Pax Republic co-founders Barbara Sharp and Tim Offor, based out of Stone & Chalk Melbourne, are no strangers to conflict resolution.
Between them, they have more than 30 years’ experience in crisis communications for some of the region’s highest profile scandals. Ever the peacemakers, Barbara and Tim, founded regtech startup Pax Republic in 2014.
In this, they've embedded all their know-how from their consulting days to create an anonymous digital platform inbuilt with AI and deep linguistic analysis to uncover the deepest issues lurking beneath workforce culture.
The value of Pax Republic
Their C-Sight anonymous online platform lets employees voice their thoughts on business-critical issues, so that company leaders can hear the real truth about how their strategies are landing.
Following the aftermath of the Royal Commission into Banking, Superannuation & Financial Services, Barbara explains Pax Republic offers a solution that gets people into a virtual room where people can have focused, facilitated discussions.
This leads to collective intelligence being extracted for the sole purpose of better corporate decision-making based on rich data insights.
Barbara lights up when explaining the capabilities of the technology.
“We provide forums to understand what’s really going on inside an organisation. It’s about reconnecting employees with their leaders, activating that voice for the benefit of the company’s progress," she says.
“With enough data, you have a company-specific thumbprint of a workplace culture. It’s essentially a mass of stories and words, which gives you a much deeper read on the issue leaders need to understand better if they’re to make the right changes.”
How it work
The forums, which are invitation only, are set in a socially-controlled environment with a few key ground rules to keep things civilised.
Facilitators dive deep on the issues raised to get lots of different points of view. Think of it like a slow-motion meeting spanning a week, where people can dip in and out as they wish. People can even read, and not comment.
A friendly AI-powered moderator named Clarra surfs the forums and is able to pick up on dangerous language patterns which may lead to personal identification.
If this happens, she’ll pop up in a private message to give you a gentle nudge, warning you that you are at risk of identifying yourself.
“This is a leadership tool,” Barbara affirms. “C-Sight is for leaders who know that listening to their people and acting on what they hear, knowing it’s data-backed, is going to guarantee long-term success in an uncertain world.”
What Pax Republic gets from Stone & Chalk
Barbara smiles as she describes the Stone & Chalk Melbourne hub she works from.
“It’s a fabulous space, Stone & Chalk are really good at generating a strong feeling of community. They’re a great team there, and have organised us into tribes to strengthen the flow of internal communications.”
“We used to be in another co-working space, and the key reason for leaving and coming to Stone & Chalk was because the other hub was mixed startups. This is more about high growth tech-based startups."
"We’re a regtech solution and for us it’s about connections, networks and being in the same space. Growth and opportunity, it’s an ecosystem within ecosystems.”
What Barbara has learned from her startup journey
When asked about a valuable lesson Barbara has taken away from her startup journey, Barbara sums it up by saying, “Persistence. We’ve always done stuff that’s a bit out there, and it’s only worked because we persisted. If something’s worth doing, you’ll keep at it.”
Sharing a word of advice to Founders, Barbara says, “Be brave and back yourself. Even if things go wrong, giving it a go is actually more important than success.”
These are valuable lessons, and ones we support at Stone & Chalk.
If you’d like to find out more about the startup Pax Republic and how it can re-build trust and illuminate paths forward for any organisation using AI-driven software, get in touch with Barbara.
