Success Stories From Catherine Robson

Retail veteran Penny Winn enjoyed a stellar career with Woolworths holding various roles across logistics, information technology and customer engagement. She was responsible for overseeing some of the most complex projects rolled out by the retail giant during her 16 years with the company.  A life-long learner, Penny took up key board positions with Port Waratah Coal Services, CSR and Caltex Australia when she left Woolworth in 2015, seeking out new challenges for the next phase of her career.  In this week’s Success Story, Penny talks with Catherine Robson about managing people through change, what a university education really gave her and how mindfulness meditation gives her a professional edge.

Talented international arbitration practitioner and Corrs Chambers Westgarth Partner, Bronwyn Lincoln is one of Australia’s designees to the panel of conciliators for the International Centre for Settlement Investment Disputes (ICSID). For Bronwyn, the appointment to this prestigious role in February 2017 was 20 years in the making. In this week’s Success Story, Bronwyn Lincoln shares with Catherine Robson the challenges of a career in international commercial law, how she stays cool under pressure and why keeping it all together is more juggling than balancing.

Dr Melissa Davis is a computational biologist and  Laboratory Head of the Bioinformatics Division at the  Walter and Eliza Hall Institute. Driven by a passion to make the cancer diagnosis a less devastating one, Melissa and her team are at the cutting edge of bioinformatic studies aimed to reduce the traumatic side effects patients experience while being treated for cancer. In this week's Success Story, Melissa shares with Catherine Robson the role sophisticated data analytics and mathematical modelling play in revolutionising cancer treatment and why a difficult financial decision led to the career she loves today.

Dr Amantha Imber is an innovation psychologist, best-selling author, and founder of Australia’s leading innovation consultancy, Inventium. With clients including ASX 200 and Fortune 500 companies, Inventium has grown from humble beginnings to one of Australia’s fastest growing companies under Amantha’s  leadership. In this week's Success Story, Amantha talks with Catherine Robson about the characteristics of truly innovative businesses, why she freely shares her IP  and finding career fulfillment.

Executive Director of Global Partners at B Lab, Alicia Darvall is at the global forefront of a movement supporting people using business as a force for good. B Lab is pivotal in shaping the social and environmental impact of the next generation of entrepreneurs, helping create profitable, purpose driven companies that will change the world. In this week's success story, Alicia shares with Catherine Robson how B Lab is helping purpose driven businesses thrive, her ease with uncertainty and why she’s all for dropping the ball.

Media commentator, columnist and author Jamila Rizvi’s was named one of Melbourne’s Most Influential Women Under 40 in July by The Weekly Review. Her writing debut, Not Just Lucky, is a career manifesto for millennial women, exploring the reasons why many women at the top of their game credit their success to luck, not ability.

CEO & Co-Founder of global influencer marketing platform Scrunch, Danielle Lewis is proof that tenacity and a commitment to never giving up can yield big rewards. A lifestyle blogger with 10 years experience in corporate sales, Danielle switched paths from a steady career trajectory at Telstra and dove head first into the world of tech startups. In this week’s Success Story, Danielle shares insights from different stages of her entrepreneurial journey -  the key lesson after losing her life savings, why pivoting isn’t a bad thing and how to raise capital for a start up.

At a time of concern about the number of women progressing to the ‘top job’, Anne Ward is a welcome exception. Of the 7 organisations of which she is a director, she chairs the majority of them. Anne is chairman of Qantas Superannuation, one of Australia’s largest corporate superannuation funds which manages over $7 billion of retirement assets for its 33,000 members. She also chairs Colonial First State Investments, which manages over $100 billion of assets on behalf of around 2 million Australian investors. She is the chairman of both Zoos Victoria and The Centre for Investor Education, she is a director of MYOB, the Foundation for Imaging Research, and RMIT University. In this week’s Success Story, Anne shares with Catherine Robson how the most challenging board crisis she’s faced led to a deeper understanding of what it means to lead effectively and why saying no to opportunities could be the best thing for your career.

Co-founder of the EdTech start-up Banqer, kiwi Kendall Flutey always had the entrepreneurial spark. At 7, she created a 20-cent newsletter subscription for kids at school and sold toys from a stall in her front yard. Today Kendall is leading Banqer, an award-winning cloud software designed to equip school kids with savvy financial skills, but she wasn’t always thriving in the world of tech start-ups.   In this week’s Success Story, Kendall shares with Catherine Robson how a single tweet set her on the path to start-up success and why she took the leap from a traditional career path, embraced the unknown and discovered who she was really meant to be.

Leonie Walsh was a hands-on kid. Growing up in a small rural town she chopped wood with her dad, hung out at truck depots and was fascinated by chemistry and mathematics. Victoria’s Lead Scientist from 2013 – 2016, Leonie is an advisor and leader in technological innovation. She’s an outstanding woman of science but her global career spanning 30 years hasn’t always been a smooth ride. In this Success Story, Leonie shares with Catherine Robson how she took a huge career risk to remain true to personal priorities and why a frugal approach to finances gives her freedom to take on roles for love, not money.

Monty Dimond is a radio and television presenter familiar to many from The Circle, Tractor Monkeys and radio shows in Melbourne and Sydney. Some unexpected free time led her to launch Show and Tell bringing the intimate conversations that happened on the couch of The Circle to a new audience where Monty is free to work with like-minded women and finally gets to call the shots. Listen as Monty tells us how she took a stand to get this break, how she overcame her phone addiction and how she switches off while working and at her brand-new holiday home in Byron Bay.

As an 18-year-old in a club Kate Seselja saw no harm in following her boyfriend to the bank of pokies and having a go. The psychological design of the machines triggers the same reaction in the brain as cocaine use and caused an addiction that nearly ruined Kate’s life. Now awake to her emotional functions and back in control Kate runs The Hope Project, which helps people live a sustainable mentally healthy life and is an ambassador for the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals or SDG’s. Kate talks to us about conquering her addiction and helping others.

Jo Fischer always thought she would be an entrepreneur, she started young and has not stopped. Today she is at the helm of an international executive search firm which bears her name - Jo Fisher Executives. Jo and her team have placed 1500 executives in corporate, healthcare and even non-profit roles. In this Success Story she explains the philosophy that has driven the growth of her company, and her personal growth. To counteract the temptation to think about work 24/7 Jo recommends and enjoys planning holidays - which is how she was able to include a journey to Antarctica in the last, busy 12 months.

George McEncroe, teacher, comedienne and broadcaster has launched a new ride share service, Shebah: Female drivers, female passengers. The company is ‘growing beautifully’, listen to find out how George’s past careers had an influence on her success. Not many CEO’s have been described as Geraldine Doogue meets Rosanne Barr. Shebah founder George McEncroe is unafraid to make a joke, about herself or the world she sees around her, and her keen observation skills as a stand-up comedienne and a fear of not having a go, could be the key to success for this fledgling company, which offers a safe space for female riders and drivers in this new car share service.

Elizabeth Proust is a favourite daughter of Melbourne, with a varied career in the corporate and public service sector she brings a wealth of experience to her current portfolio of roles. Among other things we talk about the push for tax reform coming from the Australian Institute of Company Directors, of which she is the current Chairman. Elizabeth was the frequent public face of the 90’s rehabilitation of the City of Melbourne and this built her profile. She says her strong opinions and leadership come in part from being the oldest of nine siblings.

Catherine Fox is best known as a journalist, writing the Corporate Woman column at the Australian Financial Review and being the deputy editor of Boss Magazine for many years. Now an author, speaker and member of the gender equality advisory board to the Australian Defence Force she is also an associate fellow of the Centre for Ethical Leadership. Catherine explores the current state of gender in the workplace in her new book, Stop Fixing Women which explores the idea of making workplaces more humane for both men and women to achieve greater productivity and wellbeing.

Lisa Leong has taken some surprising turns in a career that has seen her pioneer the new territory of client centred innovation. Her team was awarded the 2017 worldwide Association of Corporate Counsel Value Champion for the work done in the Telstra Legal Innovation Forum eliminating 40,000 hours of low value non-strategic work through technology and process solutions. Listen as we are taken on a rapid-fire journey that started with a degree in law and science, progressed through a varied legal career, a jolt into radio, a pit-stop in mindfulness and ends with Lisa's current role as CEO of Ohten APAC, leading the adoption of innovation mindsets.

Meg Heffron is co-founder of Australia’s leading Self-Managed Super Fund Administrator. In this week's Success Story Meg talks about the conscious decision to base the thriving business in a regional location, her personally, and the consequences for her eponymous business.

Olivia Engel is recognised by her peers as being at the very top of her profession. We were lucky to catch her before she leaves Australia to take up the role of Deputy Chief Investment Officer, Active Quantitative Equities at State Street Global Advisors. As well as explaining what exactly that means, Olivia introduces us to the culture of State Street, a bank formed in Boston, MA in 1792 and with over $2.4 Trillion in assets under management in 2016.

Elesha Piper is at the beginning of her success story. It started when she found herself financially overwhelmed. In this week’s Success Stories we learn how Elesha turned her financial situation around and how she is using her story of transformation to bring a community together and start her own business.