70: SAMANTHA WILLS: Start up business to multimillion dollar global empire
SHOW NOTES:
Samantha’s rise into the spotlight began in 2004 when as a 21 year old, she launched Samantha Wills Jewellery from the dining table of her share flat, not realizing at the time that she was building what would become one of Australia’s best-known accessories brands. Samantha is passionate about sharing her insights into modern and creative entrepreneurship. Her desire to nurture, educate and support emerging founders and entrepreneurs saw her create the Samantha Wills Foundation in 2016, a platform designed to empower women in business. Spending a decade living in New York City and working with production houses in Asia and India, as well as global office in France and Japan has provided Samantha a wealth of experience as it relates to Australian export and international business.
A celebrated entrepreneur, Samantha was inducted into the HER Business Hall of Fame in 2017, the same year she was a finalist for the coveted InStyle magazine Women of Style Awards in the entrepreneur category. In 2016, Samantha was nominated for Australian of the Year for her work with women in business, and has been featured in Forbes, The Australian Business Review, Yahoo! Finance Young Investors and named a ‘Break Out Star’ by The New York Times. A natural born storyteller, Samantha is a dynamic speaker and industry expert in the branding and creative entrepreneur space. Her message is always relatable, engaging and inspiring and has spoken to sold out crowds around the world.
Samantha’s first book was released in early 2021— a business memoir titled, of gold and dust — which documents not only her professional experience as a company founder, but also the very personal and human elements that such a rise to success required, all with her signature vulnerability. When asked by a journalist what was the key to her overnight success, Wills famously answered, “it took me twelve years to become an overnight success.”
$20 gift voucher towards Sam’s book for BTB listeners: code BTBVIP20
Samantha’s social media links:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/samanthawills/
Website: https://samanthawills.com