She's The Boss Chats

I absolutely adore Jess and you will too! After growing up in the outer suburbs of Melbourne with a lawyer Dad and a fashion designer Mum, she and her sister had a great childhood in a close-knit, creative family. after finishing school, Jess got a job at Bakers Delight where she soon became a Manager and really learned how to run a business with the support of her boss who obviously nurtured tale...

Geraldine's story is truly remarkable. You will adore this woman! Born and bred in Adelaide, Geraldine left school at the end of year 9 and went straight to secretarial college, as many girls did back in the 60's. After a few years of doing general secretarial work, she applied for the Foreign Service and her first posting was in Cambodia. While she was there, she experienced the war with Vietnam...

Therese is amazing! Brought up in Brissie by a single Mum, as her Dad died when she was 5 months old, Therese had a wonderful childhood. She begged her Mum to let her go to a Catholic High School with her friends, and while she was there she did really well. It was a conversation with one of her teachers, who told her she could do anything she wanted, that led her away from secretarial college and...

Nat's story is incredibly inspirational. Nat grew up in the Illawarra region with parents who both worked in the steel works, and her father was a narcissist whom she could never seem to please. Despite the fact that she was an ideal student (getting 99.9 for her HSC), her Dad never really 'got' her or supported her. After finishing school, she won a number of scholarships and eventually chose Eco...

Santosh is such an inspiration! After growing up in Punjab in India, the daughter of a businessman and an academic mother, Santosh had loads of female role models who were doctors and academics on her maternal side, making medicine an easy choice for her when she finished school. From there she moved to Delhi and started her own private practice, and also ran a Health Clinic, before deciding to mo...

Lauren grew up with both parents in the fashion industry. In this interview, which was also live streamed into the Motto Fashions Facebook group, Lauren talks about how she grew to 'hate' Motto as a young woman after years of having to hang around in the factory while her Mum and Dad finished work. Always a bit rebellious, in year 9 she was asked to leave her school after disrupting classes and fo...

Junie is such an inspiration. Wait til you hear her adventurous life story! Born in Canada to Haitian parents, Junie was a competitive ice skater as a child (from the age of 4!) and she had an inherent curiosity and wanderlust that has taken her on a lot of adventures in her life. After being discouraged from continuing in her ice skating career (grrr!) she completed school, and then uni, with the...

Elizabeth's story is totally captivating. Having grown up in the outer suburbs of Adelaide as an only child with an older mother and a distant father, Elizabeth was always out exploring the neighborhood. She felt a bit of an 'outsider' due to her background and the sterile, racist, and small-minded community she was surrounded by. And then, the day after her 13th birthday, her Mum died. Her father...

Simone is just such a wonderful, wonderful woman that you will absolutely love her story. As an only child growing up in Liverpool, Simone left school and immediately joined the British Navy. This was at a time when women were not allowed to go to sea, so she started off in the office and moved to cryptography before learning how to be an Air Traffic Controller. Pretty cool stuff! Simone has alway...

Brenda is just so lovely that you will adore her! As the founder of Be Keane leggings and T-shirts, Brenda is focused on making cool, well-made leggings for women from size 6-38, which makes it the biggest range of leggings available in Australia. And it all started at a wellness retreat when Brenda and the women she was with, were challenged to come up with a business idea. Having tried to find l...

Shraddha and her co-founder Riya Sinha are extraordinary! In 2017 they created Fuzia to bring together women of all ages for support and networking. Within months they had a million followers, and to date, they have five million women in the group. Howzat! Shraddha knew from an early age that women were treated differently to men, and she didn't like it! Determined to make a difference, and after...

Kate is just such a delight to talk to! Having grown up in Melbourne as the middle girl in a family of five, with parents as teachers, she was always a great learner. Her Father had a couple of secondments overseas so she had the opportunity to go to school in England, and travel a bit of Europe as a child, which gave her a taste for it! Once she finished school she went on to study law, before ta...

Cassie is amazing! Based in Griffith, outback NSW, which is where she grew up, Cassie has done so much, not least of which is her latest side hustle (on top of running a successful digital agency), she has created CanTicket. CanTicket is software for designers and people who work in teams and need to measure the time spent on projects. Cassie grew up on a grape farm (as opposed to a Vineyard!) and...

Greta's story is so empowering. You will love her! After growing up in Melbourne as the youngest of five, with an artist mother who is a strong, bohemian role model, and a German father who was a journalist. Greta tells the story of how she got expelled from her first day of primary school - an indication of her strong rebellious nature! Soon after, the family moved to Germany where Greta stayed u...

Wow! Jo is, as you would expect, an incredibly easy person to talk to, and an absolute inspiration! Ever since she started Broad Radio (by women, for women), I have watched her grow the business and I'm excited to see what she does next as they do a capital raise and turn it into an app and 'mainstream' channel. From her childhood surrounded by women, especially her Mum (who sounds amazing), Jo lo...

Jody is a very stylish and clever woman who has been running her creative agency for over 25 years now. Not a lot of women can make a claim like that! Born and bred in Mackay in a very close family, Jody and her sister grew up exploring the rainforest and the beaches around the Whitsundays. Her Dad had gone there to do a job as a young man, and never left! Jody enjoyed her school days in Mackay bu...

As CEO of Startup Victoria, Vicki is such a huge supporter of founders, and women in business generally and it was an absolute delight to hear her story. Born and bred in a tiny village in Yorkshire, Vicki's first job out of college was to work for Nike in Amsterdam. She describes her time there as pretty awesome due to the wonderful, inclusive, and positive culture. During that time she really ho...

Wow! Sukey has a fantastic history of entrepreneurship and I was blown away by her businesses. Having grown up in a small province in China as an only child, Sukey only arrived in Australia as a young adult. After finishing year 12, she went on to study Advertising but soon realised her heart wasn't set on working in marketing and advertising roles. She discussed the options with her parents and d...

Lea is such a warm and friendly woman, she is a delight to interview. Lea is the co-founder of Boyce Family Office, along with her husband. The two of them manage the investments, philanthropy, and initiatives that are generated by their own family and they also help other family-run business owners. After growing up in the suburbs of Melbourne, the youngest of three, Lea loved helping her Dad who...

Nikki is amazing! As a woman who likes to make things, and create solutions for people, she is now about to launch a platform for online learning, libraries of content and memberships, which she is calling Wisdome. Nikki grew up in a close family with lots of relatives and laughter! She first discovered her love for design and textiles at 15 when she (and her little sister) used to constantly chan...

Linda is one of my favorite women and has values that I am 100% aligned with, so this interview was very special. Linda's group, based in Texas in the US, is about lifting women up, supporting successful women, and doing whatever is possible to accelerate their path to success. Her background is extraordinary! Linda, and her brother Rob, were adopted children, making them extra special, and their...

Cynthia is a Property Advisor and Buyers Advocate through her business, Metrolinx, but she has a twist! She only works with one client at a time which means she gives them her undivided attention until they have the house of their dreams and then she takes the next client. Howzat?! She also loves working with generations within the same family - first home for the kids, downsizing for the parents,...

Olivia is the founder of FemTek, a smart ring, and app that has been designed to measure hormone and menstrual fluctuations in women, for use by personal trainers as well as for women to improve their body literacy. Growing up in Poland,Olivia has never really fit into a mould. She was always happy to follow her own path which lead her from being a young model at 15 to becoming a health enthusiast...

What a story! Melissa is the co-founder of Bondi Chai, the first powdered chai product available in Australia and she and her partner Martin started it after discovering chai in New York when they were there for the beginning of the millennium. Melissa is so warm and engaging, and clearly, she and Martin are madly in love, so it's a really positive, uplifting episode. They have the classic startup...

Christine is an absolute firecracker! Having grown up in North Palmie in NZ, Christine loved sport, particularly hockey. Once she discovered hockey, she became totally focused on it and it informed many of her early career decisions, as she wanted whatever she was doing to fit in with the sport! She studied for as long as possible (because of the student allowance and flexibility it offered her fo...