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Lunch with the AFR

Today

Paul Jones, CEO of Think AR for Softbank in Tokyo.

How this Aussie golf pro got the ear of billionaire Masayoshi Son

An injury led Paul Jones to the fairways of country Victoria and on to the upper echelons of Japan’s most intriguing technology investor at SoftBank.

  • 1 hr ago
  • Jessica Sier

This Month

Young Rich Lister Tash Oakley: “I understand exactly how to pose in front of the camera.”

The 10 most memorable Lunches with the AFR of 2024

From Young Rich Listers to BlackRock’s chief strategist and Donald Trump’s former daily intelligence briefer. These were the 10 most read Lunches with the AFR in 2024.

  • Staff writers
Incoming Westpac CEO Anthony Miller has lunch with Lucas Baird at the Palace Hotel in Mortlake.

Suburban pub grub suits Westpac’s new CEO

Living in Sydney’s inner west makes Anthony Miller an outlier among big bank chiefs. The former investment banker is determined to make his firm stand out, too.

  • Updated
  • Lucas Baird

How self-addressed envelopes made a fashion icon

Her clothes have been worn by stars like Cindy Crawford and Madonna, but Collette Dinnigan had an off-piste start to life - and reveals it may not be over yet.

  • Bonnie Campbell
Ro Knox, liberal candiate for Wentworth at Alimentari in Paddington.

Meet the Liberal who swears she can win back Wentworth

Ro Knox was a firsthand witness to the defining event of the 21st century, and it has shaped her campaign for the seat where antisemitism is a major issue.

  • Jemima Whyte
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November

William Dalrymple at Serai Kitchen, Melbourne.

‘India, not China, is the historic centre of the Asian world’

Scottish author William Dalrymple argues in his new book that Indian thinkers like Aryabhata and Brahmagupta should be as familiar to the West as Archimedes and Galileo.

  • Michael Bleby
Johann Hari’s new book recounts the weight he lost by using Ozempic.

‘Sounds like a comedy sketch, lunch with a person on Ozempic’

After a lifetime of being overweight, best-selling author Johann Hari lost 20 kilograms on Ozempic, but he says it’s much more than a weight-loss drug.

  • Fiona Buffini
Rachel David Private Healthcare Australia CEO at The Charles Restaurant, Sydney CBD.

The woman defending the industry everyone loves to hate

Private health insurers are being derided all around, but their chief lobbyist, Rachel David, insists they make our medical system the envy of the Americans and British.

  • Michael Smith
Sydney Metro boss Peter Regan was more into finance than trains as a child.

Sydney Metro’s boss learnt from London’s ‘failed experiment’

Peter Regan found out the hard way how to strike a good public-private partnership for transport.

  • Jenny Wiggins
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Robert Kaplan reveals how to think strategically if Trump is elected

The celebrated author and strategic thinker says the US fall will only accelerate under Donald Trump, but “wise leaders” can still keep relative global peace.

  • James Curran

October

Fintan O’Toole has become Ireland’s most recognisable intellectual.

The Dublin slum dweller who became Ireland’s global intellectual

‘Buffoonery as tyranny’ is Fintan O’Toole’s phrase for Donald Trump, and growing up in Catholic Ireland, tyranny is a concept the writer knows something about.

  • Julie Hare
Donato Toce, head creative chef at Gelato Messina, at the restaurant where the chain “flexes” by serving six-course degustation dinners with gelato in every dish.

Meet the gelato king who won’t melt for private equity

The man who’s come up with most of Gelato Messina’s 5000 limited-edition specials – if not the biggest-selling flavour – is in no hurry to cede control.

  • Michael Bailey

Why Monika Tu almost quit real estate after selling a $40m mansion

The agent behind Sydney’s most expensive house sales turned up to lunch in a $150,000 outfit, and doesn’t “give a shit” about the haters.

  • Bonnie Campbell
Johnny Kahlbetzer at Beppi’s, a favourite of his billionaire father’s.

Meet the farmer billionaire who wants you to do nothing about climate

Johnny Kahlbetzer knows humans won’t change anything just for the planet’s sake, so he’s obsessed with backing technology that’s not only greener, but better and cheaper.

  • Michael Bailey

September

At Lunch with AFR. Steve Robson, Australian Medical Association president eating at Raku in restaurant in Canberra

Meet the AC/DC-loving chief doctor who eats by example

Outgoing Australian Medical Association president Steve Robson says prevention is the only cure for Australia’s sick health system.

  • Michael Smith
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Lunch with Donna Hay is delicious, with a side of house rules.

How Donna Hay changed the way we eat

Watching the cook perform her signature pasta twirl up close, one appreciates the elegantly simple approach to cooking which made her a household name.

  • Lauren Sams
Katherine Bennell-Pegg is the first person to qualify as an astronaut under the Australian flag.

The Sydney-born astronaut who learnt Russian in eight weeks

Katherine Bennell-Pegg is the first person to train and qualify as an international astronaut under the Australian flag. She’s doing it all for her late mum.

  • Simon Evans

Meet the Indigenous psychologist changing Aboriginal mental health

Dr Tracy Westerman’s Jilya Institute in Perth is shaking up the hitherto white world of mental health treatment.

  • Jemima Whyte

August

Will Alstergren.

Meet the bobsledding chief justice shaking up the courts

Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia head Will Alstergren might have had a very different career if his sporting ambitions had been fulfilled.

  • Updated
  • Michael Pelly
Stephen Galilee

Meet the man fighting for our miners

Minerals Council CEO Stephen Galilee is in a unique position of running a major lobby group as a long-time former Liberal Party staffer in a Labor state.

  • Kylar Loussikian

Original URL: https://www.afr.com/topic/lunch-with-the-afr-hwn