Women on Boards - Leaders and Directors in Conversation

Dr Jan Tennent OAM: Making the leap from lab bench to the boardroom

Dr Jan Tennent: Making the leap from the lab bench to the boardroom In this Women of Honour podcast Claire Braund talks to Dr Jan Tennent OAM - an internationally recognised researcher with specialist knowledge of antimicrobial resistance mechanisms and the discovery and commercialisation of vaccines. Jan was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) for her service to research science, and to business, and today Jan says she hopes to use the OAM “a platform for my future work to remove barriers to women and indeed to all great scientists”. But despite being six foot tall with a head of long white blond hair, Jan says when she moved from the lab bench to the board tables of big biotech companies “it was still really hard to get noticed around the boardroom”. As she tells Claire Braund in this podcast, her ‘love affair’ with research began last century, on the first day of the second year of her science degree at Monash University.  Now a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Technology and Engineering and the Australian Society for Microbiology and a Principal Fellow at the University of Melbourne, Jan’s specialist skills and knowledge gathering in microbiology, molecular biology, antimicrobial resistance mechanisms and vaccine development came from 18 years working as an applied research scientist at Monash during her PhD, as a post-doctoral researcher in the medical school at Umeå University, Sweden, and then as a senior research scientist and program manager at CSIRO Animal Health, Parkville. Through subsequent executive roles at CSL, Pfizer and ConnectBio, Jan gained more than a decade of experience in the translation and commercialisation of research outcomes to products and practices for the benefit of humans and animals. Her most recent executive role was as CEO of Biomedical Victoria, the premier voice for linking medical research to clinical care in Victoria (2012-2019). These days, she says she is proud to mentor many ‘next-gen’ researchers and is inspired to apply and share my knowledge and experience through a number of advisory panel appointments and non-executive director governance roles including with the eviDent Foundation, Apiam Animal Health (ASX:AHX), AusBiotech, and Agriculture Victoria Services. In this podcast, Jan talks to Claire Braund about falling in love with science, living and working in Sweden - “suddenly my world opened up way beyond Footscray and the suburbs of Clayton  to the other end of the world” - and what it was like working for more than a decade with CSIRO as a young female research scientist in the 80s and 90s. She also discusses the highs and lows of working in the global bioscience space with top-flight companies including CSL and Pfizer and some of the major career challenges she has had to overcome as a leading woman in STEM. Claire and Jan also chat about what prompted her to take on her first NED role with Tweedle Child and Family Health Service in 2011 and her subsequent move into the boardrooms of big biotech companies - and how having a science background helped around the boardtable. As she says: “In science there is no such thing as a silly question. And in fact it's exactly the same at the board table.” Podcast Host: Claire Braund OAM [https://www.linkedin.com/search/results/all/?fetchDeterministicClustersOnly=true&heroEntityKey=urn%3Ali%3Afsd_profile%3AACoAAAIENzgBakhjIzLrY18gkrS1P8QGxlaLSvc&keywords=claire%20braund%20oam&origin=RICH_QUERY_TYPEAHEAD_HISTORY&position=0&searchId=a6b5a138-d9f4-47ca-9659-516094d44b74&sid=jj%3B&spellCorrectionEnabled=true], Women on Boards Executive Director and co-founder. Subscribe (FREE) or join Women on Boards HERE [https://www.womenonboards.net/].

Woman of Honour: Board recruitment specialist Bernadette Uzelac AM

‘If the door is closed, climb through the window’. That’s the message from board recruitment specialist and director, Bernadette Uzelac, who has been made a member of the Order of Australia (AM), for significant service to the community of the Barwon Southwest region in Victoria. Growing up in Geelong, Bernadette was married with a baby and selling Mary Kay products by the time she was 18. Three years later she had completed a commerce degree and welcomed her second child. By the 1980s, driven by a hunger to put her own stamp on something, Bernadette started her own recruitment business - despite having no experience. “I jumped off that great big cliff face into the black hole,” she tells Claire Braund in this podcast. “I had four weeks of annual leave payments, borrowed some money from my father to buy furniture, rented an office and waited for the phone to ring.” Today Bernadette is an accomplished CEO, entrepreneur and business leader who sits on the Board of the Geelong Cemetery Trust, and was the first female president of the Geelong Business Club in its 50 year history . In this podcast, Bernadette discusses the changing landscape of recruitment - from the ‘wild west’ of the 80s to today’s focus on gender-equitable practices and avoiding unconscious bias - and the increasing role of AI in the recruitment space. She also shares her top recruitment specialist tips for anyone seeking board roles and discusses the critical importance of networking.   Find out more about Women on Boards [https://www.womenonboards.net] Visit our Events Calendar [https://www.womenonboards.net/WOB/WOB/Events-Programs/Events_Calendar.aspx?hkey=a76a8b0d-a2a7-4204-b607-4fc2c63f002c] Subscribe (free) or join [https://www.womenonboards.net/WOB/WOB/Membership/Memberships.aspx] Women on Boards Follow us on LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/company/554069/admin/feed/posts/]

Julie Adams OAM: Dad’s legacy brightens future for cancer patients

Warning: This podcast discusses suicide A curious child who grew up with an older brother, Julie Adams OAM started challenging gender stereotypes at an early age. “I felt empowered to speak up if I thought I was being treated differently because I was a girl,” said Julie. It was this curiosity, she says, that led to her success as an entrepreneur as the co-founder of Chemo@home -  which offers cancer patients the convenience and flexibility of receiving treatment in the comfort of their own home - and in 2024 being awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) for service to pharmaceutical oncology. Julie was working as a Cancer Services Pharmacist in1994 when she recognised the need for home-based chemotherapy while her Dad was dying from emphysema. After being shown how to administer antibiotics for her father’s chest infections, Julie’s Dad was able to spend his last Christmas at home.    Over the next 6 years July researched ways to treat cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy at home, and in 2013 took a calculated gamble to co-found Chemo@home with business partner Lorna Cook.  Despite being told their business would “never survive without a male company figurehead” Lorna and Julie grew their operation to become a multi-award winning health service, employing more than 80 people across the country. The company has since been widely recognised, winning nine business awards, including Julie being named the 2016 Telstra WA Business Women’s of the Year. Then in 2022 Julie’s world was rocked when her 22-year-old daughter Molly died by suicide related to intimate partner abuse. In this podcast Julie shares her personal story of losing Molly, and how she hopes to expand her purpose beyond home health care and put her “out-of-the-box thinking”, entrepreneurship - and now OAM - to good use, to improve outcomes and provide support services for other women in abusive situations. “I still very much feel passionate about my business, and there's still a lot of work to be done. But I feel that all of my knowledge has now come together, and I can use it in a different area to improve outcomes for women, and also to for men who choose violence.” Podcast Host: Claire Braund OAM [https://www.linkedin.com/search/results/all/?fetchDeterministicClustersOnly=true&heroEntityKey=urn%3Ali%3Afsd_profile%3AACoAAAIENzgBakhjIzLrY18gkrS1P8QGxlaLSvc&keywords=claire%20braund%20oam&origin=RICH_QUERY_TYPEAHEAD_HISTORY&position=0&searchId=a6b5a138-d9f4-47ca-9659-516094d44b74&sid=jj%3B&spellCorrectionEnabled=true], Women on Boards Executive Director and co-founder. Content warning: This podcast discusses suicide. If you or anyone you know needs help: * 1800 RESPECT [https://www.1800respect.org.au/] on 1800 737 732 * Lifeline [https://www.lifeline.org.au/] on 13 11 14 * Suicide Call Back Service [https://www.suicidecallbackservice.org.au/] on 1300 659 467 * BeyondBlue [https://www.beyondblue.org.au/] on 1300 22 46 36 * Headspace [https://headspace.org.au/] on 1800 650 890 Subscribe (FREE) or join Women on Boards HERE [https://www.womenonboards.net/].

Avril Henry AM - Levelling the playing field - Women of Honour Series

Avril Henry [https://www.linkedin.com/in/avrilhenry/] in her own words, is a perfect example of what you can do when you’re willing to work hard and have someone who believes in you. Growing up in social housing in a low income family in a mining town in South Africa, at the height of apartheid, Avril was an “English speaking girl who was not expected to amount to anything”. In 2024 Avril - a recognised and awarded expert on leadership, diversity in the workplace, change management, and employee performance - was made a Member of the Order of Australia AM for significant service to business consultancy, project management and to women.  “Where I came from was grounded in a background of inequity, which is why my life's work has always been about levelling the playing field - whether you’re old or young, female, a migrant or an indigenous person,” Avril tells Claire in this podcast. Avril arrived in Australia in 1980 with a degree in accounting and economics from the University of Cape Town, with “two suitcases, $500 and a dream” - to live freely in a democratic society.   Since arriving in Australia  Avril has had a long and varied and interesting career in finance and HR in South Africa, the UK, USA and Australia before setting up her own consultancy in 2003. An internationally-acclaimed keynote speaker and provocateur who is passionate about transforming leadership models, building diversity capabilities and reforming outdated workplace practices.  In this podcast Avril talks about what motivated her to leave the corporate world and strike out on her own, her quest for fairness and equity and the challenges organisations face around diversity and inclusion. An early entrant into the school of diversity, Avril has since forged a big reputation around linking diversity and inclusivity to leadership capability and financial outcomes, and says one of her proudest achievements was being part of the history-making Westpac team in 1995 who introduced paid maternity leave. In this podcast Avril discusses the need to up the ante on gender pay equity and “antiquated” recruitment techniques. “We are making progress, but it needs to be much quicker.” “When diversity and inclusion first  made it onto the executive and board agenda people talked about diversity and inclusion being for minority groups. I was the first person to come along and say, hold on, if women make  up 52% of the population and people from multicultural  backgrounds make up 53% of the population, and people with disabilities make up 20% of the population, you're  actually not talking about minority groups, you're actually talking about major parts of society and the workforce.”   Podcast host: Claire Braund [https://www.linkedin.com/in/claire-braund-b603b5b/?originalSubdomain=au] Women on Boards (WOB) is an independent and action-oriented organisation founded in 2006 by Claire Braund and Ruth Medd, with a proud history of supporting women to leverage their professional skills and experience into leadership and non-executive-director roles.  Join or Subscribe to Women on Boards [https://www.womenonboards.net/WOB/WOB/Membership/Membership%20Packages.aspx?hkey=3cc51f61-050f-454c-a64a-d27c4563244b]

Architect Helen Lochhead AO - Building a career with purpose - Women on Honour series

Make every day count. That’s the advice from architect and urbanist Professor Helen Lochhead [https://www.linkedin.com/posts/helen-lochhead-ao-a837a22a_sydney-opera-house-concept-innovation-and-activity-7122518515982471168-8nwe/], who was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) in the 2024 Australia Day Honours for distinguished service to architecture and urban design, to building regulation reform, to tertiary education, and to professional organisations.   A graduate of both the University of Sydney and Columbia University in New York, Helen is a woman who has certainly made every day count. A recipient of many prestigious travel scholarships and Fellowships including Fulbright, Bogliasco and the Harvard Lincoln/Loeb Fellowship, Helen also became a Churchill Fellow in 2010 to study recent models of urban regeneration that demonstrate a holistic approach to climate change and sustainability.  In her roles as Deputy NSW Government Architect for 9 years and then through various academic positions and board roles, Helen has worked on and influenced some iconic projects, including Sydney Olympic Park and Sydney Harbour Foreshore. She has achieved a significant level of peer recognition and been much awarded. In 2019 the Australian Institute of Architects awarded Helen the Paula Whitman Leadership in Gender Equity Prize for her outstanding and determined individual contribution to the advancement of gender equity in architecture. And in 2015 she was appointed the first female Dean of the Faculty of Built Environment UNSW [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_New_South_Wales] in Sydney and Pro Vice-Chancellor, Precincts in 2020. An undoubted role model, champion and mentor for current and future female architects, Helen talks to Claire Braund about the challenges and highlights of being an architect and urban designer, the value of mentors and what architects can bring to the boards of organisations. “What we can do as architects can make a difference to people's lives.  And it's not just about designing beautiful buildings, it's actually about transforming people's lives.” Podcast host: Claire Braund [https://www.linkedin.com/in/claire-braund-b603b5b/?originalSubdomain=au] Women on Boards (WOB) is an independent and action-oriented organisation founded in 2006 by Claire Braund and Ruth Medd, with a proud history of supporting women to leverage their professional skills and experience into leadership and non-executive-director roles.  Join or Subscribe to Women on Boards [https://www.womenonboards.net/WOB/WOB/Membership/Membership%20Packages.aspx?hkey=3cc51f61-050f-454c-a64a-d27c4563244b]