Unlock Career Success: 5 Top CEOs Reveal Their Best Career Advice Ever Received

A new year brings an opportunity to set fresh goals, create new routines, and map out work objectives. Whether you're hoping to get promoted, find a new job, or simply get the most out of your current role, these insights from top business leaders can help you achieve your goals.

Here are edited transcripts from five episodes of 15 Minutes with the Boss in 2025, featuring the best career advice these CEOs have ever received.

Matt Comyn, Commonwealth Bank CEO

Wake-up: The CEO of Australia's biggest bank doesn't worry about setting an alarm; he's up and about at 6am.

Breakfast: The protein fad has also caught the eye of the CBA boss. To start each day, Comyn has a protein shake, fruit, and a green juice.

Best piece of career advice: "I think if you're the sort of person who is really looking to embrace an opportunity, you tend to be rewarded with other opportunities."

Also, do not second-guess. "I think there's a point you've just got to be prepared to commit and not look back."

Therese Frangie, Oporto

Wake-up: The chief executive of chicken burger chain Oporto is up at 5am.

Breakfast: Breakfast is an "absolute must."

"I really like putting a bit of butter in the pan, putting some frozen peas in there and scrambling a couple of eggs on top. If I'm feeling like I need some more carbs, I'll put some sourdough in the toaster.

"What's amazing about my sourdough is that my mum makes it. She's obsessed with baking sourdough. I have a whole variety in my freezer, from plain to seeded to wholemeal. Olive and rosemary is the latest. It tastes delicious with eggs."

Best piece of career advice: It's your choice.

"It was such a powerful realisation for me, and what I encourage everybody to do when it comes to their career and making decisions, is to remind yourself that it's up to you," Frangie says.

"You have a choice in how you respond to this situation, this request, or this opportunity."

Curtis Stone, celebrity chef and Coles ambassador

Wake-up: It's 6am on the dot.

Breakfast: In the morning, it's all about coffee for Stone while he feeds the kids.

"It's always a cooked breakfast. We don't have cereal in the house. Occasionally, I'll make them oatmeal or porridge, but for the most part, it starts with eggs or a grilled cheese sandwich or quesadilla."

Best piece of career advice: It was renowned British chef Marco Pierre White who gave Stone the best piece of career advice he's ever received.

As a leader in the kitchen, White told the budding culinary star, "If you expect your team to do something, you have to do it yourself."

It's advice that Stone still subscribes to.

"If you're just telling people what to do all the time, it's quite hard for them to genuinely listen," he says. "But if they watch you do it with them, and it doesn't mean you have to do it all the time with them, I think that's really important."

Lou Oppenheim, Sydney Dance Company

Wake-up: It's a 7am start for the head of Sydney Dance Company.

Breakfast: When it comes to the first meal of the day, it's just as much about who Oppenheim eats with as it is what she eats.

"My partner also works in the performing arts. When we're both in Sydney, we always try to have breakfast together because we never know what's going to happen at the other end of the day."

Best piece of career advice: As a trained engineer who majored in computational linguistics, Oppenheim has received lots of different advice from different industry perspectives. But the one piece that cuts through is all about working with others on the job.

"I think 90 per cent of my job is about people and people management, how you treat people, making sure that you're always being transparent, you're always being fair."

Graham Kittle, Heidrick & Struggles in Australia

Wake-up: The managing partner at executive search firm Heidrick & Struggles in Australia admits he probably gets up "too early" at around 4.30am (never later than 5.30am).

Breakfast: For Kittle, breakfast is "a couple of hard-boiled eggs and some Greek yoghurt, with maybe some nuts and a little bit of honey."

Best piece of career advice: "Manage your own career", says Kittle. "No one's going to manage it for you."

And it all comes down to having a plan.

"Have a plan of choosing roles that are going to be aspirational, build a network and make sure that you're surrounding yourself with good people," he says.

"That could be some of those people who have been confidants and mentors and leaders in the past. We should be embracing [our networks] all the way through."