Megan Dalla-Camina is an author, mentor, coach, international speaker and expert in positive psychology. She’s also director of strategy at IBM, where her inspiring leadership saw her recently take home the NAB Women’s Agenda Emerging Leader in the Private Sector award.
Dalla-Camina’s personally lead the development and execution of a new wave of leadership at IBM called Positive Leadership, directly impacting people, strategy and the company’s bottom line. It’s leadership that’s based on positive psychology, as well as neuroscience and behavioural economics, that aims to bring out the personal best in people. She took this form of leadership to the CEO and leadership team, then allowed it to trickle down to 1400 managers and is now in the final stages of developing virtual learning solutions to enable the company’s 15,000 employees across its Australian and New Zealand to also benefit.
Meanwhile, Dalla-Camina’s also been working with her CEO Andrew Stevens on the Gender Parity strategy to back the business’ 2015 roadmap. She’s heavily involved in the Male Champions of Change program and spends a significant amount of time mentoring and coaching women within IBM and in the broader business community. Last year, she became a published author with her first book, Getting Real About Having it All.
Upon accepting her award, she said the win took her by surprise – despite being nominated in two categories (the other was for Inspirational Ambassador).
“I’m shocked and I also didn’t prepare anything! It’s such a female thing to do isn’t it?” said Dalla-Camina about her win. “I’m very proud to work for IBM, and I’ve worked for them for more than a decade. I’m often asked how I do what I do and it’s because I have such an amazing employer and an amazing CEO in Andrew Stevens so I’m just very humbled and grateful to be here.”
She also noted the calibre of the other finalists in her category. “I’d really like to thank Women’s Agenda and NAB for putting on this amazing awards program to recognise these phenomenal, phenomenal women, and I was honestly thrilled to be nominated in two categories so it was just wonderful.”
The other finalists were AMP Financial Planning’s Milo-Arne Peady, NAB’s Antoinette Totta and Meat and Livestock Australia’s Melanie Brock.
Watch Megan accept her award in the video above.