Career Inspiration · Guest Speaker · 2026
Ben Sorensen: From Advertising to the Moon — A Squiggly Career Story
One of the most powerful career inspiration stories we've heard comes from Ben Sorensen. When most students picture their future careers, they imagine a straight line with their "dream job goal". Study this. Get that job. Move up the ladder. Ben Sorensen is living proof that the most interesting careers are anything but straight, and that following curiosity, embracing failure, and saying yes before you feel ready can take you places you never imagined — even to the Moon.
Ben recently joined students from A Start in Life as part of our Career Sampling Webinar Series and what followed was one of the most honest, energising conversations we've hosted. Not a polished success story. A real account of resilience, reinvention, and lifelong learning from someone who does not fit the mould.
Career Inspiration: From the Classroom to the Cosmos
Ben's early life was shaped by genuine challenges. Boarding school came with bullying. The 1991 recession hit his family hard. But those experiences sharpened something in him, a resilience, and a sharp awareness that education creates options even when circumstances feel limiting.
At school, he was drawn to ancient history and geography. He loved understanding systems: how civilisations rose and fell, how environments shaped human behaviour. That passion for patterns and interconnection would quietly underpin everything that followed.
After school, Ben began a part-time commerce degree at the University of Newcastle while working in advertising in Sydney and he never completed a traditional academic pathway. That fact alone made him one of the most compelling guests we've had. Because the career he built is extraordinary.
“What you study matters, but it doesn't lock you into a single outcome. Your degree is the first leg of a much longer, more interesting journey.”
Ben Sorensen
Advertising in Sydney
Studying commerce part-time at Newcastle while working in Sydney advertising. No finished degree, but a huge amount of curiosity.
A $1M budget at the Olympics
Ran Gowings' million-dollar marketing during the Sydney 2000 Games. A crash course in scale and pressure.
Five months at MYOB
Joined, then walked away when he realised accounting wasn't for him. Knowing what you don't want is progress too.
The child-proofing venture
Built a business that collapsed under rising insurance costs. A setback treated as data, not identity.
A FIFA-licensed bag company
Shut down when the governing body dropped the ball, leaving real financial hardship. The hardest chapter, and not the last one.
Early file-sharing, meet iTunes
Ran an early file-sharing service that faced legal challenges and helped shape Apple's iTunes store.
Digital change at AACo
Led digital transformation at the Australian Agricultural Company. The toolkit was starting to add up.
Innovation at PwC
Worked on innovation projects across the firm, connecting ideas, people and emerging technology.
Teaching at QUT
Built and taught a course on disruptive innovation leadership, with no completed degree of his own.
Commercial Director, Data61
Steered commercial strategy at CSIRO's Data61, working at the frontier of Australian tech and cyber security.
Roo-ver, to the Moon
Now Consortium Director of ELO2, leading Australia's first lunar rover mission. Every sideways step was quietly building the toolkit no single degree could give.
Key Insight
Ben treated every setback as data, not identity. After his most painful business failure, he found work on an online memorials platform supporting families through grief. It reconnected him with purpose and reinforced a belief he carries today: contribution matters more than the title on your business card.
Leading Australia's Lunar Rover Mission
Today, Ben is the Consortium Director of the ELO2 project, the team behind Roo-ver, Australia's first lunar rover mission. The project combines Australian industry capability with NASA technology to demonstrate sovereign expertise in robotics, remote operations, and space systems.
The mission involves designing, building, testing, and remotely operating a rover on the lunar surface. Beyond the technical achievement, it is a statement about Australian capability and a platform for inspiring the next generation of students into science, technology, and space careers.
Leading it means managing a team, building international partnerships, overseeing governance, generating revenue, and holding a clear direction under conditions of genuine uncertainty. Ben described his role as equal parts strategist, relationship builder, and systems thinker. Above all, he is someone who helps people keep moving when the path ahead isn't obvious.
Opportunities Rarely Announce Themselves
One of Ben's strongest themes is that he didn't map out a path to space. He kept saying yes to things that seemed sideways, uncertain, or outside his comfort zone. Many of his biggest opportunities arrived through conversations and relationships rather than job ads or formal applications.
His advice to students was practical: stay open, build capability broadly, and develop the courage to step into uncertainty before you feel fully ready. The people who go on to do remarkable things aren't usually the ones who waited for certainty. They're the ones who learned to move through uncertainty.
Leadership Without the Traditional Script
Students were particularly curious about how Ben built credibility and influence without a completed degree. His answer cut through the noise. A qualification can be valuable, it opens doors and signals commitment, but leadership itself is something different. In his view, anyone can lead by offering others clarity, confidence, and courage. Those things don't require a certificate.
He also spoke about mindset in a way that clearly resonated in the room. How you interpret adversity shapes what you become. Failure, rejection, and wrong turns are not evidence that you chose the wrong path. They are part of every meaningful path, and the students who learn to reframe them as learning will be the ones who keep moving forward.
What He Wishes He'd Known at School
Broad curiosity is an asset, not a liability. Students who are interested in everything — history, geography, technology, people, systems — often feel like they don't fit neatly into a career. Ben's journey shows that the opposite is true. That breadth becomes your edge when the world is complex and no single specialty is enough.
About Ben Sorensen
Ben Sorensen is the ELO2 Consortium Director leading Roo-ver, Australia's first lunar rover mission. He is a former Commercial Director at CSIRO's Data61, a Eureka Prize winner for cyber security innovation, board advisor, and author. He advises executives and organisations on strategy, innovation, and emerging technology. Connect with Ben on LinkedIn.
If you'd like to attend one of these talks, they're part of our Career Sampling Webinar Series, included in our student support program. Click here to find out more.
