Women on Boards - 20th Anniversary Series - Inspire | Influence | Impact – Details, episodes & analysis

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, Women on Boards Executive Director and co-founder.

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‘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.

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You may well think Dr Amber Tan has the world at her feet and job offers flowing in. A former Malaysian national who was born and raised in Ipoh (the gateway to the Cameron Highlands hill station), Amber migrated to Melbourne in 2011 with her partner and received an Australian Postgraduate Award scholarship in 2013 to complete her PhD at Monash University. A feat she accomplished in 2017 with no amendments. 

Her thesis critically examined national security and public order laws in Malaysia and their impact on constitutionalism and the rule of law and Amber has also conducted extensive research into human rights abuses under these laws.

Prior to academia, Amber was in private practice as a litigator in Malaysia having won a full scholarship to study at law at Kings College London where she graduated with 1st Class honours in 2007 and as one of only five students in her class to be awarded an Exhibition Prize.

Yet Amber’s employment story is not one of which Australia can be proud. In this podcast with Claire Braund, Amber shares her story  - from her determination as a 14 year old to win an international scholarship to follow her dreams studying law in London to the systemic discrimination she experienced in Australia due to her multicultural background where she says “I felt like my career was crushed”.

Forced to wait tables and sell her paintings to scratch a living for two years, Amber recalls being asked if she spoke English when applying for legal roles. “They weren’t  even looking at my CV beyond looking at my name.”

Today Amber is on a mission to use her research into the challenges and discrimination facing Asian women in the workplace in Australia for positive change. As she says: “I don't want to be just part of another unfortunate statistic. I want to change the statistics".

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Amber Tan (guest)

Claire Braund (host)

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Dr Monique Beedles was not your average teenager. At 15, as well as having posters of Murph Hughes and the Adelaide Oval on her bedroom wall, it was her dream to be CEO of Swiss multinational healthcare company Roche. To this end, she went on to study German and chemistry at school. “I was always interested in medical research from a very young age. But I didn’t know back then that to be the CEO of Roche, your name has to be Roche,” she tells Claire in this podcast.

Undeterred, Monique went on to study pharmacy and gained her first board role with the Australasian College of Pharmacy. Today she is an internationally recognised thought leader and bestselling author of books on strategy, leadership and asset management and a self-confessed cricket tragic. She also has a PhD in strategy, a Master of Finance, 20 years of board experience, is a qualified pharmacist and has been a member of Women on Boards for many years.

“I haven’t really followed the traditional path,” she tells Claire, while sharing her insights on asset management in 2023 - and the shift from traditional ‘physical’ asset management to intangible assets such as data and intellectual property. Monique and Claire also discuss the enduring relevance of her 2011 book Pivot Point about how business decision makers have to prepare for an uncertain future, and look at the challenges for boards post-COVID.

LinkedIn  
Dr Monique Beedles (guest) 

Claire Braund (host)

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When it comes to getting the most out of your LinkedIn page, content is great but it’s no match for connection. That’s the message from LinkedIn expert Karen Tisdell, who talks to Claire Braund about how LinkedIn has changed over the years and the importance of content AND connection when it comes to directors putting themselves out there”. 

As she says, “if you have a really great profile and you’re putting out content but you haven’t made the effort to connect with people to build your network, then you’re just shouting into the wind”.

With a long background in the recruitment industry, Karen was an early adopter of LinkedIn, which she describes as “like a Rolodex of everybody you’ve ever met and everybody you’d want to meet”. 

Now an in-demand LinkedIn profile writer and trainer, Karen shares her tips on getting the most out of LinkedIn, how to own your profile through authentic and engaging storytelling and how to build real relationships with people who can help you reach your professional goals. "For board directors, putting content out is fantastic - but we know that success is so often about who you know and who knows you.”

Karen Tisdell (guest)

Claire Braund (host)

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Bosnian-born Gorana Saula speaks three languages, has three passports, four drivers’ licenses and loves to travel. And with her passion for gadgets and all things tech it’s no wonder friends of the former CEO and electronics engineer call her James Bond. 

The Non Executive Director has had a wide range of executive leadership roles in defense, telecommunications, and electronics manufacturing.

Attending university in Croatia she holds two master's degrees in electronics and business and is known as a woman who loves innovation - her first job out of uni was leading a project to develop tech for self-guided missiles.

Gorana has experience working in many countries - from Germany and California to New Zealand and Brisbane - and brings a different perspective and international mindset and cultural sensitivity to all her organisations.

In this podcast she talks to Claire Braund about making the dangerous journey from war-torn former Yugoslavia with her husband and two children, leaving behind her mother and disabled brother without knowing if she would ever see them again and how she went from arriving in New Zealand speaking very little English to becoming Director of Engineering in a microwave networking solutions provider, eventually leading it to become the only private New Zealand company listed on the NASDAQ. 

She also reflects on the challenges of attracting top talent, particularly during the dot.com era and mining boom, pointing to the importance of offering employees a good work-life balance to pursue their passions.

A self-described ‘champion for product innovation’ Gorana now chairs three boards and brings her deep expertise to organisations that create and innovate. 

LinkedIn Gorana Saula

Claire Braund (host)

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Dr Catherine Ordway is an academic in sports management, and a sports lawyer, who specialises in anti corruption and integrity.

She's a sought after tribunal member, media commentator and consultant who's assisted sports including AFL, archery athletics, basketball, combat sports cricket, cycling, football, golf, handball, rowing, rugby, softball, swimming, and triathlon in governance, selection and anti-doping and code of conduct disputes.

What is less well known is that Catherine played a central role in the establishment of Women on Boards shortly after the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games.

In this podcast Catherine talks about that first meeting with Ruth Medd and the growth of Women on Boards and the push to have better and skills represented on state and national sports boards. As she says, it was all about moving away from “Oh, he kicked the winning goal in 1978 - he’d make a good board member,” to professionalising sports boards and setting gender targets.

Claire and Catherine also discuss the push for parity for female athletes “starting with broadcasting and sponsorship rights, pay parity, and access to facilities,” and the complex issues around trans women in sport. 

About Dr Catherine Ordway: Sport Integrity Research Lead & Associate Professor at University of Canberra; Chair, Vetting Panel, Badminton World Federation; Independent Review Board, International Cricket Council; Head Anti-Doping Hearing Panel, World Curling Federation.

LinkedIn: Catherine Ordway
Claire Braund (host)

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Karen Loon is a Non-Executive Director, and a former senior Big 4 partner. She has worked with the world’s leading banks and is a recognised thought leader and speaker on workplace diversity and inclusion - inspired partly by her own experiences in Australia.

“What really struck me was that I was sitting in boardrooms or sitting in meetings, where there was pretty much I was the only Asian in the room, let alone an Asian Australian woman in the room,” Karen tells Claire in this episode.

She was formerly PwC’s Singapore and Asia-Pacific Diversity Leader and a member of its award-winning Global Diversity Leadership Team. 

A fourth generation Asian Australian who grew up in country music mecca Tamworth in northern NSW, has qualifications in system psychodynamics and governance from INSEAD, and research interests in identity work and organisational change.

Her book Fostering Culturally Diverse Leadership in Organisations, features case studies or lessons from those who smashed the bamboo ceiling. 

In this interview with Claire Karen talks about what we can learn from leaders who smashed the bamboo ceiling and how critical C Suite and other leaders are in creating, changing and challenging culture within an organisation and why board chairs and directors need to think more openly about the benefits of diversity on their boards.

As she says: “To create the most effective boards or organisations you also need environments that encourage innovation, courage, agility, and those things may not happen if people are scared”.

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Wendy Teasdale Smith is a woman full of surprises. As well as being the owner of possibly one of the largest collections of hairclips for anyone over 40, WOB’s quirky and energetic South Australian representative also recently won a Toastmasters humorous speaking award with her speech on having an RBF (resting bitch face), which she presented over Zoom during COVID.

Born and brought up in Elizabeth, South Australia (the inspiration for Jimmy Barnes’ song Working Class Man) she is also in a book called Elizabeth Champions celebrating people from the region.

As she tells Claire in this podcast, growing up in the working class suburbs, Wendy was a teenager when she discovered the power of hard work. “While I had a challenging childhood, one of the things that was really good about it was a strong belief from my father in education, and that it could change your life. And it certainly changed mine.”

Wendy went on to pursue a productive career in education, as a CEO, school principal, college director, as well as serving on ministerial committees and lecturing before biting the bullet and heading out into the business world.

“I enjoyed my time [in education] but wanted to be brave enough to leave and try something else.”

It was after Googling ‘women organisations’ that Wendy found WOB, and met Claire at a conference in Sydney.

Now a pioneering state rep who has led the charge for WOB in Adelaide for many years, Wendy manages a portfolio career focused on non-profit and government board and is also an experienced public speaking and presence coach, and says never underestimate the power of a strong woman. “Like Eleanor Roosevelt said: A woman is like a teabag - you can't tell how strong she is until you put her in hot water.”

LinkedIn: Wendy Teasdale-Smith
Claire Braund (host)

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In the wake of the Optus cyber-attack, in this special update we talk to Matt Fehon AM, partner at McGrathNicol.  Matt has led some of the largest and highest profile fraud, corruption, and regulatory investigations in Australia.

He is one of the key presenters in our new 5-part program Security Risks and Risk Management for boards.  The program starts on the 20 October and consists of 4 one hour webinars plus a fifth panel session in Sydney at the end (also via livestream).

Here Matt provides an overview of what will be covered in the program, including: -

• His view on the key risks boards are currently facing and his perspective what boards should be taking from the Optus cyber-attack .
• Why security is so important for Boards at the moment.
• The focus of Module 1 (which Matt presents) on Risk Management Programs.
• The key takeaways you can expect from the series.

The 5 part series is availabe On Demand HERE

Module 1 | Risk Management Program with Matt Fehon AM & Caroline Mackinnon
Module 2 | Cyber Security Risk with Joss Howard & Stephanie Lo
Module 3 | Supply Chain Risk with Rhyan Stephens & Joanne Bermingham
Module 4 | National Security Risk with Sam Boarder
Module 5 | Panel Session including networking and lunch with Zorana Bull, Abigail Goldberg and Dr Sarah Morrison.

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