Men with impact. Tory interview ‘s CEO Will Anstee, Totally Awesome

Host of Powerful Stories, Tory Archbold believes in the power of connection and how the synchronicity of what is coming for you finds you.  Through her commitment to 3 coffee dates a week she connected to Will Anstee, CEO, Totally Awesome based out of Singapore via a referral from a VC Fund Founder in Los Angeles. Will has worked as a senior leader in the Advertising industry for over 25 years and recently took on the role of CEO with Totally Awesome, a youth digital engagement company that helps brands safely navigate and interact with children, teens and families.  He leads a heart-based business making a global impact and 70% of his team are women leading women as he believes in female energy shining a light in an industry that has become very tech-based with a moral dilemma of data privacy. Will explains that there are 72 million data points, on a child, by the time they reach age 13. ‘You have kids signing away their data without any idea what they are doing,’ says Will, ‘You also have 170,000 kids coming online, for the first time, each day.’ These are huge numbers. ‘The internet was not built for kids. It was built for business but 40% of internet traffic is by children.’   Bringing the light into the darkness of the online world is a hard task. ‘We need a level of critical thinking in teaching our kids’, says Will. ‘Totally Awesome has two roles, one in the space of brand engagement and the other in safety. ‘What we have seen over the last few years is brands, like LEGO, who are helping with the socialisation and education of kids.’ It is critically important.   We see so much commentary about women not being placed into leadership roles in global businesses. ‘There are a lot of reasons to have more women on our team than men,’ says Will, women trust women more.’ ‘There is a lot of discussion around the gender pay-gap says Will, ‘We have discovered that these tendencies start in the home at a young age. Young boys in a family, are generally paid 42% more pocket money than their sisters.’ All parents need to be aware of this and stop setting this up from a young age.’   So, what does it mean to be a heart-led business? ‘Big global business, generally, is leading by their balance sheet and profit which results in putting their people last.’  For Will, starting Totally Awesome had to have a purpose. This was to put people first. ‘I wanted people to be embedded in the DNA,’ says Will, ‘when I stepped into my purpose, I stepped into my power. This resulted in unlocking the universe at large and, it is such a joy to work with this level of talent.’    Will often talks about the #wakeup movement. ‘We had a lawyer go through one particular platform’s T&Cs and it took him 30 hours.’ Will shared that 20% of people surveyed said they knew what they were opting into, but it never took them 30 hours. ‘The movement is about waking up to the drug that big tech is on – data – and start to wise up’ says Will.  Totally Awesome has three powerful goals to achieve. One is creating a data privacy trust stamp which is globally recognised as being the best practice. Secondly, launching a kids/teens data privacy council. ‘It’s absolutely crucial to have the people most impacted by this on the panel’. Thirdly, ‘were going back to the critical thinking models. ‘We are setting up an open-source platform for teachers and carers and create a snappy critical thinking model which can be shared globally.’   Thank you to the extraordinary Will Anstee for placing people first and stepping into your power to lead a team with global impact. Links: Sign up to the Powerful Steps #coffeechallenge to gain Tory’s proven formula for building a global network, with three coffee dates a week. It’s how she connected with the guests on this podcast. Each one is an authentic and trusted connection   Powerful Steps Follow @powerfulsteps on Instagram  Powerful Steps on LinkedIn Totally Awesome Connect with Will on LinkedIn See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.