“How do you do everything all at once, all the time, for everybody?”
When Adelaide entrepreneur Tania Jolley, who founded Lashes of Change, said this at the recent roundtable we hosted with small-and-medium sized business (SMB) leaders in South Australia, it summed up what founders have been telling us from around the country.
Women’s Agenda and CommBank have been working together to understand how women in business are thriving, what barriers stand in their way and what practical steps can be taken to better support them.
In our 2025 CommBank SMBs report
, we heard from hundreds of women founders and business leaders fighting the odds to achieve success.We have been looking deeper into these issues from different regions around Australia with the aim of developing practical recommendations for the broader sector that help unlock the potential of these founders and leaders.
Similar to national trends, a growing proportion of South Australian businesses are founded and led by women but access to capital remains a stubborn barrier with many reporting that gender factors into this.
At our roundtable in Adelaide, we met 44 inspiring women business leaders based in South Australia.
These women are building ventures across a range of industries including health, tech, communications and finance.
Many of the women also happen to be parents and carers sandwiched between obligations at home and work.
While taking on the great challenge of building profitable ventures, they discussed some of the unique barriers they face as women which sheds light on the systemic and structural gaps holding them back.
From the discussion, three key themes emerged:
- Women are experiencing a heavy mental load made worse by gender-based obligations that have them taking on more care and housework
- Rapid advancement in AI present an exciting opportunity for women in business but support is needed to ensure these leaders and their teams are equipped to keep up
- Women’s voices need to better acknowledged and heard from boardrooms to government chambers where policy decisions are being made
These entrepreneurs are navigating a volatile world with economic curveballs and rapidly evolving technology.
The current cost-of-living and sluggish growth has been felt by many and SMB leaders are grappling with persistent issues around cost pressures, weak profitability and regulatory burden.
Despite this, our research and the insights we’ve gathered at the Adelaide roundtable show these conditions are not slowing down ambitions.
SMB leaders in South Australia are instead pushing ahead, growing their teams and investing in innovative tools to scale-up.
One of the women at the roundtable, whose child wasn’t even two years’ old when she launched her latest venture, said women need to recognise the full breadth of work they take on.
In addition to the phenomenal success they are building through business and the many challenges that come with that, they are also juggling the needs of family and loved ones, maintaining the home and other additional pressures.
“There is a lot on your plate, being a woman in a leadership role running multiple businesses, and having a little one running around who’s changing everyday,” she said.
“It’s having the time to pause and acknowledge that it’s okay and to remind yourself, ‘well, actually, there is a lot on my plate’ and just reprioritising who you can have around you to offer support.”
The sheer grit and tenacity of South Australian women in business was evident at the Adelaide roundtable.
Despite societal and systemic barriers, these leaders were cutting through, growing their teams and scaling up.
The impacts, however, were deeply felt and discussions on the day revealed the sacrifice many have had to make.
One of the entrepreneurs at the table, who brought with her more than two decades of experience, shared a powerful insight.
She said building successful ventures has always been tough and especially so for women – but women founders and leaders carry a unique strength.
“Being a woman is a superpower and we should try and double down on that,” she said.
“Think about your point of difference.
“Certainly in some industries, being a woman is part of that, and you have a different perspective, so lean into that.
“It’s not about pitting ourselves against the men. It’s about saying this is what we are great at.”
South Australia as a state is going through significant change.
The re-instated Labor government is working towards a target of 50% women and Indigenous peoples on government boards and committees.
South Australia’s Minister for Women Katrine Hildyar says the state is seeing exciting growth across a number of sectors.
“We are growing jobs in construction, in advanced manufacturing, in defence and space and renewables,” she says.
“We have this incredible time and an agenda ahead of us. I want to make sure that women are participating fully in all of those opportunities.”
It is time that the effort and contributions of women are better recognised and supported.
Our latest report on SMB leaders in South Australia provides a practical look at how we can do this together.