Rampart Talks

This is just an excerpt. The full interview with Matt Comyn is available exclusively for Rampart subscribers - go to rampart.news to watch now.
Commonwealth Bank CEO Matt Comyn sits down for a candid conversation with Rampart’s Joe Aston. From the very restaurant where he landed his first CBA job in 1999, Comyn opens up about being the unlikely choice as CEO, his two days in the witness box at the Banking Royal Commission and the subsequent challenge of restoring public trust in the company. 
What makes this episode unmissable:
The world's most expensive bank: How he runs the bank which trades at 26 times forward earnings, while also overseeing a healthy corporate culture.

The Royal Commission: Comyn reveals what it was like spending 8.5 hours in the witness box, including the explosive moment when his notes about being told to "temper your sense of justice" became headline news.

AI's real impact: Comyn likens the impact of AI and its consequences to changes brought by the industrial revolution and notes that there’s no “island or moat” that will protect Australian industry from these changes. 

Housing affordability's impossible equation: Comyn notes the challenges for ordinary Australians to enter the housing market who don’t have access to the “Bank of Mum and Dad”. Comyn says supply-side solutions are needed to ease the housing crisis.  

Resilience forged through personal hardship: Comyn shares how traumatic events in his childhood fortified him against professional challenges as an adult. He notes that psychological and physiological resilience are just as important as elite banking skills. 

From Canberra power dynamics to multi-billion-dollar investments in CBA’s technology, from the loss of sponsorship of the Australian cricket teams to measuring sleep and staying fit —this is a rare interview where one of Australia’s leading CEOs discusses the importance of having good judgement and knowing when to walk away.  
Rampart Talks is brought to you by ⁠RESOLVE Forensic⁠, ⁠BHP⁠ and ⁠Ray White Commercial⁠.
About Joe Aston:
Joe Aston is one of Australia’s most influential commentators on business, finance and politics.
For 12 years, he struck fear into the hearts of the nation’s political and corporate leaders, transforming The Australian Financial Review’s Rear Window into the nation’s premier daily column.
In 2024, he became a best-selling author with the publication of his first book, The Chairman’s Lounge: The Inside Story of How Qantas Sold Us Out.
And in 2025, he launched ⁠Rampart⁠, a premium subscription news publication specialising in Australian business and finance. 
Follow Joe Aston on ⁠LinkedIn⁠, Instagram and ⁠X⁠.
Follow Rampart on ⁠LinkedIn⁠, ⁠Instagram⁠, ⁠X⁠, ⁠YouTube⁠.

Rampart Talks
Producer: Eliza Harvey
Production/Editing: Mentored Studios
Technical and commercial support: Squiz Media

This is just an excerpt. The full interview with Nick Molnar is available exclusively for Rampart subscribers - go to rampart.news to watch now.
In this episode of Rampart Talks, Joe Aston sits down with Afterpay co-founder Nick Molnar in Los Angeles to discuss his remarkable journey from selling jewellery on eBay as a teenager to creating one of Australia's most successful tech exports.
Molnar opens up about the origins of Afterpay, revealing how a casual conversation with his neighbour Anthony Eisen while moving furniture sparked the idea that would disrupt consumer lending. He shares candid insights about the company's early days, including the intense pressure of rapid growth that saw Afterpay's market cap surge from $2 billion to $40 billion in just 10 months during the pandemic.
The conversation explores Afterpay's early negotiations with regulators, with Molnar defending the company's position that traditional consumer credit laws weren't designed for their short-duration, merchant-funded model. He discusses threading the regulatory needle before Australia's credit laws eventually caught up with the buy now, pay later industry.
Molnar reflects on maintaining normalcy despite becoming a self-made billionaire before the age of 30, crediting his wife, family, and partnership with Eisen for keeping him grounded. He talks about the decision to sell Afterpay to Jack Dorsey's Block (formerly Square) for $39 billion and why he chose to join the company rather than venture into another startup, viewing it as stepping up to a bigger sandbox. 
Now leading Block's revenue line, Molnar discusses the potential of Cash App to transform how Americans - particularly hourly workers and independent earners - interact with money and operate outside the traditional banking system. He shares his perspective on using Bitcoin as everyday money and offers insights into working with Jack Dorsey, describing him as a visionary who sees the future better than anyone else.
The episode concludes with Molnar's thoughts on the Australian startup ecosystem, his advice for founders looking to go global, and his optimism/confidence that Australia will produce ten Afterpays over the next decade.
Rampart Talks is brought to you by ⁠RESOLVE Forensic⁠, ⁠BHP⁠ and ⁠Ray White Commercial⁠.

About Joe Aston:
Joe Aston is one of Australia’s most influential commentators on business, finance and politics.
For 12 years, he struck fear into the hearts of the nation’s political and corporate leaders, transforming The Australian Financial Review’s Rear Window into the nation’s premier daily column.
In 2024, he became a best-selling author with the publication of his first book, The Chairman’s Lounge: The Inside Story of How Qantas Sold Us Out.
And in 2025, he launched ⁠Rampart⁠, a premium subscription news publication specialising in Australian business and finance. 
Follow Joe Aston on ⁠LinkedIn⁠ and ⁠X⁠.
Follow Rampart on ⁠LinkedIn⁠, ⁠Instagram⁠, ⁠X⁠, ⁠YouTube⁠.

Rampart Talks
Producer: Eliza Harvey
Production/Editing: Mentored Studios 
Technical and commercial support: Squiz Media

This is just an excerpt. The full interview with Jayne Hrdlicka is available exclusively for Rampart subscribers - go to rampart.news to watch now.
Former Jetstar and Virgin Australia CEO Jayne Hrdlicka has built a reputation as one of Australia's toughest corporate operators. Now she's taking on her biggest challenge yet: turning around the Endeavour Group, the $7 billion pokies and liquor business struggling with declining sales and a 35% share price collapse since demerging from Woolworths.
This interview with Jayne is a candid conversation about resilience, ambition, and the personal cost of corporate leadership. Topics covered:
Career moves: why she's taking on another brutal turnaround job in her sixties after making a paper fortune at Virgin.
Corporate leadership: including what made Alan Joyce such an extraordinary CEO and whether he had changed by the end.
Virgin Australia's resurrection: how she rebuilt an insolvent airline during a pandemic with absolute conviction travel would return, as well as the the irony of Qatar Airways' blocked air rights leading to a better outcome for Virgin (and her opinion on whether Alan Joyce convinced Anthony Albanese to block Qatar's expansion).
Gender and leadership: how language gets weaponised against female CEOs differently than their male counterparts, and why being called "abrasive" and "driven" bothers her more than being compared to Cruella de Vil.
Personal tragedy: working under enormous pressure while her husband Jason was dying of cancer, and then losing her beloved father a year later and deciding she couldn't take Virgin public. She also touches on her father's extraordinary childhood escaping communist Czechoslovakia at age 16 and how that’s shaped her. 
Tennis and power: the networking power of prime courtside seats at the Australian Open finals, and what it's like sitting in the Wimbledon royal box with the Beckhams.

Rampart Talks is brought to you by ⁠RESOLVE Forensic⁠, ⁠BHP⁠ and ⁠Ray White Commercial⁠.

About Joe Aston:
Joe Aston is one of Australia’s most influential commentators on business, finance and politics.
For 12 years, he struck fear into the hearts of the nation’s political and corporate leaders, transforming The Australian Financial Review’s Rear Window into the nation’s premier daily column.
In 2024, he became a best-selling author with the publication of his first book, The Chairman’s Lounge: The Inside Story of How Qantas Sold Us Out.
And in 2025, he launched ⁠Rampart⁠, a premium subscription news publication specialising in Australian business and finance. 
Follow Joe Aston on ⁠LinkedIn⁠ and ⁠X⁠.
Follow Rampart on ⁠LinkedIn⁠, ⁠Instagram⁠, ⁠X⁠, ⁠YouTube⁠.

Rampart Talks
Producer: Eliza Harvey
Production/Editing: Mentored Studios 
Technical and commercial support: Squiz Media

This is Brad Banducci’s first major interview since that infamous "walkout" (a term he disputes) on Four Corners.
Subscribe to ⁠Rampart⁠ to unlock the full hour-long interview.
When Banducci took the helm of Woolies in 2016, the company was a market pariah following its disastrous foray into hardware via Masters. On his watch, Woolworths regained, and for many years maintained, its ascendancy over arch-rival Coles. He was certainly, in Joe Aston’s view, one of the outstanding major company CEOs of the last decade. Yet his final year was marred by controversy, as Woolworths (and Coles) became a convenient villain for politicians over so-called "price-gouging" in an inflation outbreak and a legitimate target of the competition regulator over tricky advertising tactics; and as Woolworths was caught in the political crossfire over its advocacy for an Indigenous Voice to Parliament and its refusal to sell Australian flag paraphernalia on Australia Day.

The full interview with Brad Banducci is available exclusively for Rampart subscribers - go to rampart.news to watch now.

Rampart Talks is brought to you by ⁠RESOLVE Forensic⁠, ⁠BHP⁠ and ⁠Ray White Commercial⁠.

About Joe Aston:
Joe Aston is one of Australia’s most influential commentators on business, finance and politics.
For 12 years, he struck fear into the hearts of the nation’s political and corporate leaders, transforming The Australian Financial Review’s Rear Window into the nation’s premier daily column.
In 2024, he became a best-selling author with the publication of his first book, The Chairman’s Lounge: The Inside Story of How Qantas Sold Us Out.
And in 2025, he launched ⁠Rampart⁠, a premium subscription news publication specialising in Australian business and finance. 

Follow Joe Aston on ⁠LinkedIn⁠ and ⁠X⁠.
Follow Rampart on ⁠LinkedIn⁠, ⁠Instagram⁠, ⁠X⁠, ⁠YouTube⁠.

Rampart Talks
Producer: Eliza Harvey
Production/Editing: Mentored Studios 
Technical and commercial support: Squiz Media

The full interview with Gil McLachlan is available exclusively for Rampart subscribers - go to rampart.news to watch now.
In this second episode of Rampart Talks, Joe Aston sits down with Gil McLachlan, former CEO of the AFL and now chief executive at Tabcorp.
The conversation is wide-ranging, covering his footy legacy, from his regrets over the handling of the Adam Goodes racism scandal to the blockbuster commercial growth of Aussie rules (now comfortably the richest sport in the country) to the messy succession to Gil’s lieutenant Andrew Dillon led by the AFL Commission in 2022 and 2023.
Joe also presses Gil on the normalisation, on his watch, of gambling advertising in sport, a natural segue to his new job at Tabcorp, where he was very frank about his belief in the renaissance of racing and the resonance of the Tabcorp brand with young consumers, and his plans to catch up with digital market leader Sportsbet.

Rampart Talks is brought to you by ⁠RESOLVE Forensic⁠, ⁠BHP⁠ and ⁠Ray White Commercial⁠.

About Joe Aston:
Joe Aston is one of Australia’s most influential commentators on business, finance and politics.
For 12 years, he struck fear into the hearts of the nation’s political and corporate leaders, transforming The Australian Financial Review’s Rear Window into the nation’s premier daily column.
In 2024, he became a best-selling author with the publication of his first book, The Chairman’s Lounge: The Inside Story of How Qantas Sold Us Out.
And in 2025, he launched ⁠Rampart⁠, a premium subscription news publication specialising in Australian business and finance. 
Follow Joe Aston on ⁠LinkedIn⁠ and ⁠X⁠.
Follow Rampart on ⁠LinkedIn⁠, ⁠Instagram⁠, ⁠X⁠, ⁠YouTube⁠.

Rampart Talks
Producer: Eliza Harvey
Production/Editing: Mentored Studios 
Technical and commercial support: Squiz Media