Driven, analytical and creative, Adam McCurdie and Joshua Ross are some of Australia’s most successful social entrepreneurs under the age of 30.
Adam and Josh are engaging and insightful speakers whose creative and analytical approach leaves their audience challenged to re-consider the status quo in business, strategy and social impact.
Adam and Josh can speak at your event as a duo, or separately, depending on availability.
Current work
They are the co-founders and co-managing directors of the social enterprise Humanitix, which is now selling in excess of $10m in tickets per annum, disrupting the online ticketing industry and redirecting hundreds of thousands of dollars in ‘annoying’ booking fees to help end global poverty and education gaps. Humanitix is one of the world’s leading technology social enterprises. Adam and Josh recently represented Australia on full scholarship at the Social Enterprise World Forum, and in 2018, Humanitix secured funding from one of Australia’s most successful tech stories, Atlassian as well as the NSW Government.
Previous experience
Awards:Adam and Josh were Runner-Up Social Entrepreneurs of the year in 2017 and finalists for the NSW Young Achiever Award 2018. In 2018, Humanitix was announced a Top 20 Westpac Business of Tomorrow and Adam and Josh are being mentored by John Eales (most successful Wallabies captain). Humanitix is the first Australian Social Enterprise publicly backed by Grameen Australia.
Josh’s history:Prior to co-founding Humanitix, Josh had a highly successful 7 year career at Watermark Funds Management, one of Australia’s leading hedge funds which was nominated for Hedge Fund of the year twice during Josh’s time at the firm. Josh, hired at the age of 20, was offered partnership at the age of 26, testament to an outstanding track-record in both investing and short-selling. As a Chartered Financial Analyst, Josh has an unusually strong commercial background for a leader in the social enterprise sector with in-depth experience in global stock markets, long-short equities trading, and IPO’s.
Adam’s history:Adam had a highly successful career at Accenture, one of the world’s leading management consultancies. Adam managed the digital transformation of several ASX 200 companies. As an Engineer and Masters in Agricultural Economics Adam has a has an unusually strong commercial background for a leader in the social enterprise sector with in-depth experience in technology, economics and strategy.
Talking Points
The Humanitix Journey: How to turn dreams into reality and disrupt the giants
The Humanitix story belongs with two close friends from Sydney who were determined at the end of high school to have careers of purpose and give back to those born without privilege. With a corporate twist, a near death experience in Kashmir, and almost losing themselves in the corporate world, Adam & Josh’s story involves a lot of self-reflection and humour as they open up about the fears of stepping away from good careers to create a dream and ultimately prove the naysayers wrong in changing the world.
The Humanitix Journey: How to turn dreams into reality and disrupt the giants
Disruptive social impact: Social enterprise needs to be sustainable and scalable
Adam and Josh are millennial's on a mission: to challenge the social enterprise sector to create sustainable impact at scale and break out of the not-for-profit mind-set. The co-founders and co-managing directors of Australia’s leading tech social enterprise Humanitix has been financially backed by Atlassian, Regal Funds Management (Australia’s number one hedge fund), David Paradice (leading boutique fund manager) and many highly commercial philanthropists to create a global online platform to end world poverty and education gaps. Adam and Josh will explain why Humanitix has key attributes which make it scalable and sustainable, and why so many traditional social enterprises fail to scale-up or generate an effective Return On Social Investment.
Disruptive social impact: Social enterprise needs to be sustainable and scalable
Is the charity model broken?
Imagine if Amazon’s purpose was to save the environment rather than enrich shareholders - then maybe we’d actually succeed in preserving our planet.Is the charity model broken?
Why are so many problems such as inequality and environmental causes getting worse not better? Are we throwing enough money at charities addressing the problems, or is it the approach and framework society applies to charities flawed and in need of a shake-up?
Adam and Josh have experienced the jump from cut-throat capitalism into the slow moving bureaucratic charity sector. They will talk about the fundamental reasons why charities are failing to fix problems, why public confidence in the charity sector is declining, and their learnings for what needs to be done to turn the sector around. It starts with the boards of not-for-profits and the major philanthropists, but the responsibility is on all of us to innovate and find sustainable ways to save our planet and halt the rise in inequality.
Adam & Josh are some of Australia’s brightest young minds and social pioneers. They have deployed considerable business acumen to solve some of humanity’s greatest problems including poverty ... keep reading Grameen Australia
