What does the music someone holds dear and near reveal about who they really are?

In the Season One finale of Crescendo Conversations, host Zen Zeng — concert pianist and author, sits down with Joseph Healy: co-founder of Judo Bank, founder of Malu Health Group, and one of Australia's most quietly remarkable senior leaders.

Joseph's four pieces of music take us from the hills of Scotland to the floors of global banking, through moments of profound vulnerability, hard-won wisdom, and a question that outlasts every career milestone: what are we truly responsible for leaving behind? Here are his choices:

Flower of Scotland by Amy MacDonald,
Bridge Over Troubled Water by Simon & Garfunkel,
The Gambler by Kenny Rogers,
We Didn't Start the Fire by Billy Joel

These are not a playlist. They are a map of a life lived at full intensity, and a rare window into the interior world of a leader who has chosen depth over default at every turn.

Joseph represented Scotland internationally on a football pitch before he ever sat in a boardroom. He built a challenger bank from a PowerPoint slide, raised $1.5 billion, and listed it on the ASX in four years. Then he walked away — not in defeat, but in purpose, to build Malu Health Group and take on Australia's mental health crisis.

In this conversation, the music opens doors that titles keep closed. What emerges is not the story of a banker. It is the story of a human being who has always known the difference between being admired and being worthy of admiration.

This is where high achievement meets unfiltered humanity.

Season Two is coming.
Who should be in the chair? Leave your nomination wherever you listen, or find Zen at zenzeng.net/connect

Crescendo Conversations is hosted by Zen Zeng — concert pianist, author, and curator of conversations that go beneath the surface of high achievement.

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📙 Crescendo: A High-Achiever's Journey from Perfection to Freedom

🟠 Crescendo Circle: A curated community for specialists with a generalist soul. Depth, Joy and Purpose.

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One of Australia's leading conductors on pressure, purpose, and the music that shaped her. Jessica Gethin has led orchestras from Sydney to Singapore to Dallas — here she shares four pieces that marked her life and her leadership, in the final conversation of Season One.

A conductor holds a hundred musicians in the movement of her hands, in a performance that happens once and can never be taken back. In this episode, concert pianist Zen Zeng sits down with her friend and fellow WAAPA musician Jessica Gethin to trace a life in music: listening under pressure, leading through change, and staying steady when everyone is watching.

The four pieces Jessica chose:

1. Max Bruch — Violin Concerto No. 1 in G minor, Op. 26 (I. Allegro moderato)
2. Igor Stravinsky — Symphonies of Wind Instruments (discussed in the episode; hear the full recording: [link])
3. Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky — Waltz of the Flowers, from The Nutcracker
4. Giuseppe Verdi — La forza del destino

About Jessica Gethin

Principal Conductor of West Australian Ballet, Head of Orchestral Studies and Conducting at WAAPA, and founding Chief Conductor of the Perth Symphony Orchestra. A Churchill Fellow and a Fellow of the Dallas Opera's Hart Institute for Women Conductors, inducted into the 2024 Western Australian Women's Hall of Fame and named among the AFR's 100 Most Influential Women.

About the show

Crescendo Conversations is a series where leaders from high-stakes worlds share four pieces of music that shaped their lives, identities and careers — and how they navigate pressure, change, ethics and purpose. Hosted by concert pianist and author Zen Zeng. Where high achievement meets unfiltered humanity.

🎧 Go deeper

🌐 zenzeng.net/connect

✍️Subscribe on Substack for weekly piano music and reflection:

📙 Crescendo: A High-Achiever's Journey from Perfection to Freedom

🟠 Crescendo Circle: A curated community for specialists with a generalist soul. Depth, Joy and Purpose.

🔊 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zenzeng/

Rick Brennan spent two decades inside the world's worst humanitarian crises — including managing the response to Ebola outbreaks — later serving as a Regional Director of Emergency Operations at the World Health Organization. He's met Mother Teresa. He once called a 350-year-old house in France home. And later in life, he found love — a self-described "late bloomer", building a personal practice around travel to the world's most remote places, spirituality, and mindfulness.

In this episode of Crescendo Conversations, Rick shares the pieces of music that trace his journey — where his sense of purpose was first formed, the weight of decisions made under pressure, what remains unchanged beneath systems, policies, and global complexity, and what he hopes still matters, and endures, beyond him.

Three of his four songs are heard here as original piano interpretations by host Zen Zeng. The fourth belongs to the full conversation on YouTube — a moment better watched than described.

Crescendo Conversations is an interview series where senior leaders in high-stakes, high-pressure careers reveal the human being behind the title, through the music that shaped their identity, career and life.

Hosted by Dr. Zen Zeng, concert pianist, conference interpreter, and Amazon best-selling author.

Watch the full episode, including the piece not featured here, on

YouTube: www.youtube.com/@crescendowithzen

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