Women on Boards - Leaders and Directors in Conversation

Dr Catherine Ordway is an academic in sports management, and a sports lawyer, who specialises in anti corruption and integrity. She's a sought after tribunal member, media commentator and consultant who's assisted sports including AFL, archery athletics, basketball, combat sports cricket, cycling, football, golf, handball, rowing, rugby, softball, swimming, and triathlon in governance, selection a...

Karen Loon is a Non-Executive Director, and a former senior Big 4 partner. She has worked with the world's leading banks and is a recognised thought leader and speaker on workplace diversity and inclusion - inspired partly by her own experiences in Australia. "What really struck me was that I was sitting in boardrooms or sitting in meetings, where there was pretty much I was the only Asian in the...

Wendy Teasdale Smith is a woman full of surprises. As well as being the owner of possibly one of the largest collections of hairclips for anyone over 40, WOB's quirky and energetic South Australian representative also recently won a Toastmasters humorous speaking award with her speech on having an RBF (resting bitch face), which she presented over Zoom during COVID. Born and brought up in Elizabet...

In the wake of the Optus cyber-attack, in this special update we talk to Matt Fehon AM, partner at McGrathNicol.  Matt has led some of the largest and highest profile fraud, corruption, and regulatory investigations in Australia. He is one of the key presenters in our new 5-part program S ecurity Risks and Risk Management for boards .  The program starts on the 20 October and consists of 4 one hou...

Helen Conway has, by her own admission, always been an agitator. As the experienced lawyer, senior executive, NED and workplace gender equality expert tells Claire Braund in this podcast, it was her "contrary nature" which compelled her to get involved when she saw something that was not right. "I may have made a few enemies along the way, but you have to be courageous enough to stand up for what...

To be good at cyber security you need to be able to think like a threat actor. That's according to state-based cyber warfare expert Dr Sarah Morrison, who has herself embedded herself for the last 20 years in the technology and cybersecurity industry.  No surprise then that Sarah is always the one at dinner parties reminding people to use secure passwords and update their anti-malware. What is mor...

Miriam Silva is an experienced board member and senior corporate roles across multiple industries including pharmaceuticals, banking and agriculture. Her influence extends across business, Government, media, Muslim and broader Australian communities. Educated at The Wilderness School, a non-denominational school for girls in Adelaide, Miriam went on to read mathematics at Adelaide University befor...

From avoiding fisticuffs on the trading floor to conquering Wall Street and running her own financial market regulation consultancy, Sydneysider Amanda Mark is known for her fearless determination and big picture thinking. It was always Amanda's dream to work in financial services overseas, so after landing a job in Sydney for a money market broker as a chalky in the early 90s - one of four women...

Dr Kath Hall is an internationally recognised expert on transnational corporate corruption and foreign bribery regulation. Her career as a legal academic and writer has led to her advising a number of leading international organisations including the United Nations Joint Inspection Unit and Safra Centre for Ethics at Harvard University. Dr Hall has advised the International Standards Organisation...

As Australia celebrates NAIDOC week - an historically important celebration of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture and connection to Country - WOB Cultural Diversity Member and proud Yorta Yorta woman Claire Beattie discusses what steps First Nations allies can take towards reconciliation -  from helping more Indigenous women into leadership positions to buying from Aboriginal businesses...

Women on Boards marks UN World Day for Cultural Diversity with a panel discussion about cultural diversity and inclusion in board and leadership roles, with guests Shirley Chowdhary , AAP Board Member; and Women on Boards' Cultural Diversity Committee member and proud Yorta Yorta woman, Claire Beattie . Tune in to listen to this insightful and real conversation, as the panel discusses: The backgro...

Turning diversity into a superpower Born in Tamil-speaking southern India, Anita Kumar was the first girl in her family to leave home at 17 to go to university. Today Anita lives in Sydney and is an experienced CEO, social entrepreneur and passionate advocate for the rights of children and families, especially those dealing with complex life issues or living in vulnerable circumstances. But her de...

Growing up in Tropical North Queensland, clarinet-playing, science-loving Marguerite Evans-Galea felt like a "square peg in a round hole". But thanks to her supportive family and a lifelong mentor - who also happened to be a university professor - Marguerite was inspired to pursue a career in STEM. As she tells Claire in this podcast: "He really did inspire me to thrive. He said, 'think outside th...

Building a franchising empire, family business and cultural diversity Sara Pantaleo is a businesswoman who has always loved working and mentoring people. Migrating to Melbourne from Italy with her family as a teenager, Sara went on to work with mainframe systems in IT operations at NAB. In 1996 she joined La Porchetta as Distribution and Administration Manager – taking a major shift from the corpo...

Growing up in 1980s Britain, it's no surprise Sarah Fairhurst's biggest role model was Margaret Thatcher. "I was at school when she was in power and she made me realise women could do anything," says Sarah, a WOB member with significant expertise in the energy sector, including advising governments and industry on commercialization and issues relating to the power and energy sector. Like Britain's...

As a special episode we have reproduced a webinar that Women on Boards co-hosted with the Governance Institute of Australia titled  Diversity is half the circle. Culture, equity and inclusion are the other half.   Moderated  by Catherine Fox, Journalist and Author  Panel Members: Megan Motto FGIA, Chief Executive, Governance Institute of Australia Dr Marlene Kanga AM, Non-executive director, Sydne...

When independent Non-Executive Director Cheryl Dixon is asked what Board she is on, her answer is often met with raised eyebrows. With just under three decades of sales leadership and operational experience with NAB, and now a senior executive heading up PEXA - an Australian online property exchange network which supports the property industry as it transitions towards digital conveyancing - Chery...

As a law student at ANU, Women on Boards member Fiona David was already tipped as "destined to work on social justice issues." This was later confirmed when Perth-born Fiona spent a short stint in corporate law which set her instead on an international path to social justice issues. As she tells Claire in this podcast, it was then she realised she could use her legal skills "without having to be a...

Victoria Weekes has had a long, impressive, and principled board career.  She is an accomplished non-executive director with experience across a diverse range of business sectors in listed and major private and public sector organizations. Migrating to Australia at the age of two, she spent much of her teenage years on the family's rural property where she learned to muster cattle. Victoria went o...

Trish Egan is a born and bred Sydney girl, but she has had a lifelong love of horses from a young age, further fuelled when Dad would take her to the races as a child. Looking back, 12-year-old Trish - who secretly penned a letter to the Chairman of the Australian Jockey Club asking how she could secure her "dream job" of being a strapper - would never have thought she'd be taking the reins as Cha...

It's no surprise Dr Bronwyn Evans AM sticks by the mantra 'everyone's an engineer'. As CEO of Australia's peak engineering body Engineers Australia and recognised as one of the country's 100 most influential engineers, she can't understand why everyone doesn't want to work in her chosen field. A passionate advocate for getting more women into STEM, it's Dr Evans belief that all children, regardles...

Lil Bianchi is not your box-ticking director. As a highly-experienced Non-Executive Director, Chair Audit & Risk Committee, former CEO and tech entrepreneur working across data analytics, fintech, risk and customer value Lil thrives on innovation and change and loves being around curious people. As she tells Claire in this podcast, she believes there's space in every boardroom for "weird and whack...

Fashion designer, newsreader, banker, lecturer: Mahjabeen Zaman has had all these careers in her sights since growing up in Singapore in the 80s with her parents who moved there from Pakistan. Now Mahjabeen, who has called Australia home since 2017, can add three of those four jobs to her resume. Currently working as a senior investments specialist after also running her own highly successful fash...

If anything can prepare you for battle in the boardroom, it's being a politician in the middle of a crisis.  Former-South Australian Mental Health Minister and Women on Boards member, Leesa Chesser (nee Leesa Vlahos) was thrust into the spotlight when allegations of elder abuse of dementia patients at the state-run Oakden nursing home were exposed leading, in part, to the aged care royal commissio...

Resilient and tenacious - no two words could better describe long-term Women on Boards member Roberta Wright. Despite being left totally blind after an operation to remove a brain tumour then having to fight for the right to keep her adopted baby - on the back of losing her brother to a drug overdose and father to cancer - Roberta is always looking to the future. As she tells Claire in this podcas...