playnext.fm

The Sure Thing · The Australian Financial Review

Ep 7. Blind Date

April 11, 2021·18 min·1 clip
The compliance officer who turned Chris in — by calling the ABS pretending to be a student — arranged to meet him for a beer and offered him a job.
The episode opens with a recap of Chris's post-prison job search, in which he sent at least 20 applications disclosing his conviction upfront and received zero callbacks, eventually finding work at a family friend's building company. Over time, Chris began working with criminologist Clinton Free to speak to MBA students about his offending, a process that gradually built his confidence. At a McGrath Nicol white-collar crime event, Chris speaks publicly about his decision to participate in the podcast, saying he hopes his story will make others think twice. Matt Feehan, a former police officer and McGrath Nicol partner, describes planning to use Chris in corporate ethics seminars. Clinton Free explains that the act of telling the story publicly likely has a therapeutic dimension and reflects growing self-understanding. The second thread concerns Joel Murphy, the Pepperstone compliance officer who first identified the scheme by scrolling through Lucas's Facebook friends and calling the ABS under a false pretext. Murphy describes feeling a degree of guilt about his role in Chris's arrest, particularly given the scale of Lucas's betrayal of Chris. After following the podcast, Murphy contacted Grigg and arranged to meet Chris at the Mail Exchange Hotel in Melbourne. At that meeting, Murphy offered Chris a potential role at his brokerage 8Cap in risk management and operations. Chris accepted the offer of a conversation while insisting he did not want a pity job. Murphy explains his motivation as genuine: he believes Chris's data skills are being wasted in construction, is confident in his firm's compliance framework, and sees the arrangement as mutually beneficial — including the practical upside of hiring Chris below market rate. The episode closes with Grigg and Free discussing the broader lessons of the series, including Free's argument that long prison sentences are counterproductive, and his hope that Chris's story can feed into conversations about ethics in organisations and schools. Free notes he has had colleagues across Australia contact him to say they have integrated the podcast into ethics and risk management teaching.

As heard by us

An unhurried chapter about Chris trying to rebuild work and Joel offering help.

This chapter follows Chris as he tries to get back into work after prison, while the insider trading case still sits over everything. Joel also looks uneasy about his part in Chris's arrest and imprisonment, and that discomfort gives the meeting at the Mail Exchange Hotel in…

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

A blind date over beers that turns into a cautious talk about getting back to work.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →
Listen to the show on
Apple PodcastsSpotify
Play clips from this episodeMore from The Sure Thing