After trawling online nominations and tapping industry resources and alumni, Forbes Australia has named its inaugural 30 Under 30 list.
Spanning across eight categories, the list highlights 30 of the brightest young entrepreneurs, stars and leaders in their field, including those in retail and e-commerce, technology, media and entertainment, and more.
Below, we share a selection of the leaders. You can see the full list, here.
Media & entertainment
Zara McDonald and Michelle Andrews
Zara McDonald and Michelle Andrews met as journalists at news publication, Mamamia. The pair went on to start Shameless Media in 2018 (on a bedroom floor) to fill a gap in celebrity news and reality TV podcasts. Initially a side-hustle, the duo have since turned their podcast into a fully-fledged media company with 15 staff, and launched two more podcasts: Style-ish and Everybody Has a Secret. The new podcasts are part of the pair’s two-year diversification strategy, and they’re already off-platform with a popular newsletter. Their podcasts boast 100 million downloads in total, they have 1.3 million social followers across their channels and 110,000 newsletter subscribers.
Zara Seidler and Sam Koslowski
Zara Seidler and Sam Koslowski co-founded news outlet, The Daily Aus back in 2017, after being fed-up with the way news was presented to young Australians. And it’s hit the mark: today, 70% of its 565,000 Instagram followers are under the age of 34. But with looming threats from Meta to pull news from its platforms, Seidler and Koslowski have embarked on a diversification strategy. Initially just an Instagram page – which has since grown to 565,000 followers – The Daily Aus has grown off-platform to launch newsletters and a podcast. Its podcast has about 130,000 monthly listeners, and its daily newsletter has an audience of more than 220,000.
Hannah Ferguson
Hannah Ferguson is the co-founder and CEO of independent news commentary platform, Cheek Media, and the co-host of leading news and culture podcast, Big Small Talk. The podcast is consistently ranked top #3 for news in the country. In 2023 Hannah released her debut book, Bite Back which was a smash-hit, and continues to be a best-seller. She has written for the New York Times, Harper’s Bazaar, the Sydney Morning Herald, and Crikey. Her second book will be published late 2024.
Natasha Etschmann
Natasha Etschmann started investing at 18. She says she buys-and-holds ETFs long-term, and is aiming to achieve financial freedom in the next 15 years. Now, she’s a content creator best known under her profile TashInvests, providing finance tips and tricks for her 200,000 followers across Instagram and TikTok. She also recently published her novel, How To Not Work Forever.
Retail & e-commerce
Tammy Hembrow
One of Australia’s most-followed influencers, Tammy Hembrow found her niche in fitness after posting workout content onto her social profile in 2014. Hembrow is at the helm of two businesses: Saski, an athleisure e-commerce brand, and TammyFit, a fitness app. She’s amassed a net worth of more than $50 million, and across her business and personal channels, Hembrow boasts more than 18 million followers.
Jessica Arthur, Lauren Rugolo and Emma Spiliopoulos
Lash Therapy Australia launched in 2020 with its flagship eyelash growth serum. The three co-founders initially invested $4,000. Today, Lash Therapy claims its total revenue is at $20 million, with $7.3 million year-to-date; up 17% on the FY23 and up 248% from FY22. The company ships to more than 170 countries.
Technology
Steph Claire Smith
Steph Claire Smith is the co-founder of Kic, a fitness app which she bootstrapped and launched alongside business partner Laura Henshaw in 2018. She’s also the co-host of the company’s podcast, KicPod, which has been downloaded more than 14 million times and boasts 160,000 unique monthly listeners. Kic claims the app’s revenue has grown year-on-year since its inception and non-app revenue streams are on track to increase by 200% this year. On her own, Smith has amassed a social following of more than 1.5 million, and continues to leverage that following to boost Kic’s presence.
Social impact
Chanel Contos
Chanel Contos posted an Instagram story asking how many of her peers had experienced sexual assault while at school. The response was enormous – inspiring her to collect testimonials and lobby for consent education to be integrated and improved in schools across the country. She went on to launch the NGO, Teach Us Consent, lobbying for more comprehensive and earlier sex education in Australia and elsewhere. She was the recipient of the Young People’s Human Rights Medal in the 2021 Australian Human Rights Award and the NSW Young Woman of the Year 2023 award.
To view the full Methodology of the list, click here.
Image credit: Forbes Australia
