Contagious Enthusiasm

Some people enter a room. Jennifer Peace transforms it.

At Shell House Dining Room, ninth floor, terrace side, the Sydney sun is doing that thing where it makes the harbour look almost too perfect. We've ordered the Scallop on Scallop with caviar, and Jen's already three sentences into a story about hiking the Dolomites when the waiter arrives. She doesn't miss a beat, weaving him into the conversation, making him laugh, then pivoting back to why Italy's refugios are the perfect metaphor for how she approaches business.

“If you can hike from place to place and be greeted with food and wine at the end of it,” she grins, “well, come on, that's an Unobtanium existence. You get out and have an amazing adventure, but then also be spoilt rotten.”

This is vintage Jen. The woman who calls herself a “schizophrenic traveler” – platinum frequent flyer turning left on planes one week, strapped into hiking boots zooming her team from a mountaintop the next. The brand strategist who's built a career at Momentum Worldwide not by following the playbook, but by being so authentically herself that clients can't help but get swept up in what she calls “contagious enthusiasm.”

It's her personal brand. Literally. Right there on her LinkedIn. And unlike most corporate mantras that sound impressive but mean nothing, this one actually fits.

“I think you can tell from our conversation that my outlook on life is about grasping it fully and embracing it and sharing,” she explains as the Snapper Crudo arrives – macadamia, mandarin, chilli. “Giving people permission to be brave through me. My job is to push that enthusiasm, the genuine, authentic enthusiasm. It should be contagious.”

“My job is to push that enthusiasm – the genuine, authentic enthusiasm. It should be contagious.”

The word gets thrown around a lot in marketing circles – authenticity. Everyone claims it. Few deliver. But Jen's built her entire approach around a principle that most people discover too late, if at all: total and utter honesty in who she is and how she shows up.

“If you'd have asked me this question even just a year ago, I would have given you a place or a thing,” she reflects. “Now, what I'm actually searching for or chasing the most is absolute total and utter honesty in who I am and how I show up in life.”

It's a journey that's taken her from the UK to Australia 25 years ago, through a career spanning business, marketing, and advertising, to this moment where she's figured out something fundamental: the privilege of self-actualization.

“Very few people have the luxury of being able to do that because we're all scrambling,” she says. “So I need to honour the privileges that I have and experience every moment and show it fully and authentically in my own life.”

“Very few people have the luxury of being able to do that because we're all scrambling. So I need to honour the privileges that I have and experience every moment.”

This philosophy extends to how she works. At Momentum Worldwide, she's currently architecting something ambitious, working with Australian brands to create something that showcases what she calls Australia's “amazing larrikin energy.”

“Australia is full of entrepreneurial human beings and businesses,” she explains. “To have an opportunity to display that on the world stage and to show how we can show up in a very fun, but also professional way – super excited about doing that and collaborating to do that.”

But ask her who influences her thinking most, and she doesn't cite a business guru or industry titan. She points to her kids.

“I spent a career doing lots of things and probably neglecting them way too much,” she admits. The Moreton Bay Bugs arrive, glistening with lime and espelette butter. “As I get older, plugging into a 19 and a 15-year-old who know everything about the world before you do, who roll their eyes in disgust at what you don't know, but are also full of joy and optimism – their perspective on it and what they're looking for is massively fascinating to me. It reminds me not to be a wanker, right? To keep refreshing my thinking. And that keeps me alive.”

It's this openness to being challenged, to failing, that sets her apart. Most executives spend careers building armour. Jen's spent hers taking it off.

“I'm really comfortable with failing,” she says without hesitation. “I'm really comfortable with failure. I love failing because it teaches me things and it allows me to move on. It means I was brave. If you stand still you'll go backwards. It's exactly the same as a human being. We can't stand still in our own self-development.”

“I love failing because it teaches me things and it allows me to move on. It means I was brave.”

The Hanger Steak arrives, and with it, a wine story. Actually, two.

The first is about a mystery. Twenty-five years ago, newly arrived in Australia, she walked into Bennelong. The sommelier asked what she wanted. She didn't know Australian wines, but she knew what she was after: something punchy and exciting with the finesse of an old world wine.

“He brought me a beautiful Viognier,” she recalls, the memory still vivid. “It was explosively new world, but it was delicately structured with the linger of old. Stupid me, I never asked what that Viognier was. For literally 25 years, I have been trying to find that Viognier.”

The second story is about Italy, where she used to live. About walking into the back kitchen of a nonna's house and being served the first pressing in a clay jug. “That is wine that you can't bottle because it goes off. It's slightly effervescent on the tongue. It's so light it feels like you're drinking fruit juice, but dangerous fruit juice. That was what wine, in vino veritas, was – the life that comes through the freshness of a grape becoming something visceral and exciting.”

It's this appreciation for the unrepeatable moment that shapes how she travels. Nature that's bigger than her, that humbles her, that reminds her of her smallness. Mountains, specifically. New Zealand six times a year. The Andes. The Atlas. The Dolomites.

“If I'm in nature that's bigger than me, that humbles me, that reminds me of my smallness, then that is something I take back every time,” she says. “It doesn't matter where it is, as long as there's a mountain.”

This is a woman who describes herself as loving "who I am and where I'm at" with zero ego, just fact. Who ends philosophical points with “anybody that doesn't like it, they can call me crazy, but literally hop onboard for the ride.”

The Red Fire Lettuce arrives as we're wrapping up, and Jen's explaining her value to the Unobtanium community. Not in corporate speak, but in her language.“

What you're actually getting is an advocate for what you're doing. I think it's way bigger than just individually doing amazing things for people. I think it betters us all. I go home after something beautiful that's been created for me and my soul is full of joy. I will talk about it. I will share how blessed I feel. My job is to push that enthusiasm – the genuine, authentic enthusiasm. What you do creates ripples.”

“What you're actually getting is an advocate for what you're doing. What you do creates ripples.”

She does public speaking, coaching, team dynamics work. Creates brand strategies, growth strategies, go-to-market plans. But the special sauce, as she calls it, isn't just the rigour of her discipline.

“It's the human being that's pushing it. It's the magic. You can translate that into a talk, you can translate that into a fireside chat, you can translate that into a curated dinner.” She pauses, grins. “Buy me a good bottle of wine and I'll turn up every week.”

As lunch winds down on the terrace, what emerges is a portrait of someone who's cracked a code that eludes most people in corporate life: being fully yourself isn't a liability, it's the entire point. The business follows. The success follows. The ripples follow.

"Being fully yourself isn't a liability, it's the entire point."

She's proof that you don't have to choose between being professional and being human. Between being strategic and being spontaneous. Between turning left on planes and strapping on hiking boots.

You can be all of it, if you're brave enough to fail, open enough to learn from 15-year-olds who think they know everything, and honest enough to show up exactly as you are.

Which is exactly what the best Unobtanium members understand – that the work of building a remarkable life isn't about acquisition or achievement. It's about becoming so entirely yourself that your enthusiasm becomes contagious.

And if that means occasionally zooming into Monday meetings from a mountaintop somewhere? Well, that's not crazy.

That's just Jen.