Listen to Our Podcasts on Spotify and Apple:
Meet Michael Smith
Michael Smith has chaired some of Western Australia’s most recognised organisations, from 7-Eleven and Starbucks Australia, to the West Coast Eagles and the Perth International Arts Festival, and yet the thread running through his career is not ambition but curiosity.
Drawing on decades of strategy consulting, market research and boardroom experience, Michael unpacks how he reads organisational culture before he reads a balance sheet, why companies must be governed as complex systems rather than complicated machines, and what it truly means to lead through crisis.
Michael’s perspective is grounded in servant leadership and the quiet power of asking the right question rather than offering the ready answer. Whether navigating hostile takeovers, wage scandals or elite sport, he measures success not by the decisions made in the ‘throne room’, but by what gets heard walking in the ‘village’.
