espresso Displays is a proud partner of The Executive Espresso podcast. Over the coming weeks, we're sharing a series of conversations with host Verge Das Neves, starting with how he got here.
If you've spent any time in executive search or watched The Executive Espresso climb from a DIY, iPhone-and-tripod operation to a genuinely premium production, you'll know Verge Das Neves as a C-level headhunter with an unusually good ear for a story in business and leadership. That instinct came from two careers that most people would consider unrelated, until you hear him explain how they fit together.
Verge’s career path is a fascinating one that proves the fact that so much can change but to always stay curious, and follow what interests you.
From Teaching English in Japan, to Journalism
Verge studied media and journalism, majoring in television, and went straight from his honours year into a job at the Sunday Times. No gap year, no detour. For a while, that suited him fine. Then, about a year in, the familiar itch set in: friends were travelling, "finding themselves," and he wondered if he was missing something.
The decision that followed is the kind of story that almost sounds made up or from a movie. He and his girlfriend at the time, now his wife, spun a globe, agreed to go wherever their finger landed, and started figuring out how to get there. It landed near Japan. Neither of them knew much about the country, but research turned up the JET Programme, a Japanese government initiative placing foreign teachers in local schools. They applied on a whim, assuming they wouldn't get in. But, they did.
A year in Japan turned into travel across Southeast Asia and as far as Egypt, before the pull of further study took over: an MBA in the UK for Verge, a master's in English literature for his wife. He kept freelancing for the Sunday Times throughout, filing stories from wherever he was traveling.
From MBA, to Consulting, to the GFC
The MBA led to interviews with strategy houses and consultancies. Verge landed a graduate role at KPMG, just as the Global Financial Crisis hit and the programme was cut by 90%. Looking for what was next, he walked into an interview for an entirely different role, and the interviewers offered him a job in executive search instead. At that time he didn't quite know what the term meant.
Sixteen years later, he describes the job, half-jokingly, as "the dark arts": taking a specific mandate from a client and then finding, building trust with, and eventually placing the right person for senior executive positions… oftentimes approaching and placing someone who wasn't looking to move at all. It's a job built entirely on relationships developed over years, so that when Verge calls, people are willing to listen. His mandates range widely, from an ASX top-50 CFO one month to a national charity CEO the next.
Journalism (Re-)Applied to the Corporate World
After well over a decade in search, Verge started asking how he could bring his journalism background back into the picture, how the storytelling instincts of his first career could combine with the access and trust he'd built in his second. The Executive Espresso podcast is the answer.
The first season was intentionally scrappy: he shot it himself, on an iPhone, with borrowed equipment, and it still pulled in roughly a million views over eighteen months. This season, produced to a far higher standard, hit 400,000 views in three weeks. Verge is clear about why. Production value helps, but it was never the point. "The content and the people were amazing" from day one, and that's still what he believes carries a show.
These days, the podcast runs alongside his full-time work in executive search. As he puts it, that day job is what "keeps me busy, keeps me entertained, keeps me challenged." The podcast is where he gets to put his journalism instincts back to work, one conversation at a time.
Next in this series: what Verge has learned about AI, trust, and hiring at the executive level, including a double standard he's watching play out with one of his own clients right now.
We'll have more from our conversations with Verge in upcoming blog posts.
More from The Executive Espresso
If this conversation resonated, Verge covers similar ground with a rotating cast of Australian leaders on the podcast. A few recent episodes worth your next coffee break:
- Vikrant Mulgund: The Truth About Mentorship: the Alvarez & Marsal Managing Director on finding the right mentor, learning from younger professionals and why senior leaders still need people who challenge them.
- Mike Ferraro: He Reached the Top—Then Realised What It Had Cost Him: the former Alumina Limited CEO on making decisions with real consequences—and the personal cost of years spent travelling for work.
- Lina Calabria: What Bellroy Got Right That Most Startups Get Wrong: Bellroy’s co-founder and CEO on building a global brand through patient growth, commercial discipline and an unwavering focus on the customer.
- Dr Bev Menner: Inside a CEO’s Hardest Year: the Cell Therapies CEO on leading under national scrutiny, building trust through high-stakes change and making decisions without a playbook.
Catch the full back catalogue on YouTube, Spotify, or iTunes.
