Valuable advice from women in enterprise
Schools
Students from Our Lady of the Sacred Heart College were inspired by a panel of successful business women as part of the college's 'Women in Enterprise' gathering on July 30.
As about 100 students, teachers and guests took their seats along one side of the sports hall of the Our Lady of the Scared Heart College (OLSH) on July 30, a well-known Aretha Franklin song played in the background.
The volume was low but the song choice of ‘Respect’ said everything about a 90-minute Women in Enterprise gathering that will have enthused and inspired everyone present at the Enfield school.
The theme of the night was ‘You can’t be what you can’t see’, a rallying cry to the all-female student audience to get out there and achieve, to show their worth.
“Fake it ‘til you make it,” offered Small Business Minister Andrea Michaels when asked about how to become confident.
“Don’t let your ATAR define you and your choices,” said Melissa Wilson, newly appointed Commissioner of the South Australian Productivity Commission.
“Surround yourselves with people who are passionate about you,” volunteered former OLSH student and social strategist Linda Huynh who immediately trumped this by saying that her employer, the Adelaide clothing start-up Oodie, hopes to become a $1 billion company next year.
The uplift was infectious. The panel of speakers were questioned not by a teacher or professional presenter but by two Year 12 students, college captain Jayla Ngo and co-vice captain Anh Trinh, confident enough to quiz the speakers beyond their first answers.
Once we’d got past the ‘Don’t think all accountants/economists are boring’ trope – and telling, several speakers felt compelled to volunteer this – the individual stories started to come out.
Linda, a fast talker and prolific short film maker, got a job at ‘Ferrari/BMW’ when she was 21 years old after university.
“They didn’t have any social media and advertised in newspapers (only),” she recalled and so she made a video for them.
“I will sell cars for you,” she told them. “They created a role for me. I was the only one in a pencil skirt at meetings at 21, I stood my ground.”
Minister Micheals spoke with a freedom and enjoyment she will not often be handed in public. She was very shy and introverted as a child and appreciated attending an all-girls school she said.
“If I felt I had to impress boys I would have sunk and not swum.”
Her Greek Cypriot parents (who fled war torn Cyprus in 1974, a year before she was born) were old school and wanted her to be a doctor when she grew up.
‘And if she’s not clever enough, she’s going to be a lawyer,’ they’d say.
She became a tax lawyer. Confidence was still an issue so instead of speaking publicly about tax she’d write reports to get her thoughts across, the irony being that the well-written reports got her noticed and led to a career in politics where she speaks publicly for a living.
Melissa Watson is academic and also comes with a rounded, if unconventional, story. A school dux at St Dominic’s Priory College she recalled being so entranced by a budget report on TV that she recorded (on VHS) the entire program and brought it into school the next day so her class could tune in and debate it. In case they’d missed anything.
“No-one was interested,” she said with a self-awareness (and great humour) perhaps not always there. Tellingly, academia was not everything, she was also an accomplished Irish dancer. A mum now of two young children, she is an achiever to keep an eye on.
Melanie Cooper, the evening’s voice of reason, was a competitive swimmer at St Peter’s College (she recalled its ‘ethos of kindness’ even now). Melanie missed out by one point on getting into physio. ‘You’re good at maths’, her mother told her, ‘why not try accounting?’ Which she did, enthusiasm indeterminate, but she flourished and “loved it”.
“It took me a long time to find my voice and stand up to entitled men, it’s easier to say nothing,” she told the audience when asked about the difficulties of women reaching the top. (An AM holder, she is the first female chair of Cooper’s Brewery and has been part of the Prime Minister’s think tank on community business partnerships.)
“They think it takes us about 10 years longer to reach the top. (Being a mother) doesn’t set you back but you tread water. Parents need to talk to sons about how to be co-parents,” she said.
While the ‘do what you love,’ mood filled the room, it was Melanie who remained grounded.
Don’t worry if school isn’t the greatest thing ever, Melanie advised. It doesn’t have to be the best days of your life. But be resilient and don’t take short cuts.
“No matter what you do, you have to put in the hard yards.”
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