Geoff Martin - Think Big Careers

·29 min·2 clips

Jeff reveals his brain was infected by herpes simplex 1 and he had a major cerebral hemorrhage.

1. Your Career Podcast with Jane Jackson focuses on Geoff Martin's career reinvention from banking and HR to coaching. 2. Jane Jackson hosts Geoff Martin, an executive leader and career transition coach at Think Big Careers, whose lived experience and HR background shape the episode. 3. The episode asks how Geoff moved from corporate roles to a portfolio career built around values, well-being, and purpose. 4. Geoff says he first wanted to work with people, but did not know the exact technical path until university. 5. He describes his father’s 37-year career at Dulux Paints and says that loyalty and hard work influenced his own ambitions. 6. Geoff recalls being an exchange student in Japan at age 16 and later returning for a working holiday in Tokyo. 7. He says those Japan experiences led him to Asian Studies at the Australian National University, with Japanese and economics or economic history. 8. Geoff says the Commonwealth Bank hired him for his Japanese language skills and placed him in a four-year graduate program. 9. He explains that his first post-program role was credit assessment manager for Asia-Pacific banks, working with trade finance and geopolitical risk. 10. Geoff then moved to Westpac, where he managed a portfolio of roughly 50 to 60 large Japanese corporates. 11. He describes a later move into a chief of staff role, where he handled budgets, a small team, Y2K work, and Westpac Institutional Bank's Olympic sponsorship. 12. Geoff says a procurement project that cut 280 recruiting suppliers down to eight brought him close to HR and led to a job offer. 13. He says he learned by asking many questions, that colleagues supported him, and that persistence mattered more than pretending to know everything. 14. Geoff says he found his calling in HR and spent 12 years there before retrenchment after the sale of Connect. 15. He then explains the encephalitis caused by herpes simplex 1, the swelling in his brain, the cerebral hemorrhage, and the recovery period that followed. 16. Geoff says the illness forced him to slow down, think about whole-of-life choices, and control epilepsy with medication. 17. He links his workshop to values work, saying that perfectionism, hard work at all costs, and recognition can begin as protective habits. 18. Geoff gives his own example of chasing recognition tied to his father’s approval, then letting go of that driver through self-transformation. 19. Jane's interview style is warm, reflective, and conversational, with repeated links between career, family, and well-being. 20. Listeners interested in career change, HR, and burnout will find it useful, while people wanting a purely technical banking discussion may skip it.

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