Paid
to fail
The Bachelor of Business graduate
turning failure into global success
Paid to fail
The Bachelor of Business graduate turning failure into global success
When Grace Miller joined media powerhouse Flight Story in 2022, its flagship podcast, The Diary of a CEO, had 100,000 subscribers. Today, it's one of the world's top-ranked podcasts, surpassing one billion streams. The Bond University alumna credits the show's success, in part, to “intentional failure”, a concept her boss, entrepreneur and host Steven Bartlett, champions daily.
Now Head of Failure and Experimentation for Flight Story and The Diary of a CEO, Grace is quite literally paid to fail, driving the bold testing that has helped shape the show.
The journey feels full circle for the Bachelor of Business graduate, who was an avid listener before landing her dream role.
“I always loved The Diary of a CEO,” she says. “People share their failures and growth in business, and I found it fascinating to understand how they worked to reach success.
“I love the people around me learning and growing too, so when I was living on the Gold Coast five years ago, I would send episodes of The Diary of a CEO to my colleagues at Queensland Airports.”
Grace never dreamed her next role would be on the other side of the world in London, working for the podcast herself.
“I think the energy you put out into the universe, what you speak and believe, really does come into existence,” she says.
Failures fuel growth
Grace spent her first 18 months at The Diary of a CEO working across social media and e-commerce, before she was approached by Steven to start a failure and experimentation department.
“My role was to increase our rate of failure within the team,” she says.
“Failure gives us feedback. That feedback gives us knowledge. And the knowledge becomes our power.
“The more we fail, the more we’re able to learn and grow faster than our competition.”
Grace says the process began as “very scrappy startup vibes” but is now carefully structured to measure impact. The team centre on anything from podcast topics and thumbnails to marketing and distribution strategies. First setting a hypothesis — what they expect to happen— they then experiment, measure the variables and determine whether it’s been a success or failure.
The team closely track and analyse each experiment against key performance indicators, ensuring every test contributes to broader business goals. Learnings are collated across tracking documents, shared in weekly and monthly updates, and spotlighted through an “experiment of the week” to encourage participation.
While the process is data-driven, Grace says success ultimately comes down to culture. Annual performance-related measures can be a barrier to people feeling like they can take time to experiment when there are targets to focus on. Leaders need to make it clear that failure won’t be punished.
Failures fuel growth
Grace spent her first 18 months at The Diary of a CEO working across social media and e-commerce, before she was approached by Steven to start a failure and experimentation department.
“My role was to increase our rate of failure within the team,” she says.
“Failure gives us feedback. That feedback gives us knowledge. And the knowledge becomes our power.
“The more we fail, the more we’re able to learn and grow faster than our competition.”
Grace says the process began as “very scrappy startup vibes” but is now carefully structured to measure impact. The team centre on anything from podcast topics and thumbnails to marketing and distribution strategies. First setting a hypothesis — what they expect to happen— they then experiment, measure the variables and determine whether it’s been a success or failure.
The team closely track and analyse each experiment against key performance indicators, ensuring every test contributes to broader business goals. Learnings are collated across tracking documents, shared in weekly and monthly updates, and spotlighted through an “experiment of the week” to encourage participation.
While the process is data-driven, Grace says success ultimately comes down to culture. Annual performance-related measures can be a barrier to people feeling like they can take time to experiment when there are targets to focus on. Leaders need to make it clear that failure won’t be punished.
“If more leaders became comfortable with intelligent failure, we’d see a lot more psychological safety in companies."
At The Diary of a CEO, experiments in artificial intelligence (AI) and social media that began three years ago have now grown into whole business areas within the company.
“What started as an experiment now generates millions in revenue and employs teams of people,” she says.
“But it’s taken years. Sometimes you can’t judge experimentation performance with a yearly key performance indicator (KPI).”
Grace occasionally delivers workshops to other companies around experimentation and encourages teams to deliberately carve out time for trialling new ideas. She suggests around 70 per cent of time be spent on core work, 20 per cent on improving existing processes, and 10 per cent on more ambitious, “moonshot” ideas.
Curiosity is key
Behind the testing and data, Grace believes her early career success comes down to being curious.
“There’s two things really, but the big one is constantly asking why and how things work, and that’s the whole ethos of experimentation,” she says.
“You need to be willing to try new things and not feel silly if you don’t have all the answers. Being curious allows us to find what’s working and what’s not.”
But curiosity alone isn’t enough. Grace says removing ego is just as important, particularly in an environment where failure is expected.
“You can’t be afraid to say something's gone wrong or has failed. You need to own it,” she says.
“And people will feel more comfortable doing that when there’s psychological safety in a team. You’re able to learn from your mistakes and grow together.”
That mindset is reinforced by the culture from the top at Diary of a CEO.
“Every time someone posts in our Slack channel about an experiment, whether it succeeded, failed, or was inconclusive, Steven will be the first to respond and say thank you for trying,” she says.
From the Gold Coast to global growth
Before The Diary of a CEO, Grace worked as a Marketing Coordinator at Queensland Airports for two years — a role she says was formative for her career in business and marketing. The job came from an internship that Bond University’s Career Development Centre connected her with during her final semester.
At Queensland Airports, Grace sharpened her skills in paid media and email marketing while gaining invaluable exposure to experienced leaders. The fast-learning curve not only gave her a strong understanding of how large businesses operate, but also the confidence to take on bigger, more complex challenges early in her career.
“I was there for two years after that internship. Without it, I wouldn’t be where I am today,” Grace says.
She credits her time at Bond with helping her understand where her strengths lay, through subjects focused on business strategy and problem-solving. Weekly case studies challenged her to identify issues within real companies and develop solutions.
“Little did I know, all these years later, that would be my job — understanding what’s happening in a business and how we can make changes to improve it,” she says.
A visit to Bond on a trip back to the Gold Coast in 2026 felt surreal for the rising business leader.
“Coming back to Bond is seeing where I found my passion for business and marketing.”
From the Gold Coast to global growth
Before The Diary of a CEO, Grace worked as a Marketing Coordinator at Queensland Airports for two years — a role she says was formative for her career in business and marketing. The job came from an internship that Bond University’s Career Development Centre connected her with during her final semester.
At Queensland Airports, Grace sharpened her skills in paid media and email marketing while gaining invaluable exposure to experienced leaders. The fast-learning curve not only gave her a strong understanding of how large businesses operate, but also the confidence to take on bigger, more complex challenges early in her career.
“I was there for two years after that internship. Without it, I wouldn’t be where I am today,” Grace says.
She credits her time at Bond with helping her understand where her strengths lay, through subjects focused on business strategy and problem-solving. Weekly case studies challenged her to identify issues within real companies and develop solutions.
“Little did I know, all these years later, that would be my job — understanding what’s happening in a business and how we can make changes to improve it,” she says.
A visit to Bond on a trip back to the Gold Coast in 2026 felt surreal for the rising business leader.
“Coming back to
Bond is seeing
where I found
my passion for
business and
marketing.”
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