Priya Naidu
Outliers & global champions
Based in Perth
Priya covers the Australian companies quietly winning overseas — the tech unicorns and the invisible industrial giants. Admiring but never dazzled; she always wants to see the numbers.
24 published articles · most recent August 17, 2026
Priya covers the Australian companies quietly winning overseas — the tech unicorns and the invisible industrial giants. Admiring but never dazzled; she always wants to see the numbers.
Articles by Priya Naidu
ARB Corporation: how a Melbourne bull bar maker built a global empireARB Corporation turned bull bars, drawers and fridges into a global export business worth billions. Here's how the numbers actually stack up.
Breville: how a sandwich press became a global premium-kitchen nameBreville went from a Sydney workshop and the Toastie to a premium global kitchen appliance brand. Priya Naidu checks the numbers behind the story.
Sonic Healthcare: the pathology giant most Australians have never heard ofSonic Healthcare runs labs across three continents and processes hundreds of millions of tests a year, yet it barely registers in the public imagination. Here's how it got so big.
Ramsay Health Care: how one Paw Paw Ointment fortune built a hospital empirePaul Ramsay turned a single Sydney psychiatric clinic into one of the world's largest private hospital operators. The Ramsay Health Care numbers explain why.
Altium: the Sydney PCB software maker that became a global standardAltium spent three decades turning circuit-board design software into a near-monopoly before Renesas paid up. Here's how, in numbers.
Carsales.com: the classifieds site that quietly went globalHow a Melbourne car classifieds business became a multinational marketplace operator, and why the ASX still seems to underrate it.
REA Group: how a News Corp side project became a property monopolyREA Group turned a modest listings site into one of the world's most profitable property portals. Priya Naidu digs into the numbers behind the dominance.
Afterpay: the instalment idea that turned into a $39 billion saleHow two Sydney entrepreneurs built buy-now-pay-later into a global habit, and sold it to Block in the biggest takeover in Australian corporate history.
SEEK: how a Melbourne jobs board became an Asian giantSEEK began as a Melbourne jobs board in 1997. See how the Bassat brothers and Matthew Rockman built it into a major Asian employment platform operator.
Reece: the plumbing supplier that snuck up on AmericaReece is a plumbing supplier that grew from one Melbourne shopfront into a family-controlled giant, then bet big on America. Here is how the story stacks up.
Ansell: the Dunlop offshoot that quietly gloves the worldFrom a Dunlop rubber offshoot to a global leader in protective and medical gloves, Ansell is one of Australia's least-noticed multinational success stories.
Macquarie Group: the millionaire factory that went globalMacquarie Group went from a Hill Samuel offshoot to a global infrastructure force. Here is how the millionaire factory was built, and where the risks sit.
Computershare: Melbourne's invisible share registry giantComputershare is the Melbourne-born share registry giant most investors never notice. Here is how it came to run shareholder records across the globe.
Canva: how two Perth founders built one of the world's most valuable private software companiesMelanie Perkins and Cliff Obrecht started with school yearbooks in Perth. What they built next reshaped how the world makes visual content.
CSL Limited: how a government lab became a biotech giantCSL Limited began as a wartime government serum lab in Melbourne and became a global plasma and vaccine giant. Here is how the privatisation played out.
Pro Medicus: the quiet Melbourne software company that became an ASX darlingPro Medicus built medical-imaging software over decades before the ASX noticed. Here's how a small radiology tech firm became one of Australia's most remarkable software stories.
Cochlear's competitive moat: how a single Australian company dominates world hearing implantsCochlear holds roughly 60% of the global cochlear implant market. Here's how it built that position, who is trying to close the gap, and where the real risks lie.
Graeme Clark and the long road to the bionic earBefore Cochlear became a global medical device giant, one Melbourne professor spent decades convincing sceptics that a multi-channel implant could restore hearing. This is how he did it.
How Cochlear turned a Melbourne lab into a global empireCochlear's global empire began in a University of Melbourne lab. Here is how the bionic ear became an ASX giant, and what it tells us about industry.
How Atlassian built a global software empireHow two UNSW graduates built a global software empire in Atlassian, from a $10,000 credit card loan to the Nasdaq, and why the no-sales-force model worked.
WiseTech Global: how Richard White built a logistics-software empire from SydneyWiseTech Global's CargoWise platform quietly became the operating system for global freight. Here's how Richard White pulled it off.
Brambles and CHEP: Australia's global blue pallet empireBrambles and CHEP built a global business on blue pallets that most Australians never notice. Here is how the pooling model conquered the world.
Aristocrat Leisure: how a Sydney poker-machine maker became a global gaming giantFrom a factory floor in Sydney to slot-machine floors in Las Vegas and mobile gaming apps worldwide — the unlikely ascent of Aristocrat Leisure.
ResMed sleep apnoea empire: Sydney lab to global giantResMed sleep apnoea therapy grew from a Sydney research idea into a dual-listed global business. Here is how Peter Farrell's company got there.