Emma Thompson trained as a solicitor in the UK, figured out fairly quickly that law was never going to set her world on fire, and ended up volunteering overnight shifts at Ronald McDonald House in Christchurch a path that took her from receptionist to CEO after an earthquake left the charity rebuilding its building and its leadership at the same time. Now CEO of Ronald McDonald House Charities Southeast Queensland, she talks with Anton Guinea about influence as a two-way street: the impact you knowingly exert on the world, and the impact the world quietly exerts on you when you’re not paying attention. She’s candid about the hardest part of running a mission steeped in other people’s pain: the trauma isn’t yours to carry, beautifully empathetic front-line staff are exactly the people most at risk of being depleted by it, and psychological safety deserves more than the legislative bare minimum. There’s a sharp thread here on being effective rather than popular, drawn from her work merging and modernizing a 60-year-old membership body into a viable health program, plus her view of leadership as custodianship, leaving the organization stronger for whoever comes next. She closes with a reminder that stuck with us: if you can create positive change, you have a duty to do it.