The women recognised at the Executive of the Year awards

The women recognised at the Executive of the Year awards

Sara Kahlau has barely hit the two-year tenure mark with iCare, but already she’s led a number of massive projects.

And she’s recently been promoted to General Manager of Transformation at the newly created organisation, the kind of title any forward-thinking, innovation-hungry executive would want to achieve.

Last week Sara (pictured above) was named Young Executive of the Year at CEO Magazine’s 2017 Executive of the Year Awards, for her work leading an ambitious transformation agenda that initially started when she was appointed GM of the office for the CEO.

Also recognised at the awards was Shelley Sullivan, the Founder and CEO of ModelCo who was named Retail Executive of the Year. The recent success of ModelCo’s collaboration with Hailey Baldwin generated $15 million in publicity, and got the attention of fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld who is now creating a cosmetics collection with ModelCo, due to be launched in 2018.

The  Hospitality and Tourism Executive of the Year award went to Ann Sherry, Executive Chairman of Carnival Australia. Ann’s led significant growth of the Australian cruise industry through her work with Carnival, leading to significant economic benefits that extend well beyond cruising companies alone.

The Executive Assistant of the Year award went to Simone Koolloos, Executive Assistant to the Group CEO of Blackmores. Simone has been the key support person to Christine Holgate at Blackmores, and notes that “resilience and flexibility” is just as important as planning skills alone.

The Not-For-Profit Executive of the Year award went to Caitlin Pearson, General Manager of Marketing and Engagement, Macarthur Disability Services. Caitlin started as one of the youngest ever people employed by the organisation and in one of the most junior roles. She’s since progressed up the ranks and lives and breathes the organisational values in the work she does.  This year she has navigated the organisation through its biggest re-branding ever and has developed and implemented customer engagement strategies and training across the organisation.

Also recognised was Gina Rinehart, Executive Chairman of Hancock Prospecting Group, who was named chairperson of the year for the third time.

Andrea Ingham, Director of Sales ANZ, Spotify, was named Sales Executive of the Year, Trisca Scott-Branagan from Deakin University was named Marketing Executive of the year, and Mari Ruiz, Chief People and Culture Officer, BankVic was named HR Executive of the year.

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