Limitless Adventure: Leisa Bacon

"I actually really like feeling uncomfortable."

Leisa has never quite known what comfortable feels like. She lives in shades of uncomfortable, and she's built a life and a career around seeing how far she can push herself.

Leisa is CMO at QUT, the university she studied at, after a decade as Audience Director at the ABC and earlier years at P&G and Coca-Cola. She was ranked Australia's #1 CMO in 2020. She's also climbed Kilimanjaro, paddled the Hawkesbury for 100 kilometres, and trekked Nepal just months after breaking her tibia.

We start with her superpower, limitless adventure, and why the bigger the challenge, the better the planning needs to be.

We get into the launch of Mother at Coca-Cola, a product that flopped so badly she thought her career was over. She takes us through the war room, the tank and the relaunch that turned it into a success within six months.

She tells me about her friend Jo, whose final wish was simply for Leisa to have a good life, and how that wish has shaped every career decision since.

And we land on leadership: the bosses who showed her what good looks like, and something she realises out loud for the first time on this mic. She's still doing the work when she wants to be leading it.

This one stayed with me because of one line Leisa left me with: this is a special time. Whether we're in the hard bits or the good bits, we so rarely stop to notice.

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