Saving Nature at Scale with African Parks’ Founder, Peter Fearnhead
What if the only way to save nature was to run it like a business?In this episode, we sit down with Peter Fearnhead, CEO and co-founder of African Parks, the organisation protecting more of Africa’s wild landscapes than any other. Under his leadership, African Parks now manages 24 national parks across 13 countries, covering over 20 million hectares - a model that proves conservation can be financially sustainable, socially empowering, and ecologically transformative.Peter shares how he’s built one of the most ambitious conservation networks on Earth - from turning near-bankrupt parks into thriving ecosystems, to uniting governments, investors, and local communities behind a single mission. Along the way, we explore why conservation may hold the key to tackling wider economic, humanitarian, and climate crises, and what true leadership looks like in some of the world’s most hostile environments.This is the story of how business strategy is saving the wild. Chapters:00:00 Introduction to High Net Purpose00:42 Meet Peter Fern: CEO of African Parks02:17 Peter's Early Life and Passion for Nature04:51 Founding African Parks and Early Challenges07:17 The Public-Private Partnership Model11:35 Conservation Strategies and Law Enforcement14:25 Community Engagement and Economic Impact18:10 Restocking Wildlife and Park Success Stories24:07 Scaling African Parks and Future Goals26:09 Competition and Collaboration in Conservation29:12 The Importance of Authenticity in Leadership30:44 Inspiring Individuals in Conservation33:16 Challenges in Selecting the Right People34:43 Managing Media and Mistakes in Conservation36:57 Complex Trade-offs in Conservation Efforts47:51 Translocation and Conservation Strategies56:00 Personal Reflections and Advice Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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How to Build Unicorns Beyond Silicon Valley with Linda Rottenberg
The next wave of billion-dollar companies aren’t being built in Silicon Valley – but everywhere else.For nearly three decades, Linda Rottenberg co-founder and CEO of Endeavor, has been at the centre of that shift. Known as “The Entrepreneur Whisperer,” she’s backed over 350 companies (64 of them unicorns), created “mafias” of founders paying it forward, and built a global movement that’s reshaping economies across 45+ countries.In this episode, recorded at Trinity College, Cambridge, Linda shares:How to scale a business while staying true to your mission.The secret underestimated multiplier behind entrepreneurship.Why the next generation of entrepreneurs will become more women dominant. What makes female founders different.The inside view on emerging frontiers and regions to watch.Linda shows how purpose-driven founders everywhere can scale big - without losing sight of their people or their values.If you want to understand how high-growth entrepreneurship is being redefined beyond Silicon Valley - and why it matters for the future of innovation - this conversation is a must-listen. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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How Compassion Rewires Your Brain with Dr. James Doty
What if compassion wasn’t just a virtue, but a science that could rewire your brain, reduce stress, and even extend your life expectancy?This conversation is one of our earliest recordings, now released for the first time, with the late Dr. James Doty: Stanford neurosurgeon, New York Times bestselling author, entrepreneur, and founder of Stanford’s Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education (CCARE).Recorded in our early days but never shared until now, this conversation captures Dr. Doty’s extraordinary wisdom on the science and practice of compassion. He explains how compassion rewires the brain, simple self-compassion techniques to silence the inner critic, and why compassionate organisations consistently outperform those built on fear.Along the way, he reflects on his own journey - from losing $80 million at the height of success to finding true fulfilment in service, and the role the Dalai Lama played in shaping his work at Stanford.Dr. Doty’s life was devoted to proving that compassion is not soft, but the foundation of human flourishing. We’re honoured to share this conversation from our archives as a tribute to his enduring legacy.To learn more about Dr Doty's life and legacy, visit: https://www.jamesrdotymd.com/Follow High Net Purpose on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/highnetpurpose Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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How We Lose Control of AI - and How to Stop It, with Kristian Rönn
Everyone’s talking about ChatGPT—but what if the real threat from AI is happening elsewhere?Kristian Rönn is the co-founder of Lucid, a company helping governments track the movement and usage of AI chips globally. He previously founded Normative, the carbon accounting platform that helped shape EU and UK climate disclosure rules—and began his career researching existential risk at Oxford’s Future of Humanity Institute.He’s also the author of The Darwinian Trap, a bestselling book that explores how misaligned incentives—and short-term thinking—can push systems toward catastrophic outcomes. It’s a framework he now applies to AI, arguing that without global coordination, the very infrastructure powering this technology could spiral out of control.In this conversation, he explains why AI’s biggest risks aren’t in the models—but in the chips, supply chains, and silent diffusion happening behind the scenes.We explore:• Why frontier models are a distraction from the real governance challenge• The one global policy move governments must make before it’s too late• What a chicken sandwich teaches us about AI’s hidden complexity• And what carbon accounting taught Kristian about building systems that actually scaleIf you care about who’s really in control of AI—and how we avoid losing the plot—this is essential listening.Chapters00:00 – Intro: Welcome to High Net Purpose00:29 – Kristian Rönn: From Philosopher to AI Safety Pioneer01:31 – Early Life: What Shaped Kristian’s Worldview04:29 – The Impact of Peter Singer and Utilitarian Thinking08:31 – Exploring Existential Risks and the Road to AI13:20 – Building Normative: The Startup That Changed Carbon Accounting21:29 – Why Kristian Left Climate Tech for AI Governance23:22 – The Darwinian Trap: Why Good Incentives Lead to Bad Outcomes25:36 – Darwinian Demons vs. Cooperative Systems34:47 – The Challenge of Global AI Governance35:23 – Centralization vs. Decentralization in AI Control37:33 – The Chicken Sandwich Analogy: AI and Hidden Value Chains39:28 – Can Decentralized Governance Actually Work?40:49 – Enlightenment Thinking and Biological Drives45:11 – AI Assurance, Risk Management, and Value Chain Complexity48:27 – Who Should Govern AI? Security, Policy, and Global Standards53:09 – What the Future of AI Regulation Could Look Like01:05:18 – Final Thoughts: Purpose, Power, and What Comes Next Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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The CIA, Area 51 & a world of secrets hidden in plain sight — with Annie Jacobsen
What if the most powerful secrets shaping our world were hidden in plain sight?Annie Jacobsen is America’s most fearless investigative journalist. A seven-time bestselling author and Pulitzer Prize finalist, she’s spent decades uncovering the truth behind the CIA, covert military operations, nuclear war planning, and the government’s deepest classified programs - from Area 51 to assassination missions you were never meant to know about.Annie pulls back the curtain on stories that challenge what we think we know about power, secrecy, and war. She shares what it’s like to earn the trust of the world’s most dangerous men - and why the truth is often stranger, and scarier, than fiction.You’ll learn:How Annie went from earning $0 as a writer to breaking into national security reportingThe advice that changed her life — and how it led to bestselling investigationsWhat it takes to gain the trust of CIA operatives and intelligence insidersWhy “alpha individuals” survive — and what their psychology reveals about resilienceHow secrets stay buried despite being technically declassifiedWhy U.S. ICBMs don’t have the range to hit North Korea without flying over RussiaThe chilling truth behind the 72-minute nuclear war scenarioHow a single miscommunication between the U.S. and Russia could trigger World War IIIChapters:00:00 Welcome to High Net Purpose00:24 Meet Annie Jacobsen: Master of Government Secrets02:45 Annie’s Purpose: Telling Astonishing True Stories05:13 From Struggling Writer to National Security Reporter09:31 Billy Waugh: The CIA’s Most Legendary Spy16:31 Inside the Shadow World of Espionage22:02 The Secrets Behind Intelligence and Covert Ops25:49 The CIA’s First Hunt for Bin Laden26:23 Clinton, Bin Laden, and the Mission That Didn’t Happen27:59 Disguises, Deception & Espionage Tactics Revealed29:05 From Field Reporting to Bestseller Author29:53 The Lucky Break That Led to Area 5130:58 Nuclear War Planning: Too Real to Ignore36:56 NATO, Russia, and the Future of Global Security42:12 Writing About Dangerous Truths: The Personal Risks45:56 Staying Grounded in a World of High-Stakes Secrets49:51 Final Words for Future Truth Tellers Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Most of us are in pursuit of purpose, but it can be especially hard to bring purpose into your business. On this show, we invite growing businesses and industry leaders to share their purpose and give us ‘the pitch’. We want to find out how entrepreneurs and global leaders in our network are allocating capital in a more responsible and purposeful way. But more importantly, we want to know what isn’t in the pitch deck. Joe McCarthy hits his guests with the hard questions in order to find the paradoxes and nuances in their pitches. High Net Purpose is hosted by Joe McCarthy, founder of Islandbridge, a company focused on helping highly successful people allocate their capital in a meaningful way. Whilst traditional investing is often solely focused on the accruement of more wealth, Joe has been working hard to shift the focus to purpose-led investing and show that’s it’s not black and white, but it is worth it. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Ireland