Fleur Johnston
Founder and CEO at PeopleBench
Fast Five is our quickfire interview series where we hit up some legendary movers, shakers and innovators with, you’ve guessed it, five big questions.
For classroom teachers, Fast Five is a great way to introduce your students to some awesome real-life changemakers and have them think about life as an entrepreneur or innovator.
In this week’s edition we talk to Activator Fleur Johnston, who is the CEO and Founder at PeopleBench.
Activators are thought-leaders, innovators, and all-round epic humans with diverse real-life experience who volunteer as “Entrepreneurs in Residence” with Future Anything’s Activate schools.
Q1: Give us three words that describe your life
Fast, full, fabulous!
Q2: Tell us a little about your current role. What does a day in the life of you look like?
I am the CEO and Founder at PeopleBench – an HR technology solution for school Principals and their leadership teams. We help them make their schools amazing places to work for staff, so they can be an amazing places to learn for students!
My day usually starts rising early to move (yoga, jog or gym) and/or quick meditation, getting clear on my three things to do today and then jumping on a call to my team or customers in the USA. You’ll then find me in the car heading to the office via school drop off with my youngest (almost finished school), and a decaf almond latte on route! My favourite days are spent talking with my amazing team of behavioural and data scientists, organisational psychologists, software developers and customer success folks, and our inspiring clients – to solve the challenges of attracting, retaining and looking after the wellbeing of staff in schools everywhere!
I zoom, meet face-to-face, fly across country, and drive around town every week to be part of the conversation, facilitating groups of amazing humans to collaboratively find the opportunities and solve the challenges of working in schools today and into the future unique to their environments.
I’m a night owl and love nothing more than a good night on the couch with my husband, Netflix, and a new tea to try. I love full family day downloads with whoever’s in the house before hitting the hay, and doing it all again tomorrow!
Q3: Tell us about being an Activator. What has this looked like, and what’s been a highlight?
I was fortunate enough to be a judge in my first year of being involved in the Activate Program. I was completely inspired by the process the teams had been through, resulting in groups of amazing young folks who seemed to know EXACTLY what they were doing when it came to developing their social impact ideas and pitching them. As someone who only learned to pitch after starting her second business (and had to learn it acquiring bumps and bruises along the way!) … I was ecstatic to see the Future Anything learning pathway opening up for young folks who may want and need these skills in the future. It gives young people the chance to build these skills early in a safe, supportive, and inspiring environment.
A highlight for me was year 2 working with the awesome students and teachers at Loreto Coorparoo in Brisbane; the young women’s enthusiasm, the originality, the commitment to impact and the willingness to have a go — just made me want do it all again this year.
Q4: What do you wish you’d learned in school that has been essential in your career?
How to pitch a novel social impact technology business! Where was Future Anything in the 80s?!
Q5: What’s one book, website or podcast you’d recommend to aspiring young entrepreneurs, and why?
Anti-fragile: Things to Gain from Disorder by Nassim Nicholas Taleb.
There’ve been a bunch of other authors pile in to this pace since he wrote it in 2012 — but I still consider this one the original and best. Being an entrepreneur requires an incredibly robust mindset. For most, there are plenty of days when you wonder if it’s worth the grind. As a social impact driven business the “why’ is a good place to start to maintain the pace, but knowing how we can get better as a result of shocks and randomness (kind of the definition of start-up land!) has always been a game-changing reference when I’m working to maintain perspective along the way. Definitely recommend to those considering the entrepreneurial path!
More about this week’s Fast Fiver, Fleur Johnston
Fleur is a social impact entrepreneur, workforce strategist and change agent. She is currently the CEO and Founder of PeopleBench, a school workforce improvement company, and an Activator with Future Anything.
Discover our other 2025 Activators here.
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