Lawyer Donnelle Hestelow sailed through school with a certain degree of self-assurance. She’d always enjoyed school and achieved high marks with ease. She was a natural leader: chatty, cheerful, articulate and determined.
Hestelow’s parents had instilled a passion and respect for education in their two daughters. By the age of seven she was already a high-achiever and could spell out the word paediatrician, determined to one day study medicine and work with children. By her final years of high school she was burying her head in weighty physics and specialist mathematics tomes and memorising quotes for English exams. The hard work paid off – she achieved excellent scores and was invited by her preferred university to sit an interview and aptitude test for the medicine degree she’d wanted to get into for so long. But things didn’t go to plan.
“I didn’t get in. This was devastating for me, it was the first time that things hadn’t gone to plan for me,” she recalls.
Refusing to wallow, she immediately enrolled in her second preference – a double bachelor of law and commerce.
“I saw a lot of similarities between law and medicine. They are both degrees that require specialisation and require you to keep learning and keep studying – I am someone who gets bored easily so that was perfect. To be honest I imagined I would do a year of law, hopefully get great results and transfer to medicine…I didn’t even buy the textbooks in that first semester,” Hestelow admits.
But it was a “challenging and exciting” contract law subject in her second semester that triggered a shift. “I got to do debating, we studied mooting and negotiations – it was right up my alley. I realised then that law was for me,”
She excelled, achieving first class honours and although she’d done work experience at a handful of big firms, she chose to spend the formative years of her career with a small boutique law firm. “The partner had broken away from a big law firm and so it was incredibly challenging but rewarding…I was thrown in the deep end.”
Flexibility and adaptability are two qualities Hestelow has learnt to embrace but it’s diversity and inclusion she feels most passionate about.
“Practising law is very different to the study of law. I knew if I did [choose to work with a big firm], I would know exactly where my life would go, work on exactly the same thing day in day out…work insanely till midnight and all weekend and I just had this feeling that I wasn’t willing to do that,” she explains. “I like sports, I have lots of interests and am involved in community projects, and I saw at some of these law firms that it could become a bit of an insular world. I think it is really important to have a diverse perspective – not just conversations and interactions about the law.”
Working for a number of smaller firms on Australia’s sun-drenched west coast, she says it has been meeting people and communicating with clients that has been the most rewarding aspect of her job. “I just find people very interesting – what makes them tick, why they do things the way they do. I suppose there are some similarities between being a lawyer and a journalist – I’m very curious and I try to make forming relationships a key part of my job…I have some fabulous conversations and I’m always willing to share my own stories with clients and I think that’s why I’m able to connect with them,” she says.
Donnelle has climbed the career ladder swiftly – at just 28-years-old she’s now a senior associate solicitor for National Australia Trustees Limited, part of NAB Private Wealth, a wholly-owned subsidiary of National Australia Bank Limited.
Her role sees her assisting a broad cross section of the community in estate planning and talking about an array of subjects – from estate planning through to family and property law.
What she values most, however, is the constant support the organisation provides its employees and the emphasis it places on flexibility, diversity, inclusion and “giving back to the community.”
Early on in her career at NAB, Donnelle was afforded opportunities for further study and invited to attend leadership courses and join its “connecting women” committee. She liked that although working for one of the country’s biggest businesses, she was encouraged to get involved with the broader company (she’s a “diversity agent” so And is active in promoting diversity in all sphere not just gender. Her role touches all of the specialised NAB teams including agribusiness, for example, going out to a remote farm and helping out a banking client with their succession needs.
Donelle is inspired that her NAB colleagues and seniors talk about “emotional intelligence.”
“There’s lots of flexible working arrangements and pride in this at NAB. I see it in every part of the bank – there’s day care and expressing and wellness rooms and you’re trusted to be an adult – if you’re a high performer why shouldn’t you be able to perform in the way you are most proficient?”
The statement “doing the right thing” struck a chord with Hestelow. “I am really proud that they follow through with that – being in Western Australia, with the mining industry, I’m aware of how many companies say this and don’t do it. The fact is a lot of those [mining] sites and offices, the language and behaviour used is simply incongruent.”
Hestelow says NABs diversity policies are “multi-layered” and stretch well beyond gender equality.
“The bank has an African-Australian Inclusion Program – over 100 African migrants have been employed at the bank since the program commenced in 2009 – these employees have wonderful skills and it’s such a boost for NAB to have them on our teams.”
This belief was reinforced when one of the women she mentors had a friend tragically pass away in the Nairobi shootings (on September 21 this year, at least 67people were killed in a violent shooting attack at the Westgate shopping centre in Nairobi, Kenya).
“She had a few days off after it and then we talked about it…it just devastated me. I thought what if some of our clients had similar experiences? Having people from different backgrounds can help employees identify and connect with more clients and the community.”
NAB Private Wealth’s executive general manager Anglea Mentis is a source of admiration and inspiration for Hestelow.
“She’s such an inspiring and motivating woman. I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who can talk on so many different levels – she is across every part of our business and knows exactly what is going on and cares about every single person in the team,” she says.
Mentis believes women in leadership roles have a responsibility to help other women and be vocal in their support.