Ms Anna Podolsky

Entrepreneur and Gymnast

Anna Podolsky (class of 2008) is the founder & CEO of Lyka Pet Food, a forward-thinking start-up disrupting the pet food space in Australia. Anna has always been an all-rounder. At Brisbane State High School, she excelled in academics, graduating with an OP2 and an Academic Merit. She was also highly skilled on the mat, achieving incredible success as a national-level rhythmic gymnast and leading the rhythmic gymnastics team to victory by winning the open pennant on threepeat from 2006-2008. A natural leader, Anna's experience as both a competitor and coach gave her the discipline and drive she needed to take her career sky-high.

After school, Anna studied a Bachelor of Science (Mathematics) and Bachelor of Commerce (Finance) at the University of Queensland, graduating with a Dean's Award for Outstanding Academic Excellence for every semester, achieving a GPA of 6.83 out of 7.

In 2013, Anna spread her wings in her first professional role, leaving the comforts of Brisbane behind and travelling between Sydney, Perth, Melbourne and rural Queensland, in a highly sought-after position as a management consultant for Bain & Company. Earning her stripes within the consultancy, Anna took her skills international, making the move to Chicago, where she jetted between the Windy City and Arkansas, then moving to Santiago, where she learnt Spanish and Portuguese before returning stateside to San Francisco and finally back to Sydney. During her time at Bain, she advised senior executives of some of the world's largest companies, working extensively in consumer products and retail and in operations  and performance improvement.

Throughout her international career, Anna's dog, Lyka, travelled with her and together they lived in five countries. Shopping for dog food was incredibly challenging and frustrating in each country that Anna found herself in, with nutrition seemingly very low on the agenda of the brands available. This, coupled with Lyka's deteriorating health, led Anna to research and question commercial pet food. Unhappy with the nutritional value of the dog food she was purchasing, Anna started home cooking Lyka's food.

After just a few weeks on a fresh food diet, Lyka's health transformed. She was a different dog and Anna knew she was onto something. It was during her time living and working in San Francisco that she began to make moves to start her own company, working late into the evenings and weekends, whilst also working full-time at Bain. Finally, in 2018, Anna knew the time had come for her to set up roots back home in Australia and bring Lyka to life. It was only fitting that her brainchild would be named after her fur child. Lyka the border collie cross was after all, the reason that this game changer was coming into existence.

Lyka Pet Food is a human-grade, fresh dog food subscription company, whose goal is to redefine pet food by focusing on nutrition and not shelf-life. Anna is extremely passionate about natural feeding and educating people about pet food, an antiquated industry that is built around a highly processed and unnatural diet, luring people in with clever marketing and trendy buzzwords. Lyka Pet Food is real, authentic and actually good for dogs. The company is based in Sydney, currently employees over 40 staff and is growing exponentially, quickly becoming one of Australia's leading consumer goods start-ups.

Anna is a firm supporter of females in STEM careers. Her advice to female students finishing school is to choose their dream path no matter how challenging it might appear. Finding the right support network and mustering the courage and dedication to face challenges head-on will allow them to fulfil their ambitions. No dream is too big, because all those years ago, little did Anna know that from the first sear of meat for her dog, Lyka, she would be opening up the possibility of shaking awake the dog food industry in Australia. But here we are.

If you can dream it, you can do it.