Michele Mattiuzzi

Michele Mattiuzzi has built a career that is anything but conventional.

At 21, he joined a specialist tactical operations and counter-terrorism environment within the Australian Federal Police, where he was involved in protecting Prime Ministers John Howard and Kevin Rudd and became a weapons instructor. Just a year later, he made another extraordinary career move - into television.

For almost a decade, Michele was a recurring actor on Australia’s Home and Away, before going on to work across other major television productions. But while acting gave him a public profile, Michele’s real passion was building businesses - often from behind the scenes.

He went on to help build a Harvey Norman IT business from the ground up to approximately $200 million in just two years, while working with major global technology brands including Lenovo, Microsoft and Intel.

Today, Michele works closely with founders, CEOs, startups and established businesses that are looking to scale, have hit a commercial bottleneck or need an experienced operator to step in, identify the problem and help find a way forward.

He has spent much of his career deliberately operating behind the scenes - helping businesses grow, challenging assumptions, solving commercial problems and recognising the warning signs when an organisation begins heading in the wrong direction.

His journey hasn't been defined by success alone. After experiencing extreme pressure, burnout and profound personal and professional setbacks, Michele was forced to rebuild his life from the ground up. That experience reshaped his understanding of success, resilience, identity, responsibility and what it really means to build a fulfilling life.

Today, Michele is stepping out from behind the scenes to share the lessons he's learned along the way.

His conversations explore business, entrepreneurship, leadership, ambition, masculinity, resilience, success, failure and the realities of rebuilding when life doesn't go according to plan.

Michele isn't interested in presenting a manufactured version of success or positioning himself as a guru. He brings decades of experience across high-performance environments, media, business and entrepreneurship - and a willingness to have the honest conversations that others often avoid.

From protecting Prime Ministers, to almost a decade on Australian television, to helping build a $200 million technology business and advising businesses through periods of growth and change, Michele brings a perspective that is as diverse as it is hard-earned.