Luke Harvey-Palmer is a pioneer in the mobile and digital space. His fascination with and passion for the industry began in childhood and have led him to launching various digital agencies including Buzzle, Four, and his current business, Alive, where he heads up the organisation as CEO.
With 22 years as an officer of the Australian Army Reserve, Luke learned discipline and structure from a young age and has taken lessons from these experiences to mould his own understanding of business. ”People like to associate the military with life and death. I take a more nuanced view: what it teaches you is to put people at the front of your decisions to think about how your decisions affect your people. In that environment, what you’re asking people to do a lot of the time is not pleasurable, not enjoyable, so you have to understand the power of influence and leadership.”
“The other thing that the military, and boarding school to some extent, taught me was the notion of leading from behind. About 15 years ago, I took a very deep interest in leadership and followship; I believe both are important. In the special operations command, we used to take our rank off. I was an officer, a captain, and there were private soldiers and corporals, but we all took our rank slides off. You have to earn respect, earn the right to lead, and a lot of that came from leading from behind.”