In this episode of Inside the Collective, Brad Amos sits down with Serene Lee, founder of Eneres Collective and a partner at The Carrot Collective, who has spent nearly three decades building commercial partnerships across Asia Pacific.

Serene talks about the listening rule she learned early and still repeats to herself before every meeting, why she turns down brands that want a quick sale, and the deal that came with an offer of under-the-table money big enough to make her year. She unpacks what people get wrong when they treat Asia Pacific as one market, what fourteen years at Forbes Asia and a commercial leadership role at VICE Media taught her about relevance, and why leaving corporate media to run her own business meant working harder, not less. She also explains why she refers work away to people better placed to do it, and how that tends to come back.

A conversation about listening as a commercial skill, and what it costs to hold your line.

Inside the Collective is a podcast from The Carrot Collective, exploring the thinking behind how people work.

In this episode of Inside the Collective, Brad Amos sits down with Sam Ward, founder of Playmaker Creative Club and producer of three Olympic Games, who has spent 15 years building brand experiences at the intersection of sport, fashion and culture.

They talk about why Sam believes an idea should be simple enough for his nan to understand and his CMO to sign off, the moments brands get culture badly wrong because the right people weren't in the room, and why he thinks pressure produces the best work rather than something to be protected from.

Sam also opens up about his PTSD diagnosis and how it shapes how he performs under stress, and shares the hardest client conversation of his career.

A conversation about keeping an idea, and yourself, intact under pressure.

Inside the Collective is a podcast from The Carrot Collective, exploring the thinking behind how people work.