In this UNSW Newsworthy interview, journalist Kim speaks with Jessica Hickman, founder of Bullyology, about her journey from enduring severe workplace bullying to establishing a social‑impact venture that tackles bullying in schools, workplaces, and broader society. Jessica recounts her personal experience of a three‑and‑a‑half‑year bullying ordeal that led to a health collapse, prompting her to launch Bullyology in October 2017. She explains the mission to raise awareness, provide resources, and educate business leaders about the hidden costs of bullying. Funding has been primarily self‑sourced through talks and workshops, with plans to seek investment for an online learning platform. Jessica describes her personal transformation, confronting imposter syndrome, building a supportive network, and navigating the isolation of entrepreneurship. The conversation then shifts to the Upstand Academy, an upcoming micro‑learning app that will house Bullyology’s content and expand to broader upstander training, enabling organisations to integrate bite‑sized modules into their learning management systems. Throughout, Jessica highlights the need for community, partnerships, and scalable digital solutions to combat bullying at scale.
Chapters
Hi Jessica, thank you for taking part in this interview, which is done as a feature for UNSW Newsworthy newspaper, and I'm really glad that you're here with me today.
Thank you so much, Kim. Wonderful for you to interview me.
Um, so tell me about the background of Bullyology. What's the inspiration for you to found it in the first place?
So I created Bullyology after suffering extensive bullying for 3 and a half years. So in my last workplace, it was a really toxic environment and I ended up suffering. And so when I kind of left that industry where unfortunately I ended up in a hospital bed because the bullying got so bad, I ended up collapsing at work, which was work-related stress, and my body got burnt out. So after that, I realized how many other people in this country and the world are suffering workplace bullying. And I'd spoke a lot about school bullying, but I guess the workplace bullying wasn't something that I personally had a lot of knowledge about where to get help, why does it happen, and also especially in Australia, which was a foreign country to me. I'm from the UK, from Wales. So I guess I realized that there's a lot of people that are suffering and probably feeling as isolated as I felt. So I launched Bullyology in October 2017, and my mission has kind of grown since then. At first, I didn't really know that I was going to create a company. I just wanted to share my message with a lot of people. And as soon as I started to break my silence, as I like to say, more and more people were coming to me in universities, schools, parents, obviously the workplace, sport. And I realized, wow, bullying happens across all pockets of society. And we really need to work together as a collective and a community to kind of shine a light on this. And guide people where to get help, but also educate business leaders. A lot of people in organisations turn a blind eye to bullying, and it is still the big elephant in the room—bullying and harassment. So my work aims to educate all people within organisations, especially business leaders, to let them know how damaging bullying is and what it can do to not only personal success mental health, physical health, but also organization and business success, the financial loss, especially in compensation claims.
Wow, it must be really, really challenging to be both an inspiration and also entrepreneur. So have you encountered any difficulties in regards to funding or getting people to understand more about your message? Like, how do you increase your reach within such a foreign country?
Um, let me answer the first question with regards to funding. I'm— I've all like solely funded everything in business. So I do a lot of talks, I run workshops and organization, and I also get funding. So in the early days, and still now, it's still— I'm still, even though I'm 2 years in, it's still very much a startup phase where the money I earn I invest back in the growth of the business. Um, and also I'm in the process of launching an online, um, academy, which eventually I am going to go to investment for. But like anything, you're going to prove the concept and prove the reach and prove that it works. So I guess that I've done things slowly and steady, steadily, and made sure that it's done authentic and where it really kind of in line with what I want to achieve. And look, if I had, you know, millions of dollars in my pocket, I'm sure I could have grown a lot bigger. But I guess with a topic such as mine, Bullyology, and my unique name Bullyology, and I call myself the Bullyologist, I trademarked that and there's no one else in the world called that. Um, so I guess people started to have traction and think, what is Bullyology? What is The Bullyologist? And I guess almost half of Australians will suffer bullying at least once in their career. So whether it's not you or me that would have been affected by bullying, it's someone that we know and love and care about. So bullying is such a topic that is now starting to come to light because people are suffering in silence and people still don't know where to get help, especially students or expats or people on visas like me that are on the other side of the world away from friends and families and just don't know where to get help. Oh wow, such an inspiration.
So how have you, how have you changed ever since you found Bullyology? Because you're making a name for yourself, you're, uh, somewhat successful with the branding process. So how have you changed as a person? Has your personal life changed? Do you get recognized in the street often?
Um, look, with regards to how I've changed as a person, I've grown so much. I had to grow up pretty quick. When I came to Australia, I was 23, and I was bullied, um, throughout my mid-20s. And I was working in construction, so a very male-dominated environment. So I had to grow a thick skin. Toughen up, princess, this is the construction industry. And I guess I've always been a strong, confident person. But doing that, I lost all of my confidence, my self-love, my self-belief. I believed at times that I deserved it. So I guess I had to rebuild myself. But with regards to Bullyology and the Bullyologist, I had to build this person coming from a broken person to then stepping on stage, launching a book and a podcast. There's such thing as imposter syndrome, and there are still days when I have extensive anxiety and I think, oh my gosh, am I good enough? Am I really good enough to do this? But then I impact someone's life, or someone says to me, thank you for responding to my message when I had no one else, or thank you for sharing your tools and resources that saved my life or saved someone's life. I realize that every— everyone has self-doubt. And I guess, um, being a businesswoman in a world where, you know, there's a lot of people that want to just look at you and kind of bring you down, there's some people that have gone all 'So what, you suffered bullying? What makes you so special to talk about it?' But I guess that the bigger, the more successful you are, the bigger the target on your back. And the more traction you're having on social media and sharing your message, there'll always be haters. So I just really learned to just kind of be mindful every day and also ask for help. I guess I've always been the type of person that thinks I should know all the answers. But I had no idea how to start a business. I didn't go to business school, I didn't study in university, and I guess I'm still winging it every day. But I've really been able to build a strong tribe of mentors and coaches around me that guide me and try to keep me, you know, on track when I'm going a little bit sideways. But I guess that life is just a process, and every day I'm trying to learn to be a better businesswoman, a better person. And how has it affected my personal life? Well, I'm super lucky that I've got a really supportive fiancé. We met just as I was leaving that workplace and I had to move interstate and we done a long-distance relationship. That was really hard, but he always backed my passion and understood that this was for a bigger purpose. So I'm really lucky he's understanding because starting a business and leaving a workplace where you're paid really well, you know, there are financially hard times, but I guess that we are a team and Bulliology is very much, you know, both of our success together. I don't think that I would be able to be kind of as confident and successful if I didn't have a strong person cheerleading me behind the scenes when I'm nervous or anxious, saying, I don't think I can do this event. So I guess, um, you know, we both know that this is for a bigger reason. And people think that businesses, um, just pop up overnight and become an overnight million-dollar business and success. But people don't see the sleepless nights, the stress, the behind the scenes, um, the hours and hours and hours of just trying to put content together, trying to— and not having anyone ready to bounce anything off. Business can be a really, really lonely place, and working from home is one of those things as well. So I guess I've learned so much about myself. I've never spent so much time alone When you're in a corporate or a workplace, you've got all your colleagues, you're having all of them kitchen conversations. And as an entrepreneur, no one told me about the isolation and the loneliness. But I guess I try to co-work with people and make business partnerships where I can train and bounce ideas off. And I guess in the last 6 months, that has really took me to exciting new places because I can leverage partnerships, their network, their resources, and not try to create everything myself. Which also puts so much external pressure on yourself. Um, so I guess I'm just like kind of on my journey where I'm trying to learn about myself and business and also learn about other people to know how I can best serve the people.
Oh, you talked about the Upstand Academy. Um, so is that one part of your future plans, and can you share where you're looking forward to taking Bullyology?
Yes, so Bullyology, I focus on, um, on workplace bullying, bullying in school. I do a couple of talks and it's primarily about— I've got my methodologies and frameworks on how to deal with bullying at an organisation level but also at a personal level. And Upstand Academy is kind of, you know, I guess a brainchild off the back of Bullyology where I realised that Bullyology focuses on bullying in particular but there's also so many aspects of me as myself, as an entrepreneur, as a female as a friend, as a partner, as a, as a human, I guess, that before I got bullied, I was still in the social impact space. I still was talking on mental health, I was talking on mind health resilience, and the Upstand Academy is really focused on being an upstander against toxic behaviours, so not be a silent bystander. So Bullyology content will be built into this online platform which I call in my Upstand Academy but also there'll be lots of other content as well. My aim is to empower people to have a bigger impact, but also know how to be an upstander. People often think in bullying situations or toxic relationships or breakdown in friendships or relationships that there's two people involved in that. And let's look at bullying— there's the bully and the victim or target, but there's also all of these other people which are the colleagues or the witnesses that sometimes would love to help and intervene or ask that person, "Are you okay?" but they don't have the skills or tools to know how to help. And sometimes it could be just referring them to the workplace bullying policy. So I guess the Upsound Academy is really an online space where organisations can tap into the content and share that across their online learning management systems but within the organisation. 'Cause what I did realise is I can't be in all of these places at once, so I guess it's a way to scale my content and also partner with other organisations to tap into their content as well. And it is moving with the times, we know the millennials want everything faster, quicker. In a convenient way. Yeah, bite-sized educational content, so the AppSang Academy is built on micro-learning where people can listen, watch videos, use the tools and implement them immediately into everyday life.
Oh wow, thank you so much for sharing your story, and I hope that Bullyology will achieve all that, um, it's aimed to do, and I hope that you will also be successful with your intentions.
Thank you so much, hey, miss. Thanks for having me, and thank you so much.
