I had exactly the same skill sets, then as I do today, and it's just always amazing for me to say I'm doing today. What I did then and won promotion. And so I always think about fairness, you know, I always think about fairness as I watched colleague.

Eggs, get promoted. And I felt a lot of anger, you know, I saw my husband working and then he also would have loved to have had more time with our kids and not to have had to have made the choice about has to fall on one person or both carried by both. And I also saw her along the way that, you know, there was a period where he was able to take some time off and be that primary care and how much happiness it gave him and the kids.

And so I think values that bright has are based on values and experiences that I've had to date. And so we have value I brought it together. How we're stronger together, we're stronger as a team. The individual doesn't win. So you know that's a really big one. We have one called the ball. It's around High performing teams. It's also around how you act when you have to drop the ball.

So you may have to drop the ball because you've got some personal commitments that you're a high performer, but you've got some things and you just you have to leave because you've got these things on and you're in the middle of something and it's how we support each other, you know, through life up and down and life is personal. It's not just work and I think

it's creating an inclusive. Eve, and really genuine environment where you can have a life outside of work and you can still be a really high performer. Awesome. Yeah, brought really has become a beacon in this and is attracting great people because of it, I think. And again, correct me if I'm wrong that over half your leadership, team is female.

So that's playing out in part of your previous experience and this inclusion piece, you only need to read through the the reviews online, as to how you're scaling this culture, what about your own role? How that's changed over the last five years, as a Founder then, more of a, you're still the founder, but more of a CEO and leader of people how that Evolution and how you've dealt with that. Because as it sounds, you weren't a leader of many at Macquarie. Yeah, I agree.

I think at the end I had one person that was reporting into me. So you've got hungry. Never let anyone I think in that first stage of growth year and doer and then as you scale you know you start to build teams and I you know, so I try to never micromanage and the reason why I Wouldn't try to do that is because I just don't have the skills that these people have that are coming on.

Like I acknowledge that. And so, I think the leadership Journey for me, I've been the most aware of this over the last few years, as I'm bringing on just amazing talent into the company. And they look up to me for advice or direction. And, you know, you do have moments where you question your own ability to be able to give that to them. When you look back at your own experience and go, well, I'm not qualified. You know, should I have done something to have been qualified

to be able to support? Them in the way they need. And so, you know, I think it's a really interesting challenge for Founders who find themselves that the CEO of Staff, with 200 500, 1000 people and tens of millions or hundreds of millions of Revenue that they're generating. And so it's absolutely. You need to be a fast learner at every single step of the way in every single part of your role.

And I've been lucky to have had some people along the way that I can reach out to who've been through the same process, you know, with my own team. I learn a lot from them every single day but just thinking through, you know, what is leadership? What is the job of a CEO? And what does that mean? I need to provide the company and just the people who report to me really practically. It's something that I think through and read a lot on because I want to be great at this job.

So yeah you're going to have to be to achieve the ambition and you will on that journey. Is there one thing that comes to mind that you are very focused on in terms of scaling, your own leadership capability. I've started probably reaching out Formerly. Now, so we're going through a process in the company. We've engaged a company called

culture equation. And so, going through exec team, coaching individual coaching to be able to just have someone that you can speak to you, to be able to challenge you and to be able to talk through common pitfalls of downfalls that leaders or CEOs you know have had in the past and to be able to you know work through. Are they blind spots for you? So I think that's been interesting that something I've never done before. I'm finding that useful, you

know? And the only other thing I think everyone has an individual style and so my style has been. I haven't wanted, you know, formal mentors, or formal coaches. And I prefer to just reach that ad hoc, as I have a specific need, but I think that you just have to work out there, what best suits you you called out earlier around the advantage of being this purpose native

company. When it comes to hiring this younger generation, that is Certainly very focused on the time they spend and how they're going to spend it being aligned to their own personal values. What are the some of the mechanics of hiring people? In this sort of purpose? Native, driven mindset, is there anything that you'd like to call

out? I think, at the start it's easy because I could be involved in interviewing processes or your personal brand could be quite convincing or, you know, you could personally influence hiring. But when you're hiring, you know, So 50 plus people a month, you personally can't have that impact as a founder.

And so the way you can do that is through your mission, your purpose, and your values and making sure they're clearly understood, making sure they lived by everyone in the company and making sure that, you know, external in people know what they are. And so they become, you know, they become your scaling engine or your scaling machine effectively. And that's what we really work

through in the last year. I think it's really easy to say, you know, we've got these things and I can remember them and they're written. On the walls that, you know, we've been through a process where you know, we've challenged them within the business by starting to do a lot of work on what it's like when they're not lived really starting to think through feedback and how we get much better at candid feedback and calling out when they're not lived.

And so I think that mission purpose and values, how you can scale the bleep, I hire amazing people and be able to attract people that really want that purpose, that genuine purpose. That's lived in the business, you called out just the hiring velocity that's going on. On 50 or so in the last month. That's insane to think that's happened.

Remotely, and so coming out of covid, is there any advice that you have for other businesses that are hiring, you know, their systems and processes would have changed dramatically from the face-to-face nature to hiring a velocity under the pressure of having to do it remotely and also the policies around, you know what, this new age of work looks like now I've been really fortunate to have brought in an Chief people officer Kristin

Hunter and I think it's really important to look at, you know, who's in charge of that part of your business and make sure you've got an amazing person. You know, you may have just focused in other areas of the business that drove growth or revenue or marketing, but, you know, every part of the business, you've got to have great talent. And then we, now, think about it.

Also, as people operations, not just people and culture and you think about scaling the operations, you know, in marketing or customer service, or, you know, credit, but people operations is where you have to think about, you know, Options as well. And so it's how you scale onboarding and it's how you scale time to competency.

So how quickly can you actually get people, you know, ready and effective to be able to do their job because that enables you to be quicker to be able to support your customers and create

revenues. So I think just a lot of the top of the funnel kind of metrics that you think about for customers, you've actually got to apply to your own people and really focus on those metrics and in the same way you would Revenue growth, that's a great call out and something very actionable for many of the founders. The listening. What about maintaining the cultures that have developed much of which face-to-face all

of a sudden? He finding that there's been a shift, considering the amount of people that are being on board remote, or is it been an effect on the organizational structure? And, and that has had a flow down, I'm curious because it is something that is real for every business and you're experiencing it at hyper growth and firsthand. So I'm sure you have some insights here. Well, it's funny. It's all because I'm not the tech native. I'm the finance, the banker

native. And so the preference from me, was always five days a week in the office and even after covid-19 0, I think I was doing, you know, four days in the office. So this time coming back, I'm one. No more than two days in the office. So, for me personally, like to huge mindset change from where, you know, where I've existed my whole life and I challenge my own views around our people being productive and home. You know, when we talk about

let's return The office. I'd really challenge my own views around. What does that mean? Why do we need it? And when we do surveys and 61 percent of our team say, they don't want to return to the office more than two days a week, you know, do you quickly jump to any conclusions or assumptions around?

Why they've said that will challenge that and so I found it a really personally growth experience and really interesting because yeah productivity is high like our, you know, we're having record-breaking days yesterday was another record-breaking day and I think there were like 30 people in the office and And so I think it's a really interesting time to be able to challenge every idea you've held around why you need to work in the office.

And then you've got to look down also to the individual level and the team level. And normally you do it at a company whole level and you make a policy and that's what everyone lives with. But now you actually having to go through at A Team level and what works best for a team, which teams prefer to work remote, which teams actually really hunger and crave that interaction, because they're

more extroverts. And then also, you know, their individual circumstances for a team, they want to work for me. But the individual doesn't have that personal infrastructure at home to enable that. So it just adds a whole element of complexity there but I think that it's the future. It's what our people want and I think we have to move quicker to enable that for them. A great answer. Just switching tack momentarily to your Equity funding Journey.

You've raised a lot of money now from some very high-profile investors, there must be this tension of wanting to grow. So fast and I'm sure you have that innate desire as well, but you are ultimately dealing in a Consumer Finance Company, amongst other things. And so this tension of scaling really quickly but also not breaking because to break creates a whole range of business risk that probably are

recoverable. So curious how that tension plays out and how you think about it as the founder. For me, it's focus and you need people in the business that can call you out on it because as you get bigger, the opportunity set of what you can do. Just grows and grows particularly when you have more capital and you just think what I could do that, I could buy that I could you know?

And so it just gets bigger and the importance of focus gets more and more important because when you're smaller and you know you just laser focused on you know build the band PL business, the solar finance and that's all you've got to do and so it's

really simple to be lazy. Because when you small but as you get bigger, I think that the focus is the biggest risk that you have to address and then being great at executing where you have a few different opportunities that you're facing and it's not their single opportunity.

So I think it just comes down to great, people choosing some people as well, that have that experience that have been through that scale-up journey and really can help you identify those common mistakes that will happen because they've seen them happen and you don't just have to go through that slow agonizing process of learning it yourself. Yeah. Tickling a business like yours,

you know, the mistakes. You don't want to have to learn yourself and a great call out to get the right people for the right stage of the journey. Some people are great startup people, some people really thrive in this scale up time Horizon and then of course they might not be the right people for you ultimately to be 100 billion dollar company, who knows. But there's no doubt in my mind that the world needs more strong and empowered female Founders

and leaders. What have been the biggest friction points for All female Founders to exist in Australia or the world. And what do you think will instigate change in this? Yeah, I think that paternity leave policy is a really, really big point. And so, I remember when I had kids, and I had a group of people girls actually, and we go walking at lunch in the botanic

gardens. And, you know, we'd all had kids, and we were back three days a week and remember, just this conversation clearly and they all just went through. Well, you know, when I think about my cost of my nanny or my child care and this and there's that just doesn't it makes sense

for me to be at work anymore. And and so my husband's going to, you know, my husband's going to work and I'm going to stay with the kids and I remember in that group, I was the only one who kept working, then it was because they had to make the choice. It was because only one person could get support with rental payments or you know the payments weren't flexible enough to be able to enable the female to be able to stay in the workplace and not feel stressed

and that juggle. That's so real, couldn't be managed. And so I just think that when I look back at my amazing female friends, some of them aren't in the workforce so they're trying to get back in, but I had, you know, 10 years of a gap and it's hard for them to convince people

that they have that skill. I think that's the biggest part of the funnel where you see females drop off females with amazing talent, you know, University degrees and 10 years of expertise and then they drop out for 10 years and so yeah, that's why I think it's harder to get female. Founders would be one reason and then I think the other reason is the capital that you need you have to be able to seed the

business. It's really hard to go and get funding on just an ID and you've got to have had some traction, some product Market fit. And so if you're trying to get a female that has had some market experience and identified, a real problem that they may be trying to get a home, they may be juggling all these expenses or you know, juggling all these different pressures and I was really lucky that I could get a million dollars also home loan but my husband had a really seen

your job. It will words, you know, I was on a fantastic package and we'd already accumulated a lot of savings through bonuses and this and that's a we had Money to be able to draw on and people don't have that usually. And so I think it's hard to get experienced female, Founders, because there are so many of these problems that I think have existed, but I think the world is changing and I think that's going to change the future fascinating inside.

Is there a Best in Class? Parental leave policy that you wish was just perhaps government policy or something that you've seen. That is inspired how you've thought about maternity leave. So, we've just introduced a policy in the last Month, that's 20 weeks. Maternity leave for anyone who's been with us in past probation. So past six months, so that's 20 weeks of leave for either parent. So if you work for us and you know, your partner had the baby, you can still take that leave.

We give four weeks additional for the birthing parent. So if you had the baby, you can take the 24 weeks off. And so I think my husband was at bright, you know, he would have been able to have taken five months off. And then he would have had flexibility over two years as to

how he took that leave as well. And I think, That he then could have supported you know, he's me and you know, given me a lot of flexibility and that could have kept me in the workforce and so I just think those paternity leave policies a huge and we actually backdated that when we introduced it. So we had quite a few dads whose Partners have had a baby in the last year and so we went to them with this amazing.

Listen, you've got some leave, you can take and the most amazing messages on slack, we're getting and with the photos. And I've even seen one of the dads changes email signature Sure to, you know, Dad and they just feel it's amazing. And that's one thing I'm really proud of actually. So you should be you're breaking the cycle for so many and it plays into my last question. That is around work-life balance. You have two kids, you're the CEO and founder of a hyper growing business.

What advice do you have of finding that balance? That is so required to be in for the marathon. That is scaling a business? Yeah, I think it's best. We just acknowledging that. That Juggle he's real and so when you're in the middle of it all like you've got a pause for a bit and say like just your juggling all these different things just have a think about what you're juggling. And then just have a think about that impact on you, the impact on your family. Someone is taking the Short

Straw out of all of this. And just make sure you're happy with who's taking the Short Straw, I think that's the thing you've got to think through because the momentum can really

take pace. And, you know, for me, it's absolutely bright that I prioritized to the detriment of other people who are really important in my life and I think, When you reflect on that, it creates guilt, you know, and I just think if you want this to be a marathon, not a Sprint, I think you have to be really mindful of who those important relationships are in your life. What you need to do to

prioritize them. And what the impact of your journey is on them and to really think through that and, you know, reflect on what you have to do to be able to support them. And so yeah, that's that advice, I'd give to be really mindful of that and to just know that it's real and know that it's going to be there for a long time and put in structures and things in place. To make it work. Awesome, Catherine. It's been an absolute pleasure to have you on the podcast.

Thank you so much for your time. I feel as though I learn a hell of a lot about you and the business. And once again, thank you so much. Thank you, thanks so much. It was fantastic.