Holly Ransom will share practical tips and advice about mentoring at our upcoming Melbourne breakfast. Tickets available here.
Holly Ransom discovered her purpose at the age of just 10. At 21, she was personally approached by Rio Tinto Iron Ore boss Sam Walsh to help drive transformation in the organisation.
Still in her mid twenties, the commerce-law graduate’s since gone on to create a consulting business, chair the 2014 Y20 Summit, serve as the world’s youngest Rotary president, travel to Antarctica, run a few marathons, and have a personal chat with President Barack Obama.
For the record, Obama noted that he may very well be speaking with a future prime minister of Australia when he introduced himself to Ransom at last year’s G20 Summit.
And he could be on to something: More than one Australian prime minister has personally called on Ransom to lead on a number of initiates, such as assisting with the planning of the B20 and G20 summits. She’s also been named Young Volunteer of the Year, West Australian of the Year and worked with the Dalai Lama on a peace charter.
Not bad for an overachiever who says it took her a while to fully appreciate what it means to be a leader. “The word leader for me in my head was a whole bunch of sixty-year-old, grey-haired men yelling at other sixty-year-old, grey-haired men in parliament,” she tells Women’s Agenda.
She adds she learnt to “own the word leader” after being put on a leadership program at 15 and finding herself in awe of the students she was working with. Feeling lucky to be there and a little out of her depth, it taught her the valuable contribution she could make — as long as she stepped up.
“There’s no magical age or title when somebody bestows leadership capabilities on you. If you’re waiting to give yourself permission, you’ll be waking g a long time,” she says. “We often need that reminder that it rests with us. That notion of waiting for somebody to give you the entry ticket is flawed logic. Sure, leadership can be scary and terrifying, but that’s why you build support structures like mentors.”
Ransom’s had plenty of mentors and puts much of what she’s achieved in her career down to their support. At 18, she was mentored by Perth Lord Mayor Lisa Scaffidi, followed by former Youth Ambassador to the UN, Elizabeth Shaw.
Later, it was Sam Walsh who gave her a belief in business and running great organisations. When we speak, Ransom’s just returned from meetings in London where Walsh now serves as the global CEO of Rio Tinto.
The pair met after Ransom delivered a keynote address for International Women’s Day at Governor House. “Maybe because I was the youngest and Sam was one of only a few blokes, we started chatting and had a great half hour conversation about gender equality, business, life and leadership. He said he wanted to keep in touch.”
Ransom admits (embarrassingly, she says) that at the time she didn’t know much about who he was. Later, he created a role for her at Rio Tinto, assisting with developing and directing business improvement and change management initiatives. Having finished up the project, she says Walsh is still an enormous influence in her life. “He plucked me from obscurity, although he reckons I was never obscure. He created a role for me at the company and that was just extraordinary.”
Clearly ambitious, Ransom says her mentors push her to stretch her ideas about what she can achieve. But she says her purpose and passion comes from within, and is something the figured out at the age of just ten.
She can pinpoint the moment precisely: bored while browsing a bookstore with her mother in Perth she walked outside alone onto the street where she found a man begging. She asked what he was doing and was told he was trying to earn enough to have a feed. Noting he only had $4 and 20 cents, she commented that wouldn’t get him very far.
“It was a moment that jarred with me, I’d been hearing this was the lucky country, but why were people begging for money?” she says. “I remember lying in bed that night and it was bucketing with rain and I thought, ‘how come he doesn’t have a roof over his head like I do?
“That was the moment the passion ignited for me in wanting to be able to help. It was the catalyst for me to really want to contribute.” The next morning Ransom, who likes to say she was “raised by the community in Perth”, approached her school principal for advice on what she could do. He offered a variety of options and taught Ransom that there are always solutions, just sometimes you need to ask the advice of others.
So what next for somebody who’s been touted by the US President as a future PM? Ransom says her current focus is around inter-generational work, particularly in creating new ways of thinking, working and leading that will harness the capabilities of all the generations. She adds that with booming youth populations in Africa and Asia we have no choice but to do things differently.
And she’s in a very good position to help.