Naresh Gulati on building businesses and the secrets to a good life

Naresh Gulati has been in international education since the mid-90s. He helped build one of the largest education agencies in India, then founded BPO Intelligence, and now is driving the rise (pun intended) of Ascent One, a modular ecosystem designed to reduce admin chaos by helping systems talk to each other.

But instead of giving you a standard “here’s how I scaled” playbook, this conversation offers something more human: a philosophy for staying steady when business, and life, get messy.

It's a very personal conversation with one of Australian international education's leading entrepreneurs.

In this episode, we get into:

• Naresh’s early story, including failing Year 10, selling candles on the roadside, and what those years taught him about resilience

• Why he makes decisions largely on gut feel, and how that’s shaped every business he’s built

• The “leaf on the river” metaphor, float, bump into rocks, rest when you reach shore, then move again

Rob also brings in something many listeners will recognise, that 3am spiral where your brain turns into a to-do list machine. Naresh’s response is simple, practical, and surprisingly hard to argue with: stress rarely solves the problem, it usually just doubles it. From there, they explore the difference between happiness and contentment, why we get used to carrying tension, and what awareness actually looks like when you are in the middle of a tough season.

You’ll also hear:

• Why schools teach competitiveness, but rarely teach stress management, and what that costs later

• A grounded take on collaboration, and why “me versus them” thinking leaves opportunities on the table

• A personal COVID-era moment that reminds you everything changes, even the hardest chapters

If you want an episode that feels like a deep breath, without pretending the world is easy, this is it.

Global Horizons is a production of The Global Society, Australia’s Learning Abroad support company. Our editor is Len Zamora and our distribution specialist is Angelo Ablao.

Rob Malicki is the executive editor and host. The podcast wouldn’t be possible without The Koala News, Australia’s international education news website. This episode is supported by Choosing Your Uni, Australia's unique, AI-powered platform that helps domestic and international students to find the right institution for them, and that helps Australian institutions to access new markets.

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