Founders Unfiltered: Kate Pollard

​Founders Unfiltered: Kate Pollard, Founder of FORK Collective

​Founders Unfiltered is Stone & Chalk's flagship fireside chat series. This is a long-form, live conversation for founders, by founders. Each month, one founder pulls back the curtain on the decisions, trade-offs, failures, and what they'd do differently, so the founders in the room can go further, faster.

​This month, we sit down with Kate Pollard, Founder of FORK Collective, who helps founders and scaling businesses unlock their next stage of growth through hands-on go-to-market strategy, fractional CMO work, and grounded advice from having done it before.

​Kate spent 18 years in corporate leadership at Accenture, NAB, Commonwealth Bank, and realestate.com.au before co-founding Circle In, a workplace platform that grew to 100 corporate customers across Australia, the UK, Europe, and the US, raised three funding rounds, and worked with brands including L'Oréal, Estée Lauder, Qantas, Xero, and MECCA. A

​fter selling Circle In in 2024, she launched FORK Collective, and also runs Scale From Within, a leadership coaching program for female founders, and serves as a Board Director at Stone & Chalk.

​No polished narrative. No pitch. Just an honest, founder-to-founder conversation about how decisions were really made, what worked, what didn't, and what she'd change.

​Format:
1.00pm – 1.15pm: Arrival, lunch & networking
1.15pm – 2.15pm: Fireside chat
2.15pm – 2.30pm: Audience Q&A

​This series prioritises founder voices only, curated speakers with real, lived experience from the Stone & Chalk community and alumni network. Come ready to learn, compare notes, and leave with something you couldn't get anywhere else.