This Way Forward
This Way Forward
Podcast Description
This Way Forward is a high-energy podcast where strategy gets real. In just 10 minutes, a C-suite leader walks us through one bold strategic bet: the moment they took the risk, why it wasn’t obvious, what made it hard, and how it changed the game.
Hosted by Charlie Newark-French, CEO at Cascade, each episode is a window into the minds of the people steering companies through uncertainty, complexity, and transformation. No fluff. No jargon. Just raw, strategic decision-making at the highest level.
For leaders who want to learn from the sharpest minds in business, this is the way forward.
Podcast Insights
Content Themes
The podcast focuses on themes of strategic decision-making and leadership with specific topics including risk management, company transformation, and market competition. Episodes feature real-life examples, such as how Lime's CEO Wayne Ting made a pivotal decision to keep hardware in-house, emphasizing the importance of product control in achieving profitability.
This Way Forward is a high-energy podcast where strategy gets real. In just 10 minutes, a C-suite leader walks us through one bold strategic bet: the moment they took the risk, why it wasn’t obvious, what made it hard, and how it changed the game.
Hosted by Charlie Newark-French, CEO at Cascade, each episode is a window into the minds of the people steering companies through uncertainty, complexity, and transformation. No fluff. No jargon. Just raw, strategic decision-making at the highest level.
For leaders who want to learn from the sharpest minds in business, this is the way forward.
Welcome to This Way Forward, the podcast where C-suite leaders unpack the bold strategic bets that changed everything.
In this episode, Charlie Newark-French sits down with Elaine Zhuang, General Manager of Strategy, Transformation, and Value Delivery at nbn, Australia’s National Broadband Network. She unpacks a pivotal moment from earlier in her career where a single boardroom challenge not only transformed a struggling hotel chain but also earned her a promotion to the Executive Committee, making her the youngest in the group’s history.
The bold strategic bet
Juna Hotels was a struggling state-owned group, losing ground to global giants. Its growth plan was to keep building expensive, capital-intensive hotels with a dismal 3% ROI. As a junior observer in the boardroom, Elaine saw the flawed model and made an unprecedented bet: challenge the chairman and abandon ownership.
Her vision was a radical “three-way partnership”—uniting developers (to build), an international brand (for marketing), and Juna (for management). It was a career-defining risk that nearly got her kicked out of the room. But that single bet created an asset-light model that doubled the company’s portfolio and beat international incumbents at their own game.
In this episode:
Why building new hotels was a losing strategy (and the 3% ROI that proved it)
The three-party partnership model that outsmarted global giants
The boardroom challenge that led to a history-making promotion
What to do when you see a gap and need to step in to fill it
Why “scale does not require you to own everything”
👉 Subscribe to catch new episodes each month. Every conversation is under 15 minutes and laser-focused on one transformational decision that shaped the future of a company.
Disclaimer
This podcast’s information is provided for general reference and was obtained from publicly accessible sources. The Podcast Collaborative neither produces nor verifies the content, accuracy, or suitability of this podcast. Views and opinions belong solely to the podcast creators and guests.
For a complete disclaimer, please see our Full Disclaimer on the archive page. The Podcast Collaborative bears no responsibility for the podcast’s themes, language, or overall content. Listener discretion is advised. Read our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy for more details.