It was about ten months ago now when I came in to meet Angela Priestley for the first time. She was pregnant and I was on maternity leave. I brought my then six-month old daughter along for a coffee w…
What I wanted to ask Senator Michaelia Cash last night
Last night members of Executive Women Australia gathered in Sydney’s Paspaley Pearls flagship store to celebrate the launch of a new executive program. The guest speaker to this group of promine…
The rhetoric and the research support gender diversity so where is the action?
In 1993 an American executive, Bob Joss, arrived in Australia to head up Westpac. Ann Sherry, the chief executive of Carnival Australia, who worked for Westpac at the time, clearly remembers one of hi…
Nothing about mental illness is simple
I didn’t know Charlotte Dawson. I knew who she was, of course, but I didn’t know her. She was a model and a television presenter and because of her resulting public profile I know a few th…
Christine Lagarde’s leadership legacy
Simply being the managing director of the International Monetary Fund is a significant feat. Being a female in that role does compound the achievement; Christine Lagarde is the first female to ever oc…
Want to lean in? Do it with us
Long before she published Lean In, the book that became an international bestseller and the modern manifesto for ambitious women, Sheryl Sandberg had reservations about even mentioning her gender. Bef…
Why a visit to the local child and family health centre saved my sanity
A few weeks ago I saw a poster, or possibly even a meme, that carried this message: God gives you the children you can handle. Now I am not particularly religious but I’ll admit it resonated. De…
The story behind Anne Summers’ conversation with Julia Gillard
After delivering a rousing speech on the political persecution of Australia’s first female Prime Minister in August 2012 and then publishing her book The Misogyny Factor, which dealt with the sa…
Men like high-paying jobs. Women like low-paying jobs. Just an extraordinary coincidence?
Last week The Daily Beast published an article claiming women do not make less money than men. The author, Christina Hoff Sommers, took issue with President Barack Obama citing the fact a woman s…
Australian chief executives supporting girls’ right to education
In some ways Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani schoolgirl who was shot by a Taliban assassin on her way to school in October of 2012, has a very unique story. She is one of the most famous 16 year olds …
