AWL Summit 2019

From the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre this is the Aspiring Women Leader’s Summit 2019.

MC: Next up is a woman who is set to leave her mark on this world.  Having started her working life as a paediatrician, Dr Mellissa Naidoo has forged a career in medical administration.  Not content with excelling just within her job description, Mellissa has put an enormous amount of energy into challenging the status quo around women in medicine.  Mellissa has a passion for celebrating the whole woman, complete with vulnerabilities, strengths and vitality.  And when I say that she is limping up the stairs because she has only just recently had knee surgery so we will make her, as she makes her way over to us to share with us her inspirational view of a world that is rich and inclusive.  Please make her welcome.

MELLISSA: I wish to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land on which we meet, the Turruwul and Jagera people and pay my respects to their elders past, present, emerging and future.  I pay respects to any Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders who may be present today.  And I also specifically acknowledge the role of indigenous women and the important role that they play in country, community and culture.  I do so because as a doctor I believe it’s important.  We know that recognition of person and place is very closely linked with health and we can’t ignore the disparity in health outcomes for indigenous Australians.

I am humbled to be invited to speak today.  I remember attending one of the very first Aspiring Women’s Leader Summits and the impact that it had on me.  I would like to thank Barb Phillips for this initiative in bringing women and men together to advance the role of women as leaders in health, something that I’m absolutely passionate about.

Five years ago I would not have imagined that I would be speaking today.  I find myself where I am more through serendipity than through planning.  The things that I have chosen and the things that have happened to me are what has brought me here.  So I am a doctor and a medical administrator but like many of you in the room I hold a number of roles and only some of those are listed here. I am a mother to two little girls who are aspiring medical administrators.  I think I have created a problem there.  Despite my youthful looks I am also grandmother to 9ninebabies who I am regularly asked to babysit whilst my daughters got two important meetings all the time.

I grew up with the slogan girls can do anything.  I even remember the bumper stickers we got handed out at school.  Us girls really believed it, we studied hard and inspired high but no one told my girlfriends and I about the but.  Girls can do anything but for women doing it will be harder.  Girls can do anything but you will have to make choices.  Girls can do anything but you will be judged for it. And girls can do anything until you hit a glass ceiling.  I wish I had known this not because I think that they can’t do it but because I would have spent less time feeling like I wasn’t good enough or I was doing something wrong to not be achieving the way that I should.  Most girls are raised on fairy-tales and Hollywood endings, our young impressionable minds repeatedly hear that we will find our Prince, rule the world by his side and then live happily ever after.  There is no mention of forgetting to pick up your toddler from day care yes, I’ve done that, sorry Mya, let alone any hint of structural barriers. Allusive work life balance, division of domestic labour or the ever present mental load which we’ve spoken about today.

I was fairly oblivious to all of this in my earlier career.  When there were more women alongside me and the playing field was more even.  But as I have moved into more senior roles I have encountered barriers and bias that have made me acutely aware of the inequity we face as women in progressing our careers.  And as a female medical leader I am certainly in the minority.

As women we tend to respond to these career blockages by just working harder thinking it is us and starting a downward spiral of ever decreasing confidence in ourselves and our ability.  A few years ago I had the amazing opportunity to go to Harvard and undertake the women executives in health care program.  For the first time I learnt about gender barriers, to career development and progression and the impact that implicit or unconscious bias has on organisations.  It felt a little bit like a weight had been lifted because all of a sudden it changed the way I felt about myself and the way I saw myself.  I felt less helpless and less frustrated although a little bit more frustrated at the same time.  And stopped thinking that I just had to keep leaning in harder and harder. It changed the way that I approached things.  But gender balance will continue to allude us until outdated workplace structures and systems allow both women and men to contribute effectively.  To work flexibly and to integrate their work and life responsibilities.  Workplace culture still needs to change to make it sustainable for women to maintain and progress their careers but we are the ones to change it and we do that by lifting each other up and creating more space for women.  As women we can support other women, we can support other men and we can support under-represented groups to increase diversity and by increasing that diversity we make it a better place and a more inclusive workplace for all of us.

When I started in medical administration I didn’t have any female role models and in fact I almost didn’t progress with my training because I doubted in my ability to be a leader.  When I looked around me I saw mostly much older, mostly white men in leadership positions.  They all had commanding presence and authoritative styles and I wondered how I would ever emulate them.  It wasn’t until I met a wee Scottish woman with a thick accent who loved pink and would bring home baked treats in for the team that I started to think differently. She was good at her job, liked and not feared and so unapologetically herself in her leadership style, and unapologetically female in a male dominated environment.  But I thought just maybe, just maybe there might be space for leaders who look and act different.  And it really taught me the importance of role models.

I think it was really wonderful that Kirsten Ferguson was here today because I have got a link with her, I had the wonderful experience of being a part of celebrating women which is a social media campaign that she started to empower women as visible role models.  And that was in response to the online denigration of women. It was mindset changing for me because I was invited or encouraged by some friends to put a profile in.  It took a whole heap of courage to put it in. I worried about how I would be perceived, that I wouldn’t stack up to other people that would be profiled and I didn’t deserve to be featured.  It’s not unusual for women to find themselves in this situation and it’s what’s known as a double bind where you’re perceived differently for the same behaviours that men may have or you suffer backlash for being visible.

But as a mother of daughters I wanted them to grow up confident and in their ability and, confident in their ability sorry and know their worth.  To have their achievements and contributions to the world recognised and I realised that started with me in acknowledging myself as a role model and unlearning behaviours of achievement, minimisation and negativity and negative self-talk and contributing to a changing culture to one where women would be valued for everything that they do.

So that’s how I sort of started my journey to where I am here.  I have to admit I am a bit intimidated standing up at the front of the room in such a big room in front of so many people and being asked to speak on a topic of important things I would tell my younger self as this might mean firstly that I am now seen as belonging to the older category, hopefully it just means I’m in the wiser category.  I am still learning and I am still muddling my way through but what I would tell my younger self and what I would tell my daughters are a few things.

It’s build your tribe but don’t be tribal.  Surround yourself with people who share your values, they will keep you on track when you are in uncertain territory.  But by doing so be inclusive.  Challenge yourself with people around you aren’t just like you. Diversify your network, it will broaden your horizons.  In health we tend to be very insular and stick to our own.  I have had the opportunity through my various roles to build networks outside of medicine and health and it’s taught me so much so I implore you to take the opportunity to do so.  Find your voice and use it.  What you have to say is important.  Speak up more, use your voice to advocate for those who don’t have a voice and to amplify the voices of those who are less heard.  Know your worth and don’t sell yourself short.  Stand up for yourself and ask for what you want and negotiate your terms.  Women are increasingly recognised as being underpaid and undervalued in their roles as a result of the choices they make, well perhaps it’s the lack of choices that they have to choose from.  In trying to juggle the various demands placed on them they choose what seems like the easier option.

I spent years working full-time for part-time pay in attempts to meet others expectations and counter perceptions but I have learnt now to try and negotiate flexibility rather than lesser payment. I have been the only woman on, or the only minority woman on a number of boards and committees and found myself having to speak up for others who weren’t there or didn’t have a voice and to lend my limited experience.  I have learnt to try and find my voice and to speak up.

Find your sweet spot.  For those of you who haven’t seen the (ui) diagram, it’s a lovely description of how you can combine all the things to find your career sweet spot. If you can do what you love, so you can find what you love so you can do more of it.  Find what you’re good at so you can make a difference.  Find what you can get paid for because that’s practical and find what the world needs so that you can actually make a change.

And find joy, how you get from here to there ought to be a joyful journey.  Develop a strategy for your life to help guide you, where to put your attention, to help move your arrow from less hassle to more joy and to help you make the decisions on whether activities are fulfilling or detracting from that mission. It keeps you energised for the hard and challenging work you do and it’s soul satisfying.

Learn to say no.  Saying no creates a space for you to say yes to the things that matter to you and don’t be afraid to say yes.  Take opportunities that come your way, don’t worry about failure, don’t give into impostor syndrome.  Breathe through the discomfort and don’t let fear rob you of your opportunity.  At worst you will end up standing in front of a thousand people and at best you might surprise yourself and might inspire someone else to do something that they think that they can’t.

Know when to walk away.  Not everything can be fixed and not everything is for you. There will be times in your career where you have gone as far as you can go knowing when to walk away from the things that no longer serve you, your purposes or your values is incredibly important.  The key to each of these things is knowing yourself and knowing your values. Holding true to your values will help you determine when to say no, what you should say yes to and the right time to walkway.

Be brave, be kind, stay true to your values and when you are compromised, when they are compromised stand up and speak out, be brave about it.  Be kind to others but most importantly be kind to yourself.  Be yourself, be okay with less than perfect and trust yourself. Listen to your gut and listen to your body, take care of your health, you have only got that.

And use your super powers, and by superpowers I mean find that thing that you’re really good at and it’s often not the thing that we think, it’s actually the thing that we do really easily that most people know us for but we wouldn’t give a second thought to.  It’s something you wouldn’t pay heed to, it might be about connecting people, it might be about making people feel at ease, it might be, whatever it is, find that thing and use it to change the world.  Finally when you have privilege use it to create change for others.  Be more strategic in creating opportunities, sponsoring others who have less visibility and acknowledging others especially women’s actions and achievements and advocating against gender bias.  I felt a responsibility to take greater personal action to change the culture within medicine and my college towards women in medicine.  And I have encouraged efforts to develop medical women into leadership and decision-making.  This led me to start the women in medicine symposium last year.  I had had the opportunity through my leadership sort of development to experience what has happened in lots of other industries and it became apparent to me that not everyone has access to that and particularly a lot of women in medicine didn’t.  It has been great to see increasing numbers of medical women attending this forum as well.  I also started celebrating women docs project which is, we are launching on International Women’s Day on Friday which will have a balance for (ui) and has been inspired by Kirsten’s campaign celebrating women.  It’s really around just raising the profile and the visibility of the work that women do in medicine particularly as women in medicine tend to drop out as the career progresses.  And amplify others.  Both women and men, the people who are going to be the change makers, who are going to change the culture and allow things to be different so that it would be easier for all.

Take time to reflect.  In 2013 I was diagnosed with breast cancer.  I had a three and a four year old.  I had just started in what was my dream job and I grieved what I thought then was going to be the loss of my career which I had worked so hard for and completely defined me.  Since then I have had chemo and radiotherapy and I have had multiple surgeries.  I have had multiple career breaks for my illness but also for both my children, long maternity breaks.  Returning to work after each one was incredibly daunting and I know a lot of women in this room will probably, will probably be able to sympathise with that.  Each time I have had to reassess my goals and my directions but that’s life.  And as Annabel Crabb said this morning as women, when life circumstances change we revise ourselves and we adapt and I think that’s one of the wonderful things about being a woman.  So I say take time, time to reflect on your journey and what you have achieved because chances are you have done a lot more than you think.

And when in doubt if all else fails bring along your own cheer squad.  I just like to say thank you very much to the women and men who have inspired and supported me throughout my career, there has been lots of them but I would also really like to thank my family, particularly my husband and my mum whose support I could not have achieved what I have without.  And I would really like to thank my daughters because they’re the ones who inspire me every day and they teach me every day about myself and about what is important.  So thank you.

From the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre this is the Aspiring Women Leader’s Summit 2019.

MC: Next up is a woman who is set to leave her mark on this world.  Having started her working life as a paediatrician, Dr Mellissa Naidoo has forged a career in medical administration.  Not content with excelling just within her job description, Mellissa has put an enormous amount of energy into challenging the status quo around women in medicine.  Mellissa has a passion for celebrating the whole woman, complete with vulnerabilities, strengths and vitality.  And when I say that she is limping up the stairs because she has only just recently had knee surgery so we will make her, as she makes her way over to us to share with us her inspirational view of a world that is rich and inclusive.  Please make her welcome.

MELLISSA: I wish to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land on which we meet, the Turruwul and Jagera people and pay my respects to their elders past, present, emerging and future.  I pay respects to any Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders who may be present today.  And I also specifically acknowledge the role of indigenous women and the important role that they play in country, community and culture.  I do so because as a doctor I believe it’s important.  We know that recognition of person and place is very closely linked with health and we can’t ignore the disparity in health outcomes for indigenous Australians.

I am humbled to be invited to speak today.  I remember attending one of the very first Aspiring Women’s Leader Summits and the impact that it had on me.  I would like to thank Barb Phillips for this initiative in bringing women and men together to advance the role of women as leaders in health, something that I’m absolutely passionate about.

Five years ago I would not have imagined that I would be speaking today.  I find myself where I am more through serendipity than through planning.  The things that I have chosen and the things that have happened to me are what has brought me here.  So I am a doctor and a medical administrator but like many of you in the room I hold a number of roles and only some of those are listed here. I am a mother to two little girls who are aspiring medical administrators.  I think I have created a problem there.  Despite my youthful looks I am also grandmother to 9ninebabies who I am regularly asked to babysit whilst my daughters got two important meetings all the time.

I grew up with the slogan girls can do anything.  I even remember the bumper stickers we got handed out at school.  Us girls really believed it, we studied hard and inspired high but no one told my girlfriends and I about the but.  Girls can do anything but for women doing it will be harder.  Girls can do anything but you will have to make choices.  Girls can do anything but you will be judged for it. And girls can do anything until you hit a glass ceiling.  I wish I had known this not because I think that they can’t do it but because I would have spent less time feeling like I wasn’t good enough or I was doing something wrong to not be achieving the way that I should.  Most girls are raised on fairy-tales and Hollywood endings, our young impressionable minds repeatedly hear that we will find our Prince, rule the world by his side and then live happily ever after.  There is no mention of forgetting to pick up your toddler from day care yes, I’ve done that, sorry Mya, let alone any hint of structural barriers. Allusive work life balance, division of domestic labour or the ever present mental load which we’ve spoken about today.

I was fairly oblivious to all of this in my earlier career.  When there were more women alongside me and the playing field was more even.  But as I have moved into more senior roles I have encountered barriers and bias that have made me acutely aware of the inequity we face as women in progressing our careers.  And as a female medical leader I am certainly in the minority.

As women we tend to respond to these career blockages by just working harder thinking it is us and starting a downward spiral of ever decreasing confidence in ourselves and our ability.  A few years ago I had the amazing opportunity to go to Harvard and undertake the women executives in health care program.  For the first time I learnt about gender barriers, to career development and progression and the impact that implicit or unconscious bias has on organisations.  It felt a little bit like a weight had been lifted because all of a sudden it changed the way I felt about myself and the way I saw myself.  I felt less helpless and less frustrated although a little bit more frustrated at the same time.  And stopped thinking that I just had to keep leaning in harder and harder. It changed the way that I approached things.  But gender balance will continue to allude us until outdated workplace structures and systems allow both women and men to contribute effectively.  To work flexibly and to integrate their work and life responsibilities.  Workplace culture still needs to change to make it sustainable for women to maintain and progress their careers but we are the ones to change it and we do that by lifting each other up and creating more space for women.  As women we can support other women, we can support other men and we can support under-represented groups to increase diversity and by increasing that diversity we make it a better place and a more inclusive workplace for all of us.

When I started in medical administration I didn’t have any female role models and in fact I almost didn’t progress with my training because I doubted in my ability to be a leader.  When I looked around me I saw mostly much older, mostly white men in leadership positions.  They all had commanding presence and authoritative styles and I wondered how I would ever emulate them.  It wasn’t until I met a wee Scottish woman with a thick accent who loved pink and would bring home baked treats in for the team that I started to think differently. She was good at her job, liked and not feared and so unapologetically herself in her leadership style, and unapologetically female in a male dominated environment.  But I thought just maybe, just maybe there might be space for leaders who look and act different.  And it really taught me the importance of role models.

I think it was really wonderful that Kirsten Ferguson was here today because I have got a link with her, I had the wonderful experience of being a part of celebrating women which is a social media campaign that she started to empower women as visible role models.  And that was in response to the online denigration of women. It was mindset changing for me because I was invited or encouraged by some friends to put a profile in.  It took a whole heap of courage to put it in. I worried about how I would be perceived, that I wouldn’t stack up to other people that would be profiled and I didn’t deserve to be featured.  It’s not unusual for women to find themselves in this situation and it’s what’s known as a double bind where you’re perceived differently for the same behaviours that men may have or you suffer backlash for being visible.

But as a mother of daughters I wanted them to grow up confident and in their ability and, confident in their ability sorry and know their worth.  To have their achievements and contributions to the world recognised and I realised that started with me in acknowledging myself as a role model and unlearning behaviours of achievement, minimisation and negativity and negative self-talk and contributing to a changing culture to one where women would be valued for everything that they do.

So that’s how I sort of started my journey to where I am here.  I have to admit I am a bit intimidated standing up at the front of the room in such a big room in front of so many people and being asked to speak on a topic of important things I would tell my younger self as this might mean firstly that I am now seen as belonging to the older category, hopefully it just means I’m in the wiser category.  I am still learning and I am still muddling my way through but what I would tell my younger self and what I would tell my daughters are a few things.

It’s build your tribe but don’t be tribal.  Surround yourself with people who share your values, they will keep you on track when you are in uncertain territory.  But by doing so be inclusive.  Challenge yourself with people around you aren’t just like you. Diversify your network, it will broaden your horizons.  In health we tend to be very insular and stick to our own.  I have had the opportunity through my various roles to build networks outside of medicine and health and it’s taught me so much so I implore you to take the opportunity to do so.  Find your voice and use it.  What you have to say is important.  Speak up more, use your voice to advocate for those who don’t have a voice and to amplify the voices of those who are less heard.  Know your worth and don’t sell yourself short.  Stand up for yourself and ask for what you want and negotiate your terms.  Women are increasingly recognised as being underpaid and undervalued in their roles as a result of the choices they make, well perhaps it’s the lack of choices that they have to choose from.  In trying to juggle the various demands placed on them they choose what seems like the easier option.

I spent years working full-time for part-time pay in attempts to meet others expectations and counter perceptions but I have learnt now to try and negotiate flexibility rather than lesser payment. I have been the only woman on, or the only minority woman on a number of boards and committees and found myself having to speak up for others who weren’t there or didn’t have a voice and to lend my limited experience.  I have learnt to try and find my voice and to speak up.

Find your sweet spot.  For those of you who haven’t seen the (ui) diagram, it’s a lovely description of how you can combine all the things to find your career sweet spot. If you can do what you love, so you can find what you love so you can do more of it.  Find what you’re good at so you can make a difference.  Find what you can get paid for because that’s practical and find what the world needs so that you can actually make a change.

And find joy, how you get from here to there ought to be a joyful journey.  Develop a strategy for your life to help guide you, where to put your attention, to help move your arrow from less hassle to more joy and to help you make the decisions on whether activities are fulfilling or detracting from that mission. It keeps you energised for the hard and challenging work you do and it’s soul satisfying.

Learn to say no.  Saying no creates a space for you to say yes to the things that matter to you and don’t be afraid to say yes.  Take opportunities that come your way, don’t worry about failure, don’t give into impostor syndrome.  Breathe through the discomfort and don’t let fear rob you of your opportunity.  At worst you will end up standing in front of a thousand people and at best you might surprise yourself and might inspire someone else to do something that they think that they can’t.

Know when to walk away.  Not everything can be fixed and not everything is for you. There will be times in your career where you have gone as far as you can go knowing when to walk away from the things that no longer serve you, your purposes or your values is incredibly important.  The key to each of these things is knowing yourself and knowing your values. Holding true to your values will help you determine when to say no, what you should say yes to and the right time to walkway.

Be brave, be kind, stay true to your values and when you are compromised, when they are compromised stand up and speak out, be brave about it.  Be kind to others but most importantly be kind to yourself.  Be yourself, be okay with less than perfect and trust yourself. Listen to your gut and listen to your body, take care of your health, you have only got that.

And use your super powers, and by superpowers I mean find that thing that you’re really good at and it’s often not the thing that we think, it’s actually the thing that we do really easily that most people know us for but we wouldn’t give a second thought to.  It’s something you wouldn’t pay heed to, it might be about connecting people, it might be about making people feel at ease, it might be, whatever it is, find that thing and use it to change the world.  Finally when you have privilege use it to create change for others.  Be more strategic in creating opportunities, sponsoring others who have less visibility and acknowledging others especially women’s actions and achievements and advocating against gender bias.  I felt a responsibility to take greater personal action to change the culture within medicine and my college towards women in medicine.  And I have encouraged efforts to develop medical women into leadership and decision-making.  This led me to start the women in medicine symposium last year.  I had had the opportunity through my leadership sort of development to experience what has happened in lots of other industries and it became apparent to me that not everyone has access to that and particularly a lot of women in medicine didn’t.  It has been great to see increasing numbers of medical women attending this forum as well.  I also started celebrating women docs project which is, we are launching on International Women’s Day on Friday which will have a balance for (ui) and has been inspired by Kirsten’s campaign celebrating women.  It’s really around just raising the profile and the visibility of the work that women do in medicine particularly as women in medicine tend to drop out as the career progresses.  And amplify others.  Both women and men, the people who are going to be the change makers, who are going to change the culture and allow things to be different so that it would be easier for all.

Take time to reflect.  In 2013 I was diagnosed with breast cancer.  I had a three and a four year old.  I had just started in what was my dream job and I grieved what I thought then was going to be the loss of my career which I had worked so hard for and completely defined me.  Since then I have had chemo and radiotherapy and I have had multiple surgeries.  I have had multiple career breaks for my illness but also for both my children, long maternity breaks.  Returning to work after each one was incredibly daunting and I know a lot of women in this room will probably, will probably be able to sympathise with that.  Each time I have had to reassess my goals and my directions but that’s life.  And as Annabel Crabb said this morning as women, when life circumstances change we revise ourselves and we adapt and I think that’s one of the wonderful things about being a woman.  So I say take time, time to reflect on your journey and what you have achieved because chances are you have done a lot more than you think.

And when in doubt if all else fails bring along your own cheer squad.  I just like to say thank you very much to the women and men who have inspired and supported me throughout my career, there has been lots of them but I would also really like to thank my family, particularly my husband and my mum whose support I could not have achieved what I have without.  And I would really like to thank my daughters because they’re the ones who inspire me every day and they teach me every day about myself and about what is important.  So thank you.

From the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre this is the Aspiring Women Leader’s Summit 2019.

MC: Next up is a woman who is set to leave her mark on this world.  Having started her working life as a paediatrician, Dr Mellissa Naidoo has forged a career in medical administration.  Not content with excelling just within her job description, Mellissa has put an enormous amount of energy into challenging the status quo around women in medicine.  Mellissa has a passion for celebrating the whole woman, complete with vulnerabilities, strengths and vitality.  And when I say that she is limping up the stairs because she has only just recently had knee surgery so we will make her, as she makes her way over to us to share with us her inspirational view of a world that is rich and inclusive.  Please make her welcome.

MELLISSA: I wish to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land on which we meet, the Turruwul and Jagera people and pay my respects to their elders past, present, emerging and future.  I pay respects to any Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders who may be present today.  And I also specifically acknowledge the role of indigenous women and the important role that they play in country, community and culture.  I do so because as a doctor I believe it’s important.  We know that recognition of person and place is very closely linked with health and we can’t ignore the disparity in health outcomes for indigenous Australians.

I am humbled to be invited to speak today.  I remember attending one of the very first Aspiring Women’s Leader Summits and the impact that it had on me.  I would like to thank Barb Phillips for this initiative in bringing women and men together to advance the role of women as leaders in health, something that I’m absolutely passionate about.

Five years ago I would not have imagined that I would be speaking today.  I find myself where I am more through serendipity than through planning.  The things that I have chosen and the things that have happened to me are what has brought me here.  So I am a doctor and a medical administrator but like many of you in the room I hold a number of roles and only some of those are listed here. I am a mother to two little girls who are aspiring medical administrators.  I think I have created a problem there.  Despite my youthful looks I am also grandmother to 9ninebabies who I am regularly asked to babysit whilst my daughters got two important meetings all the time.

I grew up with the slogan girls can do anything.  I even remember the bumper stickers we got handed out at school.  Us girls really believed it, we studied hard and inspired high but no one told my girlfriends and I about the but.  Girls can do anything but for women doing it will be harder.  Girls can do anything but you will have to make choices.  Girls can do anything but you will be judged for it. And girls can do anything until you hit a glass ceiling.  I wish I had known this not because I think that they can’t do it but because I would have spent less time feeling like I wasn’t good enough or I was doing something wrong to not be achieving the way that I should.  Most girls are raised on fairy-tales and Hollywood endings, our young impressionable minds repeatedly hear that we will find our Prince, rule the world by his side and then live happily ever after.  There is no mention of forgetting to pick up your toddler from day care yes, I’ve done that, sorry Mya, let alone any hint of structural barriers. Allusive work life balance, division of domestic labour or the ever present mental load which we’ve spoken about today.

I was fairly oblivious to all of this in my earlier career.  When there were more women alongside me and the playing field was more even.  But as I have moved into more senior roles I have encountered barriers and bias that have made me acutely aware of the inequity we face as women in progressing our careers.  And as a female medical leader I am certainly in the minority.

As women we tend to respond to these career blockages by just working harder thinking it is us and starting a downward spiral of ever decreasing confidence in ourselves and our ability.  A few years ago I had the amazing opportunity to go to Harvard and undertake the women executives in health care program.  For the first time I learnt about gender barriers, to career development and progression and the impact that implicit or unconscious bias has on organisations.  It felt a little bit like a weight had been lifted because all of a sudden it changed the way I felt about myself and the way I saw myself.  I felt less helpless and less frustrated although a little bit more frustrated at the same time.  And stopped thinking that I just had to keep leaning in harder and harder. It changed the way that I approached things.  But gender balance will continue to allude us until outdated workplace structures and systems allow both women and men to contribute effectively.  To work flexibly and to integrate their work and life responsibilities.  Workplace culture still needs to change to make it sustainable for women to maintain and progress their careers but we are the ones to change it and we do that by lifting each other up and creating more space for women.  As women we can support other women, we can support other men and we can support under-represented groups to increase diversity and by increasing that diversity we make it a better place and a more inclusive workplace for all of us.

When I started in medical administration I didn’t have any female role models and in fact I almost didn’t progress with my training because I doubted in my ability to be a leader.  When I looked around me I saw mostly much older, mostly white men in leadership positions.  They all had commanding presence and authoritative styles and I wondered how I would ever emulate them.  It wasn’t until I met a wee Scottish woman with a thick accent who loved pink and would bring home baked treats in for the team that I started to think differently. She was good at her job, liked and not feared and so unapologetically herself in her leadership style, and unapologetically female in a male dominated environment.  But I thought just maybe, just maybe there might be space for leaders who look and act different.  And it really taught me the importance of role models.

I think it was really wonderful that Kirsten Ferguson was here today because I have got a link with her, I had the wonderful experience of being a part of celebrating women which is a social media campaign that she started to empower women as visible role models.  And that was in response to the online denigration of women. It was mindset changing for me because I was invited or encouraged by some friends to put a profile in.  It took a whole heap of courage to put it in. I worried about how I would be perceived, that I wouldn’t stack up to other people that would be profiled and I didn’t deserve to be featured.  It’s not unusual for women to find themselves in this situation and it’s what’s known as a double bind where you’re perceived differently for the same behaviours that men may have or you suffer backlash for being visible.

But as a mother of daughters I wanted them to grow up confident and in their ability and, confident in their ability sorry and know their worth.  To have their achievements and contributions to the world recognised and I realised that started with me in acknowledging myself as a role model and unlearning behaviours of achievement, minimisation and negativity and negative self-talk and contributing to a changing culture to one where women would be valued for everything that they do.

So that’s how I sort of started my journey to where I am here.  I have to admit I am a bit intimidated standing up at the front of the room in such a big room in front of so many people and being asked to speak on a topic of important things I would tell my younger self as this might mean firstly that I am now seen as belonging to the older category, hopefully it just means I’m in the wiser category.  I am still learning and I am still muddling my way through but what I would tell my younger self and what I would tell my daughters are a few things.

It’s build your tribe but don’t be tribal.  Surround yourself with people who share your values, they will keep you on track when you are in uncertain territory.  But by doing so be inclusive.  Challenge yourself with people around you aren’t just like you. Diversify your network, it will broaden your horizons.  In health we tend to be very insular and stick to our own.  I have had the opportunity through my various roles to build networks outside of medicine and health and it’s taught me so much so I implore you to take the opportunity to do so.  Find your voice and use it.  What you have to say is important.  Speak up more, use your voice to advocate for those who don’t have a voice and to amplify the voices of those who are less heard.  Know your worth and don’t sell yourself short.  Stand up for yourself and ask for what you want and negotiate your terms.  Women are increasingly recognised as being underpaid and undervalued in their roles as a result of the choices they make, well perhaps it’s the lack of choices that they have to choose from.  In trying to juggle the various demands placed on them they choose what seems like the easier option.

I spent years working full-time for part-time pay in attempts to meet others expectations and counter perceptions but I have learnt now to try and negotiate flexibility rather than lesser payment. I have been the only woman on, or the only minority woman on a number of boards and committees and found myself having to speak up for others who weren’t there or didn’t have a voice and to lend my limited experience.  I have learnt to try and find my voice and to speak up.

Find your sweet spot.  For those of you who haven’t seen the (ui) diagram, it’s a lovely description of how you can combine all the things to find your career sweet spot. If you can do what you love, so you can find what you love so you can do more of it.  Find what you’re good at so you can make a difference.  Find what you can get paid for because that’s practical and find what the world needs so that you can actually make a change.

And find joy, how you get from here to there ought to be a joyful journey.  Develop a strategy for your life to help guide you, where to put your attention, to help move your arrow from less hassle to more joy and to help you make the decisions on whether activities are fulfilling or detracting from that mission. It keeps you energised for the hard and challenging work you do and it’s soul satisfying.

Learn to say no.  Saying no creates a space for you to say yes to the things that matter to you and don’t be afraid to say yes.  Take opportunities that come your way, don’t worry about failure, don’t give into impostor syndrome.  Breathe through the discomfort and don’t let fear rob you of your opportunity.  At worst you will end up standing in front of a thousand people and at best you might surprise yourself and might inspire someone else to do something that they think that they can’t.

Know when to walk away.  Not everything can be fixed and not everything is for you. There will be times in your career where you have gone as far as you can go knowing when to walk away from the things that no longer serve you, your purposes or your values is incredibly important.  The key to each of these things is knowing yourself and knowing your values. Holding true to your values will help you determine when to say no, what you should say yes to and the right time to walkway.

Be brave, be kind, stay true to your values and when you are compromised, when they are compromised stand up and speak out, be brave about it.  Be kind to others but most importantly be kind to yourself.  Be yourself, be okay with less than perfect and trust yourself. Listen to your gut and listen to your body, take care of your health, you have only got that.

And use your super powers, and by superpowers I mean find that thing that you’re really good at and it’s often not the thing that we think, it’s actually the thing that we do really easily that most people know us for but we wouldn’t give a second thought to.  It’s something you wouldn’t pay heed to, it might be about connecting people, it might be about making people feel at ease, it might be, whatever it is, find that thing and use it to change the world.  Finally when you have privilege use it to create change for others.  Be more strategic in creating opportunities, sponsoring others who have less visibility and acknowledging others especially women’s actions and achievements and advocating against gender bias.  I felt a responsibility to take greater personal action to change the culture within medicine and my college towards women in medicine.  And I have encouraged efforts to develop medical women into leadership and decision-making.  This led me to start the women in medicine symposium last year.  I had had the opportunity through my leadership sort of development to experience what has happened in lots of other industries and it became apparent to me that not everyone has access to that and particularly a lot of women in medicine didn’t.  It has been great to see increasing numbers of medical women attending this forum as well.  I also started celebrating women docs project which is, we are launching on International Women’s Day on Friday which will have a balance for (ui) and has been inspired by Kirsten’s campaign celebrating women.  It’s really around just raising the profile and the visibility of the work that women do in medicine particularly as women in medicine tend to drop out as the career progresses.  And amplify others.  Both women and men, the people who are going to be the change makers, who are going to change the culture and allow things to be different so that it would be easier for all.

Take time to reflect.  In 2013 I was diagnosed with breast cancer.  I had a three and a four year old.  I had just started in what was my dream job and I grieved what I thought then was going to be the loss of my career which I had worked so hard for and completely defined me.  Since then I have had chemo and radiotherapy and I have had multiple surgeries.  I have had multiple career breaks for my illness but also for both my children, long maternity breaks.  Returning to work after each one was incredibly daunting and I know a lot of women in this room will probably, will probably be able to sympathise with that.  Each time I have had to reassess my goals and my directions but that’s life.  And as Annabel Crabb said this morning as women, when life circumstances change we revise ourselves and we adapt and I think that’s one of the wonderful things about being a woman.  So I say take time, time to reflect on your journey and what you have achieved because chances are you have done a lot more than you think.

And when in doubt if all else fails bring along your own cheer squad.  I just like to say thank you very much to the women and men who have inspired and supported me throughout my career, there has been lots of them but I would also really like to thank my family, particularly my husband and my mum whose support I could not have achieved what I have without.  And I would really like to thank my daughters because they’re the ones who inspire me every day and they teach me every day about myself and about what is important.  So thank you.

From the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre this is the Aspiring Women Leader’s Summit 2019.

MC: Next up is a woman who is set to leave her mark on this world.  Having started her working life as a paediatrician, Dr Mellissa Naidoo has forged a career in medical administration.  Not content with excelling just within her job description, Mellissa has put an enormous amount of energy into challenging the status quo around women in medicine.  Mellissa has a passion for celebrating the whole woman, complete with vulnerabilities, strengths and vitality.  And when I say that she is limping up the stairs because she has only just recently had knee surgery so we will make her, as she makes her way over to us to share with us her inspirational view of a world that is rich and inclusive.  Please make her welcome.

MELLISSA: I wish to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land on which we meet, the Turruwul and Jagera people and pay my respects to their elders past, present, emerging and future.  I pay respects to any Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders who may be present today.  And I also specifically acknowledge the role of indigenous women and the important role that they play in country, community and culture.  I do so because as a doctor I believe it’s important.  We know that recognition of person and place is very closely linked with health and we can’t ignore the disparity in health outcomes for indigenous Australians.

I am humbled to be invited to speak today.  I remember attending one of the very first Aspiring Women’s Leader Summits and the impact that it had on me.  I would like to thank Barb Phillips for this initiative in bringing women and men together to advance the role of women as leaders in health, something that I’m absolutely passionate about.

Five years ago I would not have imagined that I would be speaking today.  I find myself where I am more through serendipity than through planning.  The things that I have chosen and the things that have happened to me are what has brought me here.  So I am a doctor and a medical administrator but like many of you in the room I hold a number of roles and only some of those are listed here. I am a mother to two little girls who are aspiring medical administrators.  I think I have created a problem there.  Despite my youthful looks I am also grandmother to 9ninebabies who I am regularly asked to babysit whilst my daughters got two important meetings all the time.

I grew up with the slogan girls can do anything.  I even remember the bumper stickers we got handed out at school.  Us girls really believed it, we studied hard and inspired high but no one told my girlfriends and I about the but.  Girls can do anything but for women doing it will be harder.  Girls can do anything but you will have to make choices.  Girls can do anything but you will be judged for it. And girls can do anything until you hit a glass ceiling.  I wish I had known this not because I think that they can’t do it but because I would have spent less time feeling like I wasn’t good enough or I was doing something wrong to not be achieving the way that I should.  Most girls are raised on fairy-tales and Hollywood endings, our young impressionable minds repeatedly hear that we will find our Prince, rule the world by his side and then live happily ever after.  There is no mention of forgetting to pick up your toddler from day care yes, I’ve done that, sorry Mya, let alone any hint of structural barriers. Allusive work life balance, division of domestic labour or the ever present mental load which we’ve spoken about today.

I was fairly oblivious to all of this in my earlier career.  When there were more women alongside me and the playing field was more even.  But as I have moved into more senior roles I have encountered barriers and bias that have made me acutely aware of the inequity we face as women in progressing our careers.  And as a female medical leader I am certainly in the minority.

As women we tend to respond to these career blockages by just working harder thinking it is us and starting a downward spiral of ever decreasing confidence in ourselves and our ability.  A few years ago I had the amazing opportunity to go to Harvard and undertake the women executives in health care program.  For the first time I learnt about gender barriers, to career development and progression and the impact that implicit or unconscious bias has on organisations.  It felt a little bit like a weight had been lifted because all of a sudden it changed the way I felt about myself and the way I saw myself.  I felt less helpless and less frustrated although a little bit more frustrated at the same time.  And stopped thinking that I just had to keep leaning in harder and harder. It changed the way that I approached things.  But gender balance will continue to allude us until outdated workplace structures and systems allow both women and men to contribute effectively.  To work flexibly and to integrate their work and life responsibilities.  Workplace culture still needs to change to make it sustainable for women to maintain and progress their careers but we are the ones to change it and we do that by lifting each other up and creating more space for women.  As women we can support other women, we can support other men and we can support under-represented groups to increase diversity and by increasing that diversity we make it a better place and a more inclusive workplace for all of us.

When I started in medical administration I didn’t have any female role models and in fact I almost didn’t progress with my training because I doubted in my ability to be a leader.  When I looked around me I saw mostly much older, mostly white men in leadership positions.  They all had commanding presence and authoritative styles and I wondered how I would ever emulate them.  It wasn’t until I met a wee Scottish woman with a thick accent who loved pink and would bring home baked treats in for the team that I started to think differently. She was good at her job, liked and not feared and so unapologetically herself in her leadership style, and unapologetically female in a male dominated environment.  But I thought just maybe, just maybe there might be space for leaders who look and act different.  And it really taught me the importance of role models.

I think it was really wonderful that Kirsten Ferguson was here today because I have got a link with her, I had the wonderful experience of being a part of celebrating women which is a social media campaign that she started to empower women as visible role models.  And that was in response to the online denigration of women. It was mindset changing for me because I was invited or encouraged by some friends to put a profile in.  It took a whole heap of courage to put it in. I worried about how I would be perceived, that I wouldn’t stack up to other people that would be profiled and I didn’t deserve to be featured.  It’s not unusual for women to find themselves in this situation and it’s what’s known as a double bind where you’re perceived differently for the same behaviours that men may have or you suffer backlash for being visible.

But as a mother of daughters I wanted them to grow up confident and in their ability and, confident in their ability sorry and know their worth.  To have their achievements and contributions to the world recognised and I realised that started with me in acknowledging myself as a role model and unlearning behaviours of achievement, minimisation and negativity and negative self-talk and contributing to a changing culture to one where women would be valued for everything that they do.

So that’s how I sort of started my journey to where I am here.  I have to admit I am a bit intimidated standing up at the front of the room in such a big room in front of so many people and being asked to speak on a topic of important things I would tell my younger self as this might mean firstly that I am now seen as belonging to the older category, hopefully it just means I’m in the wiser category.  I am still learning and I am still muddling my way through but what I would tell my younger self and what I would tell my daughters are a few things.

It’s build your tribe but don’t be tribal.  Surround yourself with people who share your values, they will keep you on track when you are in uncertain territory.  But by doing so be inclusive.  Challenge yourself with people around you aren’t just like you. Diversify your network, it will broaden your horizons.  In health we tend to be very insular and stick to our own.  I have had the opportunity through my various roles to build networks outside of medicine and health and it’s taught me so much so I implore you to take the opportunity to do so.  Find your voice and use it.  What you have to say is important.  Speak up more, use your voice to advocate for those who don’t have a voice and to amplify the voices of those who are less heard.  Know your worth and don’t sell yourself short.  Stand up for yourself and ask for what you want and negotiate your terms.  Women are increasingly recognised as being underpaid and undervalued in their roles as a result of the choices they make, well perhaps it’s the lack of choices that they have to choose from.  In trying to juggle the various demands placed on them they choose what seems like the easier option.

I spent years working full-time for part-time pay in attempts to meet others expectations and counter perceptions but I have learnt now to try and negotiate flexibility rather than lesser payment. I have been the only woman on, or the only minority woman on a number of boards and committees and found myself having to speak up for others who weren’t there or didn’t have a voice and to lend my limited experience.  I have learnt to try and find my voice and to speak up.

Find your sweet spot.  For those of you who haven’t seen the (ui) diagram, it’s a lovely description of how you can combine all the things to find your career sweet spot. If you can do what you love, so you can find what you love so you can do more of it.  Find what you’re good at so you can make a difference.  Find what you can get paid for because that’s practical and find what the world needs so that you can actually make a change.

And find joy, how you get from here to there ought to be a joyful journey.  Develop a strategy for your life to help guide you, where to put your attention, to help move your arrow from less hassle to more joy and to help you make the decisions on whether activities are fulfilling or detracting from that mission. It keeps you energised for the hard and challenging work you do and it’s soul satisfying.

Learn to say no.  Saying no creates a space for you to say yes to the things that matter to you and don’t be afraid to say yes.  Take opportunities that come your way, don’t worry about failure, don’t give into impostor syndrome.  Breathe through the discomfort and don’t let fear rob you of your opportunity.  At worst you will end up standing in front of a thousand people and at best you might surprise yourself and might inspire someone else to do something that they think that they can’t.

Know when to walk away.  Not everything can be fixed and not everything is for you. There will be times in your career where you have gone as far as you can go knowing when to walk away from the things that no longer serve you, your purposes or your values is incredibly important.  The key to each of these things is knowing yourself and knowing your values. Holding true to your values will help you determine when to say no, what you should say yes to and the right time to walkway.

Be brave, be kind, stay true to your values and when you are compromised, when they are compromised stand up and speak out, be brave about it.  Be kind to others but most importantly be kind to yourself.  Be yourself, be okay with less than perfect and trust yourself. Listen to your gut and listen to your body, take care of your health, you have only got that.

And use your super powers, and by superpowers I mean find that thing that you’re really good at and it’s often not the thing that we think, it’s actually the thing that we do really easily that most people know us for but we wouldn’t give a second thought to.  It’s something you wouldn’t pay heed to, it might be about connecting people, it might be about making people feel at ease, it might be, whatever it is, find that thing and use it to change the world.  Finally when you have privilege use it to create change for others.  Be more strategic in creating opportunities, sponsoring others who have less visibility and acknowledging others especially women’s actions and achievements and advocating against gender bias.  I felt a responsibility to take greater personal action to change the culture within medicine and my college towards women in medicine.  And I have encouraged efforts to develop medical women into leadership and decision-making.  This led me to start the women in medicine symposium last year.  I had had the opportunity through my leadership sort of development to experience what has happened in lots of other industries and it became apparent to me that not everyone has access to that and particularly a lot of women in medicine didn’t.  It has been great to see increasing numbers of medical women attending this forum as well.  I also started celebrating women docs project which is, we are launching on International Women’s Day on Friday which will have a balance for (ui) and has been inspired by Kirsten’s campaign celebrating women.  It’s really around just raising the profile and the visibility of the work that women do in medicine particularly as women in medicine tend to drop out as the career progresses.  And amplify others.  Both women and men, the people who are going to be the change makers, who are going to change the culture and allow things to be different so that it would be easier for all.

Take time to reflect.  In 2013 I was diagnosed with breast cancer.  I had a three and a four year old.  I had just started in what was my dream job and I grieved what I thought then was going to be the loss of my career which I had worked so hard for and completely defined me.  Since then I have had chemo and radiotherapy and I have had multiple surgeries.  I have had multiple career breaks for my illness but also for both my children, long maternity breaks.  Returning to work after each one was incredibly daunting and I know a lot of women in this room will probably, will probably be able to sympathise with that.  Each time I have had to reassess my goals and my directions but that’s life.  And as Annabel Crabb said this morning as women, when life circumstances change we revise ourselves and we adapt and I think that’s one of the wonderful things about being a woman.  So I say take time, time to reflect on your journey and what you have achieved because chances are you have done a lot more than you think.

And when in doubt if all else fails bring along your own cheer squad.  I just like to say thank you very much to the women and men who have inspired and supported me throughout my career, there has been lots of them but I would also really like to thank my family, particularly my husband and my mum whose support I could not have achieved what I have without.  And I would really like to thank my daughters because they’re the ones who inspire me every day and they teach me every day about myself and about what is important.  So thank you.

From the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre this is the Aspiring Women Leader’s Summit 2019.

MC: Next up is a woman who is set to leave her mark on this world.  Having started her working life as a paediatrician, Dr Mellissa Naidoo has forged a career in medical administration.  Not content with excelling just within her job description, Mellissa has put an enormous amount of energy into challenging the status quo around women in medicine.  Mellissa has a passion for celebrating the whole woman, complete with vulnerabilities, strengths and vitality.  And when I say that she is limping up the stairs because she has only just recently had knee surgery so we will make her, as she makes her way over to us to share with us her inspirational view of a world that is rich and inclusive.  Please make her welcome.

MELLISSA: I wish to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land on which we meet, the Turruwul and Jagera people and pay my respects to their elders past, present, emerging and future.  I pay respects to any Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders who may be present today.  And I also specifically acknowledge the role of indigenous women and the important role that they play in country, community and culture.  I do so because as a doctor I believe it’s important.  We know that recognition of person and place is very closely linked with health and we can’t ignore the disparity in health outcomes for indigenous Australians.

I am humbled to be invited to speak today.  I remember attending one of the very first Aspiring Women’s Leader Summits and the impact that it had on me.  I would like to thank Barb Phillips for this initiative in bringing women and men together to advance the role of women as leaders in health, something that I’m absolutely passionate about.

Five years ago I would not have imagined that I would be speaking today.  I find myself where I am more through serendipity than through planning.  The things that I have chosen and the things that have happened to me are what has brought me here.  So I am a doctor and a medical administrator but like many of you in the room I hold a number of roles and only some of those are listed here. I am a mother to two little girls who are aspiring medical administrators.  I think I have created a problem there.  Despite my youthful looks I am also grandmother to 9ninebabies who I am regularly asked to babysit whilst my daughters got two important meetings all the time.

I grew up with the slogan girls can do anything.  I even remember the bumper stickers we got handed out at school.  Us girls really believed it, we studied hard and inspired high but no one told my girlfriends and I about the but.  Girls can do anything but for women doing it will be harder.  Girls can do anything but you will have to make choices.  Girls can do anything but you will be judged for it. And girls can do anything until you hit a glass ceiling.  I wish I had known this not because I think that they can’t do it but because I would have spent less time feeling like I wasn’t good enough or I was doing something wrong to not be achieving the way that I should.  Most girls are raised on fairy-tales and Hollywood endings, our young impressionable minds repeatedly hear that we will find our Prince, rule the world by his side and then live happily ever after.  There is no mention of forgetting to pick up your toddler from day care yes, I’ve done that, sorry Mya, let alone any hint of structural barriers. Allusive work life balance, division of domestic labour or the ever present mental load which we’ve spoken about today.

I was fairly oblivious to all of this in my earlier career.  When there were more women alongside me and the playing field was more even.  But as I have moved into more senior roles I have encountered barriers and bias that have made me acutely aware of the inequity we face as women in progressing our careers.  And as a female medical leader I am certainly in the minority.

As women we tend to respond to these career blockages by just working harder thinking it is us and starting a downward spiral of ever decreasing confidence in ourselves and our ability.  A few years ago I had the amazing opportunity to go to Harvard and undertake the women executives in health care program.  For the first time I learnt about gender barriers, to career development and progression and the impact that implicit or unconscious bias has on organisations.  It felt a little bit like a weight had been lifted because all of a sudden it changed the way I felt about myself and the way I saw myself.  I felt less helpless and less frustrated although a little bit more frustrated at the same time.  And stopped thinking that I just had to keep leaning in harder and harder. It changed the way that I approached things.  But gender balance will continue to allude us until outdated workplace structures and systems allow both women and men to contribute effectively.  To work flexibly and to integrate their work and life responsibilities.  Workplace culture still needs to change to make it sustainable for women to maintain and progress their careers but we are the ones to change it and we do that by lifting each other up and creating more space for women.  As women we can support other women, we can support other men and we can support under-represented groups to increase diversity and by increasing that diversity we make it a better place and a more inclusive workplace for all of us.

When I started in medical administration I didn’t have any female role models and in fact I almost didn’t progress with my training because I doubted in my ability to be a leader.  When I looked around me I saw mostly much older, mostly white men in leadership positions.  They all had commanding presence and authoritative styles and I wondered how I would ever emulate them.  It wasn’t until I met a wee Scottish woman with a thick accent who loved pink and would bring home baked treats in for the team that I started to think differently. She was good at her job, liked and not feared and so unapologetically herself in her leadership style, and unapologetically female in a male dominated environment.  But I thought just maybe, just maybe there might be space for leaders who look and act different.  And it really taught me the importance of role models.

I think it was really wonderful that Kirsten Ferguson was here today because I have got a link with her, I had the wonderful experience of being a part of celebrating women which is a social media campaign that she started to empower women as visible role models.  And that was in response to the online denigration of women. It was mindset changing for me because I was invited or encouraged by some friends to put a profile in.  It took a whole heap of courage to put it in. I worried about how I would be perceived, that I wouldn’t stack up to other people that would be profiled and I didn’t deserve to be featured.  It’s not unusual for women to find themselves in this situation and it’s what’s known as a double bind where you’re perceived differently for the same behaviours that men may have or you suffer backlash for being visible.

But as a mother of daughters I wanted them to grow up confident and in their ability and, confident in their ability sorry and know their worth.  To have their achievements and contributions to the world recognised and I realised that started with me in acknowledging myself as a role model and unlearning behaviours of achievement, minimisation and negativity and negative self-talk and contributing to a changing culture to one where women would be valued for everything that they do.

So that’s how I sort of started my journey to where I am here.  I have to admit I am a bit intimidated standing up at the front of the room in such a big room in front of so many people and being asked to speak on a topic of important things I would tell my younger self as this might mean firstly that I am now seen as belonging to the older category, hopefully it just means I’m in the wiser category.  I am still learning and I am still muddling my way through but what I would tell my younger self and what I would tell my daughters are a few things.

It’s build your tribe but don’t be tribal.  Surround yourself with people who share your values, they will keep you on track when you are in uncertain territory.  But by doing so be inclusive.  Challenge yourself with people around you aren’t just like you. Diversify your network, it will broaden your horizons.  In health we tend to be very insular and stick to our own.  I have had the opportunity through my various roles to build networks outside of medicine and health and it’s taught me so much so I implore you to take the opportunity to do so.  Find your voice and use it.  What you have to say is important.  Speak up more, use your voice to advocate for those who don’t have a voice and to amplify the voices of those who are less heard.  Know your worth and don’t sell yourself short.  Stand up for yourself and ask for what you want and negotiate your terms.  Women are increasingly recognised as being underpaid and undervalued in their roles as a result of the choices they make, well perhaps it’s the lack of choices that they have to choose from.  In trying to juggle the various demands placed on them they choose what seems like the easier option.

I spent years working full-time for part-time pay in attempts to meet others expectations and counter perceptions but I have learnt now to try and negotiate flexibility rather than lesser payment. I have been the only woman on, or the only minority woman on a number of boards and committees and found myself having to speak up for others who weren’t there or didn’t have a voice and to lend my limited experience.  I have learnt to try and find my voice and to speak up.

Find your sweet spot.  For those of you who haven’t seen the (ui) diagram, it’s a lovely description of how you can combine all the things to find your career sweet spot. If you can do what you love, so you can find what you love so you can do more of it.  Find what you’re good at so you can make a difference.  Find what you can get paid for because that’s practical and find what the world needs so that you can actually make a change.

And find joy, how you get from here to there ought to be a joyful journey.  Develop a strategy for your life to help guide you, where to put your attention, to help move your arrow from less hassle to more joy and to help you make the decisions on whether activities are fulfilling or detracting from that mission. It keeps you energised for the hard and challenging work you do and it’s soul satisfying.

Learn to say no.  Saying no creates a space for you to say yes to the things that matter to you and don’t be afraid to say yes.  Take opportunities that come your way, don’t worry about failure, don’t give into impostor syndrome.  Breathe through the discomfort and don’t let fear rob you of your opportunity.  At worst you will end up standing in front of a thousand people and at best you might surprise yourself and might inspire someone else to do something that they think that they can’t.

Know when to walk away.  Not everything can be fixed and not everything is for you. There will be times in your career where you have gone as far as you can go knowing when to walk away from the things that no longer serve you, your purposes or your values is incredibly important.  The key to each of these things is knowing yourself and knowing your values. Holding true to your values will help you determine when to say no, what you should say yes to and the right time to walkway.

Be brave, be kind, stay true to your values and when you are compromised, when they are compromised stand up and speak out, be brave about it.  Be kind to others but most importantly be kind to yourself.  Be yourself, be okay with less than perfect and trust yourself. Listen to your gut and listen to your body, take care of your health, you have only got that.

And use your super powers, and by superpowers I mean find that thing that you’re really good at and it’s often not the thing that we think, it’s actually the thing that we do really easily that most people know us for but we wouldn’t give a second thought to.  It’s something you wouldn’t pay heed to, it might be about connecting people, it might be about making people feel at ease, it might be, whatever it is, find that thing and use it to change the world.  Finally when you have privilege use it to create change for others.  Be more strategic in creating opportunities, sponsoring others who have less visibility and acknowledging others especially women’s actions and achievements and advocating against gender bias.  I felt a responsibility to take greater personal action to change the culture within medicine and my college towards women in medicine.  And I have encouraged efforts to develop medical women into leadership and decision-making.  This led me to start the women in medicine symposium last year.  I had had the opportunity through my leadership sort of development to experience what has happened in lots of other industries and it became apparent to me that not everyone has access to that and particularly a lot of women in medicine didn’t.  It has been great to see increasing numbers of medical women attending this forum as well.  I also started celebrating women docs project which is, we are launching on International Women’s Day on Friday which will have a balance for (ui) and has been inspired by Kirsten’s campaign celebrating women.  It’s really around just raising the profile and the visibility of the work that women do in medicine particularly as women in medicine tend to drop out as the career progresses.  And amplify others.  Both women and men, the people who are going to be the change makers, who are going to change the culture and allow things to be different so that it would be easier for all.

Take time to reflect.  In 2013 I was diagnosed with breast cancer.  I had a three and a four year old.  I had just started in what was my dream job and I grieved what I thought then was going to be the loss of my career which I had worked so hard for and completely defined me.  Since then I have had chemo and radiotherapy and I have had multiple surgeries.  I have had multiple career breaks for my illness but also for both my children, long maternity breaks.  Returning to work after each one was incredibly daunting and I know a lot of women in this room will probably, will probably be able to sympathise with that.  Each time I have had to reassess my goals and my directions but that’s life.  And as Annabel Crabb said this morning as women, when life circumstances change we revise ourselves and we adapt and I think that’s one of the wonderful things about being a woman.  So I say take time, time to reflect on your journey and what you have achieved because chances are you have done a lot more than you think.

And when in doubt if all else fails bring along your own cheer squad.  I just like to say thank you very much to the women and men who have inspired and supported me throughout my career, there has been lots of them but I would also really like to thank my family, particularly my husband and my mum whose support I could not have achieved what I have without.  And I would really like to thank my daughters because they’re the ones who inspire me every day and they teach me every day about myself and about what is important.  So thank you.

From the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre this is the Aspiring Women Leader’s Summit 2019.

MC: Next up is a woman who is set to leave her mark on this world.  Having started her working life as a paediatrician, Dr Mellissa Naidoo has forged a career in medical administration.  Not content with excelling just within her job description, Mellissa has put an enormous amount of energy into challenging the status quo around women in medicine.  Mellissa has a passion for celebrating the whole woman, complete with vulnerabilities, strengths and vitality.  And when I say that she is limping up the stairs because she has only just recently had knee surgery so we will make her, as she makes her way over to us to share with us her inspirational view of a world that is rich and inclusive.  Please make her welcome.

MELLISSA: I wish to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land on which we meet, the Turruwul and Jagera people and pay my respects to their elders past, present, emerging and future.  I pay respects to any Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders who may be present today.  And I also specifically acknowledge the role of indigenous women and the important role that they play in country, community and culture.  I do so because as a doctor I believe it’s important.  We know that recognition of person and place is very closely linked with health and we can’t ignore the disparity in health outcomes for indigenous Australians.

I am humbled to be invited to speak today.  I remember attending one of the very first Aspiring Women’s Leader Summits and the impact that it had on me.  I would like to thank Barb Phillips for this initiative in bringing women and men together to advance the role of women as leaders in health, something that I’m absolutely passionate about.

Five years ago I would not have imagined that I would be speaking today.  I find myself where I am more through serendipity than through planning.  The things that I have chosen and the things that have happened to me are what has brought me here.  So I am a doctor and a medical administrator but like many of you in the room I hold a number of roles and only some of those are listed here. I am a mother to two little girls who are aspiring medical administrators.  I think I have created a problem there.  Despite my youthful looks I am also grandmother to 9ninebabies who I am regularly asked to babysit whilst my daughters got two important meetings all the time.

I grew up with the slogan girls can do anything.  I even remember the bumper stickers we got handed out at school.  Us girls really believed it, we studied hard and inspired high but no one told my girlfriends and I about the but.  Girls can do anything but for women doing it will be harder.  Girls can do anything but you will have to make choices.  Girls can do anything but you will be judged for it. And girls can do anything until you hit a glass ceiling.  I wish I had known this not because I think that they can’t do it but because I would have spent less time feeling like I wasn’t good enough or I was doing something wrong to not be achieving the way that I should.  Most girls are raised on fairy-tales and Hollywood endings, our young impressionable minds repeatedly hear that we will find our Prince, rule the world by his side and then live happily ever after.  There is no mention of forgetting to pick up your toddler from day care yes, I’ve done that, sorry Mya, let alone any hint of structural barriers. Allusive work life balance, division of domestic labour or the ever present mental load which we’ve spoken about today.

I was fairly oblivious to all of this in my earlier career.  When there were more women alongside me and the playing field was more even.  But as I have moved into more senior roles I have encountered barriers and bias that have made me acutely aware of the inequity we face as women in progressing our careers.  And as a female medical leader I am certainly in the minority.

As women we tend to respond to these career blockages by just working harder thinking it is us and starting a downward spiral of ever decreasing confidence in ourselves and our ability.  A few years ago I had the amazing opportunity to go to Harvard and undertake the women executives in health care program.  For the first time I learnt about gender barriers, to career development and progression and the impact that implicit or unconscious bias has on organisations.  It felt a little bit like a weight had been lifted because all of a sudden it changed the way I felt about myself and the way I saw myself.  I felt less helpless and less frustrated although a little bit more frustrated at the same time.  And stopped thinking that I just had to keep leaning in harder and harder. It changed the way that I approached things.  But gender balance will continue to allude us until outdated workplace structures and systems allow both women and men to contribute effectively.  To work flexibly and to integrate their work and life responsibilities.  Workplace culture still needs to change to make it sustainable for women to maintain and progress their careers but we are the ones to change it and we do that by lifting each other up and creating more space for women.  As women we can support other women, we can support other men and we can support under-represented groups to increase diversity and by increasing that diversity we make it a better place and a more inclusive workplace for all of us.

When I started in medical administration I didn’t have any female role models and in fact I almost didn’t progress with my training because I doubted in my ability to be a leader.  When I looked around me I saw mostly much older, mostly white men in leadership positions.  They all had commanding presence and authoritative styles and I wondered how I would ever emulate them.  It wasn’t until I met a wee Scottish woman with a thick accent who loved pink and would bring home baked treats in for the team that I started to think differently. She was good at her job, liked and not feared and so unapologetically herself in her leadership style, and unapologetically female in a male dominated environment.  But I thought just maybe, just maybe there might be space for leaders who look and act different.  And it really taught me the importance of role models.

I think it was really wonderful that Kirsten Ferguson was here today because I have got a link with her, I had the wonderful experience of being a part of celebrating women which is a social media campaign that she started to empower women as visible role models.  And that was in response to the online denigration of women. It was mindset changing for me because I was invited or encouraged by some friends to put a profile in.  It took a whole heap of courage to put it in. I worried about how I would be perceived, that I wouldn’t stack up to other people that would be profiled and I didn’t deserve to be featured.  It’s not unusual for women to find themselves in this situation and it’s what’s known as a double bind where you’re perceived differently for the same behaviours that men may have or you suffer backlash for being visible.

But as a mother of daughters I wanted them to grow up confident and in their ability and, confident in their ability sorry and know their worth.  To have their achievements and contributions to the world recognised and I realised that started with me in acknowledging myself as a role model and unlearning behaviours of achievement, minimisation and negativity and negative self-talk and contributing to a changing culture to one where women would be valued for everything that they do.

So that’s how I sort of started my journey to where I am here.  I have to admit I am a bit intimidated standing up at the front of the room in such a big room in front of so many people and being asked to speak on a topic of important things I would tell my younger self as this might mean firstly that I am now seen as belonging to the older category, hopefully it just means I’m in the wiser category.  I am still learning and I am still muddling my way through but what I would tell my younger self and what I would tell my daughters are a few things.

It’s build your tribe but don’t be tribal.  Surround yourself with people who share your values, they will keep you on track when you are in uncertain territory.  But by doing so be inclusive.  Challenge yourself with people around you aren’t just like you. Diversify your network, it will broaden your horizons.  In health we tend to be very insular and stick to our own.  I have had the opportunity through my various roles to build networks outside of medicine and health and it’s taught me so much so I implore you to take the opportunity to do so.  Find your voice and use it.  What you have to say is important.  Speak up more, use your voice to advocate for those who don’t have a voice and to amplify the voices of those who are less heard.  Know your worth and don’t sell yourself short.  Stand up for yourself and ask for what you want and negotiate your terms.  Women are increasingly recognised as being underpaid and undervalued in their roles as a result of the choices they make, well perhaps it’s the lack of choices that they have to choose from.  In trying to juggle the various demands placed on them they choose what seems like the easier option.

I spent years working full-time for part-time pay in attempts to meet others expectations and counter perceptions but I have learnt now to try and negotiate flexibility rather than lesser payment. I have been the only woman on, or the only minority woman on a number of boards and committees and found myself having to speak up for others who weren’t there or didn’t have a voice and to lend my limited experience.  I have learnt to try and find my voice and to speak up.

Find your sweet spot.  For those of you who haven’t seen the (ui) diagram, it’s a lovely description of how you can combine all the things to find your career sweet spot. If you can do what you love, so you can find what you love so you can do more of it.  Find what you’re good at so you can make a difference.  Find what you can get paid for because that’s practical and find what the world needs so that you can actually make a change.

And find joy, how you get from here to there ought to be a joyful journey.  Develop a strategy for your life to help guide you, where to put your attention, to help move your arrow from less hassle to more joy and to help you make the decisions on whether activities are fulfilling or detracting from that mission. It keeps you energised for the hard and challenging work you do and it’s soul satisfying.

Learn to say no.  Saying no creates a space for you to say yes to the things that matter to you and don’t be afraid to say yes.  Take opportunities that come your way, don’t worry about failure, don’t give into impostor syndrome.  Breathe through the discomfort and don’t let fear rob you of your opportunity.  At worst you will end up standing in front of a thousand people and at best you might surprise yourself and might inspire someone else to do something that they think that they can’t.

Know when to walk away.  Not everything can be fixed and not everything is for you. There will be times in your career where you have gone as far as you can go knowing when to walk away from the things that no longer serve you, your purposes or your values is incredibly important.  The key to each of these things is knowing yourself and knowing your values. Holding true to your values will help you determine when to say no, what you should say yes to and the right time to walkway.

Be brave, be kind, stay true to your values and when you are compromised, when they are compromised stand up and speak out, be brave about it.  Be kind to others but most importantly be kind to yourself.  Be yourself, be okay with less than perfect and trust yourself. Listen to your gut and listen to your body, take care of your health, you have only got that.

And use your super powers, and by superpowers I mean find that thing that you’re really good at and it’s often not the thing that we think, it’s actually the thing that we do really easily that most people know us for but we wouldn’t give a second thought to.  It’s something you wouldn’t pay heed to, it might be about connecting people, it might be about making people feel at ease, it might be, whatever it is, find that thing and use it to change the world.  Finally when you have privilege use it to create change for others.  Be more strategic in creating opportunities, sponsoring others who have less visibility and acknowledging others especially women’s actions and achievements and advocating against gender bias.  I felt a responsibility to take greater personal action to change the culture within medicine and my college towards women in medicine.  And I have encouraged efforts to develop medical women into leadership and decision-making.  This led me to start the women in medicine symposium last year.  I had had the opportunity through my leadership sort of development to experience what has happened in lots of other industries and it became apparent to me that not everyone has access to that and particularly a lot of women in medicine didn’t.  It has been great to see increasing numbers of medical women attending this forum as well.  I also started celebrating women docs project which is, we are launching on International Women’s Day on Friday which will have a balance for (ui) and has been inspired by Kirsten’s campaign celebrating women.  It’s really around just raising the profile and the visibility of the work that women do in medicine particularly as women in medicine tend to drop out as the career progresses.  And amplify others.  Both women and men, the people who are going to be the change makers, who are going to change the culture and allow things to be different so that it would be easier for all.

Take time to reflect.  In 2013 I was diagnosed with breast cancer.  I had a three and a four year old.  I had just started in what was my dream job and I grieved what I thought then was going to be the loss of my career which I had worked so hard for and completely defined me.  Since then I have had chemo and radiotherapy and I have had multiple surgeries.  I have had multiple career breaks for my illness but also for both my children, long maternity breaks.  Returning to work after each one was incredibly daunting and I know a lot of women in this room will probably, will probably be able to sympathise with that.  Each time I have had to reassess my goals and my directions but that’s life.  And as Annabel Crabb said this morning as women, when life circumstances change we revise ourselves and we adapt and I think that’s one of the wonderful things about being a woman.  So I say take time, time to reflect on your journey and what you have achieved because chances are you have done a lot more than you think.

And when in doubt if all else fails bring along your own cheer squad.  I just like to say thank you very much to the women and men who have inspired and supported me throughout my career, there has been lots of them but I would also really like to thank my family, particularly my husband and my mum whose support I could not have achieved what I have without.  And I would really like to thank my daughters because they’re the ones who inspire me every day and they teach me every day about myself and about what is important.  So thank you.

From the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre this is the Aspiring Women Leader’s Summit 2019.

MC: Next up is a woman who is set to leave her mark on this world.  Having started her working life as a paediatrician, Dr Mellissa Naidoo has forged a career in medical administration.  Not content with excelling just within her job description, Mellissa has put an enormous amount of energy into challenging the status quo around women in medicine.  Mellissa has a passion for celebrating the whole woman, complete with vulnerabilities, strengths and vitality.  And when I say that she is limping up the stairs because she has only just recently had knee surgery so we will make her, as she makes her way over to us to share with us her inspirational view of a world that is rich and inclusive.  Please make her welcome.

MELLISSA: I wish to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land on which we meet, the Turruwul and Jagera people and pay my respects to their elders past, present, emerging and future.  I pay respects to any Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders who may be present today.  And I also specifically acknowledge the role of indigenous women and the important role that they play in country, community and culture.  I do so because as a doctor I believe it’s important.  We know that recognition of person and place is very closely linked with health and we can’t ignore the disparity in health outcomes for indigenous Australians.

I am humbled to be invited to speak today.  I remember attending one of the very first Aspiring Women’s Leader Summits and the impact that it had on me.  I would like to thank Barb Phillips for this initiative in bringing women and men together to advance the role of women as leaders in health, something that I’m absolutely passionate about.

Five years ago I would not have imagined that I would be speaking today.  I find myself where I am more through serendipity than through planning.  The things that I have chosen and the things that have happened to me are what has brought me here.  So I am a doctor and a medical administrator but like many of you in the room I hold a number of roles and only some of those are listed here. I am a mother to two little girls who are aspiring medical administrators.  I think I have created a problem there.  Despite my youthful looks I am also grandmother to 9ninebabies who I am regularly asked to babysit whilst my daughters got two important meetings all the time.

I grew up with the slogan girls can do anything.  I even remember the bumper stickers we got handed out at school.  Us girls really believed it, we studied hard and inspired high but no one told my girlfriends and I about the but.  Girls can do anything but for women doing it will be harder.  Girls can do anything but you will have to make choices.  Girls can do anything but you will be judged for it. And girls can do anything until you hit a glass ceiling.  I wish I had known this not because I think that they can’t do it but because I would have spent less time feeling like I wasn’t good enough or I was doing something wrong to not be achieving the way that I should.  Most girls are raised on fairy-tales and Hollywood endings, our young impressionable minds repeatedly hear that we will find our Prince, rule the world by his side and then live happily ever after.  There is no mention of forgetting to pick up your toddler from day care yes, I’ve done that, sorry Mya, let alone any hint of structural barriers. Allusive work life balance, division of domestic labour or the ever present mental load which we’ve spoken about today.

I was fairly oblivious to all of this in my earlier career.  When there were more women alongside me and the playing field was more even.  But as I have moved into more senior roles I have encountered barriers and bias that have made me acutely aware of the inequity we face as women in progressing our careers.  And as a female medical leader I am certainly in the minority.

As women we tend to respond to these career blockages by just working harder thinking it is us and starting a downward spiral of ever decreasing confidence in ourselves and our ability.  A few years ago I had the amazing opportunity to go to Harvard and undertake the women executives in health care program.  For the first time I learnt about gender barriers, to career development and progression and the impact that implicit or unconscious bias has on organisations.  It felt a little bit like a weight had been lifted because all of a sudden it changed the way I felt about myself and the way I saw myself.  I felt less helpless and less frustrated although a little bit more frustrated at the same time.  And stopped thinking that I just had to keep leaning in harder and harder. It changed the way that I approached things.  But gender balance will continue to allude us until outdated workplace structures and systems allow both women and men to contribute effectively.  To work flexibly and to integrate their work and life responsibilities.  Workplace culture still needs to change to make it sustainable for women to maintain and progress their careers but we are the ones to change it and we do that by lifting each other up and creating more space for women.  As women we can support other women, we can support other men and we can support under-represented groups to increase diversity and by increasing that diversity we make it a better place and a more inclusive workplace for all of us.

When I started in medical administration I didn’t have any female role models and in fact I almost didn’t progress with my training because I doubted in my ability to be a leader.  When I looked around me I saw mostly much older, mostly white men in leadership positions.  They all had commanding presence and authoritative styles and I wondered how I would ever emulate them.  It wasn’t until I met a wee Scottish woman with a thick accent who loved pink and would bring home baked treats in for the team that I started to think differently. She was good at her job, liked and not feared and so unapologetically herself in her leadership style, and unapologetically female in a male dominated environment.  But I thought just maybe, just maybe there might be space for leaders who look and act different.  And it really taught me the importance of role models.

I think it was really wonderful that Kirsten Ferguson was here today because I have got a link with her, I had the wonderful experience of being a part of celebrating women which is a social media campaign that she started to empower women as visible role models.  And that was in response to the online denigration of women. It was mindset changing for me because I was invited or encouraged by some friends to put a profile in.  It took a whole heap of courage to put it in. I worried about how I would be perceived, that I wouldn’t stack up to other people that would be profiled and I didn’t deserve to be featured.  It’s not unusual for women to find themselves in this situation and it’s what’s known as a double bind where you’re perceived differently for the same behaviours that men may have or you suffer backlash for being visible.

But as a mother of daughters I wanted them to grow up confident and in their ability and, confident in their ability sorry and know their worth.  To have their achievements and contributions to the world recognised and I realised that started with me in acknowledging myself as a role model and unlearning behaviours of achievement, minimisation and negativity and negative self-talk and contributing to a changing culture to one where women would be valued for everything that they do.

So that’s how I sort of started my journey to where I am here.  I have to admit I am a bit intimidated standing up at the front of the room in such a big room in front of so many people and being asked to speak on a topic of important things I would tell my younger self as this might mean firstly that I am now seen as belonging to the older category, hopefully it just means I’m in the wiser category.  I am still learning and I am still muddling my way through but what I would tell my younger self and what I would tell my daughters are a few things.

It’s build your tribe but don’t be tribal.  Surround yourself with people who share your values, they will keep you on track when you are in uncertain territory.  But by doing so be inclusive.  Challenge yourself with people around you aren’t just like you. Diversify your network, it will broaden your horizons.  In health we tend to be very insular and stick to our own.  I have had the opportunity through my various roles to build networks outside of medicine and health and it’s taught me so much so I implore you to take the opportunity to do so.  Find your voice and use it.  What you have to say is important.  Speak up more, use your voice to advocate for those who don’t have a voice and to amplify the voices of those who are less heard.  Know your worth and don’t sell yourself short.  Stand up for yourself and ask for what you want and negotiate your terms.  Women are increasingly recognised as being underpaid and undervalued in their roles as a result of the choices they make, well perhaps it’s the lack of choices that they have to choose from.  In trying to juggle the various demands placed on them they choose what seems like the easier option.

I spent years working full-time for part-time pay in attempts to meet others expectations and counter perceptions but I have learnt now to try and negotiate flexibility rather than lesser payment. I have been the only woman on, or the only minority woman on a number of boards and committees and found myself having to speak up for others who weren’t there or didn’t have a voice and to lend my limited experience.  I have learnt to try and find my voice and to speak up.

Find your sweet spot.  For those of you who haven’t seen the (ui) diagram, it’s a lovely description of how you can combine all the things to find your career sweet spot. If you can do what you love, so you can find what you love so you can do more of it.  Find what you’re good at so you can make a difference.  Find what you can get paid for because that’s practical and find what the world needs so that you can actually make a change.

And find joy, how you get from here to there ought to be a joyful journey.  Develop a strategy for your life to help guide you, where to put your attention, to help move your arrow from less hassle to more joy and to help you make the decisions on whether activities are fulfilling or detracting from that mission. It keeps you energised for the hard and challenging work you do and it’s soul satisfying.

Learn to say no.  Saying no creates a space for you to say yes to the things that matter to you and don’t be afraid to say yes.  Take opportunities that come your way, don’t worry about failure, don’t give into impostor syndrome.  Breathe through the discomfort and don’t let fear rob you of your opportunity.  At worst you will end up standing in front of a thousand people and at best you might surprise yourself and might inspire someone else to do something that they think that they can’t.

Know when to walk away.  Not everything can be fixed and not everything is for you. There will be times in your career where you have gone as far as you can go knowing when to walk away from the things that no longer serve you, your purposes or your values is incredibly important.  The key to each of these things is knowing yourself and knowing your values. Holding true to your values will help you determine when to say no, what you should say yes to and the right time to walkway.

Be brave, be kind, stay true to your values and when you are compromised, when they are compromised stand up and speak out, be brave about it.  Be kind to others but most importantly be kind to yourself.  Be yourself, be okay with less than perfect and trust yourself. Listen to your gut and listen to your body, take care of your health, you have only got that.

And use your super powers, and by superpowers I mean find that thing that you’re really good at and it’s often not the thing that we think, it’s actually the thing that we do really easily that most people know us for but we wouldn’t give a second thought to.  It’s something you wouldn’t pay heed to, it might be about connecting people, it might be about making people feel at ease, it might be, whatever it is, find that thing and use it to change the world.  Finally when you have privilege use it to create change for others.  Be more strategic in creating opportunities, sponsoring others who have less visibility and acknowledging others especially women’s actions and achievements and advocating against gender bias.  I felt a responsibility to take greater personal action to change the culture within medicine and my college towards women in medicine.  And I have encouraged efforts to develop medical women into leadership and decision-making.  This led me to start the women in medicine symposium last year.  I had had the opportunity through my leadership sort of development to experience what has happened in lots of other industries and it became apparent to me that not everyone has access to that and particularly a lot of women in medicine didn’t.  It has been great to see increasing numbers of medical women attending this forum as well.  I also started celebrating women docs project which is, we are launching on International Women’s Day on Friday which will have a balance for (ui) and has been inspired by Kirsten’s campaign celebrating women.  It’s really around just raising the profile and the visibility of the work that women do in medicine particularly as women in medicine tend to drop out as the career progresses.  And amplify others.  Both women and men, the people who are going to be the change makers, who are going to change the culture and allow things to be different so that it would be easier for all.

Take time to reflect.  In 2013 I was diagnosed with breast cancer.  I had a three and a four year old.  I had just started in what was my dream job and I grieved what I thought then was going to be the loss of my career which I had worked so hard for and completely defined me.  Since then I have had chemo and radiotherapy and I have had multiple surgeries.  I have had multiple career breaks for my illness but also for both my children, long maternity breaks.  Returning to work after each one was incredibly daunting and I know a lot of women in this room will probably, will probably be able to sympathise with that.  Each time I have had to reassess my goals and my directions but that’s life.  And as Annabel Crabb said this morning as women, when life circumstances change we revise ourselves and we adapt and I think that’s one of the wonderful things about being a woman.  So I say take time, time to reflect on your journey and what you have achieved because chances are you have done a lot more than you think.

And when in doubt if all else fails bring along your own cheer squad.  I just like to say thank you very much to the women and men who have inspired and supported me throughout my career, there has been lots of them but I would also really like to thank my family, particularly my husband and my mum whose support I could not have achieved what I have without.  And I would really like to thank my daughters because they’re the ones who inspire me every day and they teach me every day about myself and about what is important.  So thank you.

From the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre this is the Aspiring Women Leader’s Summit 2019.

MC: Next up is a woman who is set to leave her mark on this world.  Having started her working life as a paediatrician, Dr Mellissa Naidoo has forged a career in medical administration.  Not content with excelling just within her job description, Mellissa has put an enormous amount of energy into challenging the status quo around women in medicine.  Mellissa has a passion for celebrating the whole woman, complete with vulnerabilities, strengths and vitality.  And when I say that she is limping up the stairs because she has only just recently had knee surgery so we will make her, as she makes her way over to us to share with us her inspirational view of a world that is rich and inclusive.  Please make her welcome.

MELLISSA: I wish to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land on which we meet, the Turruwul and Jagera people and pay my respects to their elders past, present, emerging and future.  I pay respects to any Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders who may be present today.  And I also specifically acknowledge the role of indigenous women and the important role that they play in country, community and culture.  I do so because as a doctor I believe it’s important.  We know that recognition of person and place is very closely linked with health and we can’t ignore the disparity in health outcomes for indigenous Australians.

I am humbled to be invited to speak today.  I remember attending one of the very first Aspiring Women’s Leader Summits and the impact that it had on me.  I would like to thank Barb Phillips for this initiative in bringing women and men together to advance the role of women as leaders in health, something that I’m absolutely passionate about.

Five years ago I would not have imagined that I would be speaking today.  I find myself where I am more through serendipity than through planning.  The things that I have chosen and the things that have happened to me are what has brought me here.  So I am a doctor and a medical administrator but like many of you in the room I hold a number of roles and only some of those are listed here. I am a mother to two little girls who are aspiring medical administrators.  I think I have created a problem there.  Despite my youthful looks I am also grandmother to 9ninebabies who I am regularly asked to babysit whilst my daughters got two important meetings all the time.

I grew up with the slogan girls can do anything.  I even remember the bumper stickers we got handed out at school.  Us girls really believed it, we studied hard and inspired high but no one told my girlfriends and I about the but.  Girls can do anything but for women doing it will be harder.  Girls can do anything but you will have to make choices.  Girls can do anything but you will be judged for it. And girls can do anything until you hit a glass ceiling.  I wish I had known this not because I think that they can’t do it but because I would have spent less time feeling like I wasn’t good enough or I was doing something wrong to not be achieving the way that I should.  Most girls are raised on fairy-tales and Hollywood endings, our young impressionable minds repeatedly hear that we will find our Prince, rule the world by his side and then live happily ever after.  There is no mention of forgetting to pick up your toddler from day care yes, I’ve done that, sorry Mya, let alone any hint of structural barriers. Allusive work life balance, division of domestic labour or the ever present mental load which we’ve spoken about today.

I was fairly oblivious to all of this in my earlier career.  When there were more women alongside me and the playing field was more even.  But as I have moved into more senior roles I have encountered barriers and bias that have made me acutely aware of the inequity we face as women in progressing our careers.  And as a female medical leader I am certainly in the minority.

As women we tend to respond to these career blockages by just working harder thinking it is us and starting a downward spiral of ever decreasing confidence in ourselves and our ability.  A few years ago I had the amazing opportunity to go to Harvard and undertake the women executives in health care program.  For the first time I learnt about gender barriers, to career development and progression and the impact that implicit or unconscious bias has on organisations.  It felt a little bit like a weight had been lifted because all of a sudden it changed the way I felt about myself and the way I saw myself.  I felt less helpless and less frustrated although a little bit more frustrated at the same time.  And stopped thinking that I just had to keep leaning in harder and harder. It changed the way that I approached things.  But gender balance will continue to allude us until outdated workplace structures and systems allow both women and men to contribute effectively.  To work flexibly and to integrate their work and life responsibilities.  Workplace culture still needs to change to make it sustainable for women to maintain and progress their careers but we are the ones to change it and we do that by lifting each other up and creating more space for women.  As women we can support other women, we can support other men and we can support under-represented groups to increase diversity and by increasing that diversity we make it a better place and a more inclusive workplace for all of us.

When I started in medical administration I didn’t have any female role models and in fact I almost didn’t progress with my training because I doubted in my ability to be a leader.  When I looked around me I saw mostly much older, mostly white men in leadership positions.  They all had commanding presence and authoritative styles and I wondered how I would ever emulate them.  It wasn’t until I met a wee Scottish woman with a thick accent who loved pink and would bring home baked treats in for the team that I started to think differently. She was good at her job, liked and not feared and so unapologetically herself in her leadership style, and unapologetically female in a male dominated environment.  But I thought just maybe, just maybe there might be space for leaders who look and act different.  And it really taught me the importance of role models.

I think it was really wonderful that Kirsten Ferguson was here today because I have got a link with her, I had the wonderful experience of being a part of celebrating women which is a social media campaign that she started to empower women as visible role models.  And that was in response to the online denigration of women. It was mindset changing for me because I was invited or encouraged by some friends to put a profile in.  It took a whole heap of courage to put it in. I worried about how I would be perceived, that I wouldn’t stack up to other people that would be profiled and I didn’t deserve to be featured.  It’s not unusual for women to find themselves in this situation and it’s what’s known as a double bind where you’re perceived differently for the same behaviours that men may have or you suffer backlash for being visible.

But as a mother of daughters I wanted them to grow up confident and in their ability and, confident in their ability sorry and know their worth.  To have their achievements and contributions to the world recognised and I realised that started with me in acknowledging myself as a role model and unlearning behaviours of achievement, minimisation and negativity and negative self-talk and contributing to a changing culture to one where women would be valued for everything that they do.

So that’s how I sort of started my journey to where I am here.  I have to admit I am a bit intimidated standing up at the front of the room in such a big room in front of so many people and being asked to speak on a topic of important things I would tell my younger self as this might mean firstly that I am now seen as belonging to the older category, hopefully it just means I’m in the wiser category.  I am still learning and I am still muddling my way through but what I would tell my younger self and what I would tell my daughters are a few things.

It’s build your tribe but don’t be tribal.  Surround yourself with people who share your values, they will keep you on track when you are in uncertain territory.  But by doing so be inclusive.  Challenge yourself with people around you aren’t just like you. Diversify your network, it will broaden your horizons.  In health we tend to be very insular and stick to our own.  I have had the opportunity through my various roles to build networks outside of medicine and health and it’s taught me so much so I implore you to take the opportunity to do so.  Find your voice and use it.  What you have to say is important.  Speak up more, use your voice to advocate for those who don’t have a voice and to amplify the voices of those who are less heard.  Know your worth and don’t sell yourself short.  Stand up for yourself and ask for what you want and negotiate your terms.  Women are increasingly recognised as being underpaid and undervalued in their roles as a result of the choices they make, well perhaps it’s the lack of choices that they have to choose from.  In trying to juggle the various demands placed on them they choose what seems like the easier option.

I spent years working full-time for part-time pay in attempts to meet others expectations and counter perceptions but I have learnt now to try and negotiate flexibility rather than lesser payment. I have been the only woman on, or the only minority woman on a number of boards and committees and found myself having to speak up for others who weren’t there or didn’t have a voice and to lend my limited experience.  I have learnt to try and find my voice and to speak up.

Find your sweet spot.  For those of you who haven’t seen the (ui) diagram, it’s a lovely description of how you can combine all the things to find your career sweet spot. If you can do what you love, so you can find what you love so you can do more of it.  Find what you’re good at so you can make a difference.  Find what you can get paid for because that’s practical and find what the world needs so that you can actually make a change.

And find joy, how you get from here to there ought to be a joyful journey.  Develop a strategy for your life to help guide you, where to put your attention, to help move your arrow from less hassle to more joy and to help you make the decisions on whether activities are fulfilling or detracting from that mission. It keeps you energised for the hard and challenging work you do and it’s soul satisfying.

Learn to say no.  Saying no creates a space for you to say yes to the things that matter to you and don’t be afraid to say yes.  Take opportunities that come your way, don’t worry about failure, don’t give into impostor syndrome.  Breathe through the discomfort and don’t let fear rob you of your opportunity.  At worst you will end up standing in front of a thousand people and at best you might surprise yourself and might inspire someone else to do something that they think that they can’t.

Know when to walk away.  Not everything can be fixed and not everything is for you. There will be times in your career where you have gone as far as you can go knowing when to walk away from the things that no longer serve you, your purposes or your values is incredibly important.  The key to each of these things is knowing yourself and knowing your values. Holding true to your values will help you determine when to say no, what you should say yes to and the right time to walkway.

Be brave, be kind, stay true to your values and when you are compromised, when they are compromised stand up and speak out, be brave about it.  Be kind to others but most importantly be kind to yourself.  Be yourself, be okay with less than perfect and trust yourself. Listen to your gut and listen to your body, take care of your health, you have only got that.

And use your super powers, and by superpowers I mean find that thing that you’re really good at and it’s often not the thing that we think, it’s actually the thing that we do really easily that most people know us for but we wouldn’t give a second thought to.  It’s something you wouldn’t pay heed to, it might be about connecting people, it might be about making people feel at ease, it might be, whatever it is, find that thing and use it to change the world.  Finally when you have privilege use it to create change for others.  Be more strategic in creating opportunities, sponsoring others who have less visibility and acknowledging others especially women’s actions and achievements and advocating against gender bias.  I felt a responsibility to take greater personal action to change the culture within medicine and my college towards women in medicine.  And I have encouraged efforts to develop medical women into leadership and decision-making.  This led me to start the women in medicine symposium last year.  I had had the opportunity through my leadership sort of development to experience what has happened in lots of other industries and it became apparent to me that not everyone has access to that and particularly a lot of women in medicine didn’t.  It has been great to see increasing numbers of medical women attending this forum as well.  I also started celebrating women docs project which is, we are launching on International Women’s Day on Friday which will have a balance for (ui) and has been inspired by Kirsten’s campaign celebrating women.  It’s really around just raising the profile and the visibility of the work that women do in medicine particularly as women in medicine tend to drop out as the career progresses.  And amplify others.  Both women and men, the people who are going to be the change makers, who are going to change the culture and allow things to be different so that it would be easier for all.

Take time to reflect.  In 2013 I was diagnosed with breast cancer.  I had a three and a four year old.  I had just started in what was my dream job and I grieved what I thought then was going to be the loss of my career which I had worked so hard for and completely defined me.  Since then I have had chemo and radiotherapy and I have had multiple surgeries.  I have had multiple career breaks for my illness but also for both my children, long maternity breaks.  Returning to work after each one was incredibly daunting and I know a lot of women in this room will probably, will probably be able to sympathise with that.  Each time I have had to reassess my goals and my directions but that’s life.  And as Annabel Crabb said this morning as women, when life circumstances change we revise ourselves and we adapt and I think that’s one of the wonderful things about being a woman.  So I say take time, time to reflect on your journey and what you have achieved because chances are you have done a lot more than you think.

And when in doubt if all else fails bring along your own cheer squad.  I just like to say thank you very much to the women and men who have inspired and supported me throughout my career, there has been lots of them but I would also really like to thank my family, particularly my husband and my mum whose support I could not have achieved what I have without.  And I would really like to thank my daughters because they’re the ones who inspire me every day and they teach me every day about myself and about what is important.  So thank you.

From the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre this is the Aspiring Women Leader’s Summit 2019.

MC: Next up is a woman who is set to leave her mark on this world.  Having started her working life as a paediatrician, Dr Mellissa Naidoo has forged a career in medical administration.  Not content with excelling just within her job description, Mellissa has put an enormous amount of energy into challenging the status quo around women in medicine.  Mellissa has a passion for celebrating the whole woman, complete with vulnerabilities, strengths and vitality.  And when I say that she is limping up the stairs because she has only just recently had knee surgery so we will make her, as she makes her way over to us to share with us her inspirational view of a world that is rich and inclusive.  Please make her welcome.

MELLISSA: I wish to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land on which we meet, the Turruwul and Jagera people and pay my respects to their elders past, present, emerging and future.  I pay respects to any Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders who may be present today.  And I also specifically acknowledge the role of indigenous women and the important role that they play in country, community and culture.  I do so because as a doctor I believe it’s important.  We know that recognition of person and place is very closely linked with health and we can’t ignore the disparity in health outcomes for indigenous Australians.

I am humbled to be invited to speak today.  I remember attending one of the very first Aspiring Women’s Leader Summits and the impact that it had on me.  I would like to thank Barb Phillips for this initiative in bringing women and men together to advance the role of women as leaders in health, something that I’m absolutely passionate about.

Five years ago I would not have imagined that I would be speaking today.  I find myself where I am more through serendipity than through planning.  The things that I have chosen and the things that have happened to me are what has brought me here.  So I am a doctor and a medical administrator but like many of you in the room I hold a number of roles and only some of those are listed here. I am a mother to two little girls who are aspiring medical administrators.  I think I have created a problem there.  Despite my youthful looks I am also grandmother to 9ninebabies who I am regularly asked to babysit whilst my daughters got two important meetings all the time.

I grew up with the slogan girls can do anything.  I even remember the bumper stickers we got handed out at school.  Us girls really believed it, we studied hard and inspired high but no one told my girlfriends and I about the but.  Girls can do anything but for women doing it will be harder.  Girls can do anything but you will have to make choices.  Girls can do anything but you will be judged for it. And girls can do anything until you hit a glass ceiling.  I wish I had known this not because I think that they can’t do it but because I would have spent less time feeling like I wasn’t good enough or I was doing something wrong to not be achieving the way that I should.  Most girls are raised on fairy-tales and Hollywood endings, our young impressionable minds repeatedly hear that we will find our Prince, rule the world by his side and then live happily ever after.  There is no mention of forgetting to pick up your toddler from day care yes, I’ve done that, sorry Mya, let alone any hint of structural barriers. Allusive work life balance, division of domestic labour or the ever present mental load which we’ve spoken about today.

I was fairly oblivious to all of this in my earlier career.  When there were more women alongside me and the playing field was more even.  But as I have moved into more senior roles I have encountered barriers and bias that have made me acutely aware of the inequity we face as women in progressing our careers.  And as a female medical leader I am certainly in the minority.

As women we tend to respond to these career blockages by just working harder thinking it is us and starting a downward spiral of ever decreasing confidence in ourselves and our ability.  A few years ago I had the amazing opportunity to go to Harvard and undertake the women executives in health care program.  For the first time I learnt about gender barriers, to career development and progression and the impact that implicit or unconscious bias has on organisations.  It felt a little bit like a weight had been lifted because all of a sudden it changed the way I felt about myself and the way I saw myself.  I felt less helpless and less frustrated although a little bit more frustrated at the same time.  And stopped thinking that I just had to keep leaning in harder and harder. It changed the way that I approached things.  But gender balance will continue to allude us until outdated workplace structures and systems allow both women and men to contribute effectively.  To work flexibly and to integrate their work and life responsibilities.  Workplace culture still needs to change to make it sustainable for women to maintain and progress their careers but we are the ones to change it and we do that by lifting each other up and creating more space for women.  As women we can support other women, we can support other men and we can support under-represented groups to increase diversity and by increasing that diversity we make it a better place and a more inclusive workplace for all of us.

When I started in medical administration I didn’t have any female role models and in fact I almost didn’t progress with my training because I doubted in my ability to be a leader.  When I looked around me I saw mostly much older, mostly white men in leadership positions.  They all had commanding presence and authoritative styles and I wondered how I would ever emulate them.  It wasn’t until I met a wee Scottish woman with a thick accent who loved pink and would bring home baked treats in for the team that I started to think differently. She was good at her job, liked and not feared and so unapologetically herself in her leadership style, and unapologetically female in a male dominated environment.  But I thought just maybe, just maybe there might be space for leaders who look and act different.  And it really taught me the importance of role models.

I think it was really wonderful that Kirsten Ferguson was here today because I have got a link with her, I had the wonderful experience of being a part of celebrating women which is a social media campaign that she started to empower women as visible role models.  And that was in response to the online denigration of women. It was mindset changing for me because I was invited or encouraged by some friends to put a profile in.  It took a whole heap of courage to put it in. I worried about how I would be perceived, that I wouldn’t stack up to other people that would be profiled and I didn’t deserve to be featured.  It’s not unusual for women to find themselves in this situation and it’s what’s known as a double bind where you’re perceived differently for the same behaviours that men may have or you suffer backlash for being visible.

But as a mother of daughters I wanted them to grow up confident and in their ability and, confident in their ability sorry and know their worth.  To have their achievements and contributions to the world recognised and I realised that started with me in acknowledging myself as a role model and unlearning behaviours of achievement, minimisation and negativity and negative self-talk and contributing to a changing culture to one where women would be valued for everything that they do.

So that’s how I sort of started my journey to where I am here.  I have to admit I am a bit intimidated standing up at the front of the room in such a big room in front of so many people and being asked to speak on a topic of important things I would tell my younger self as this might mean firstly that I am now seen as belonging to the older category, hopefully it just means I’m in the wiser category.  I am still learning and I am still muddling my way through but what I would tell my younger self and what I would tell my daughters are a few things.

It’s build your tribe but don’t be tribal.  Surround yourself with people who share your values, they will keep you on track when you are in uncertain territory.  But by doing so be inclusive.  Challenge yourself with people around you aren’t just like you. Diversify your network, it will broaden your horizons.  In health we tend to be very insular and stick to our own.  I have had the opportunity through my various roles to build networks outside of medicine and health and it’s taught me so much so I implore you to take the opportunity to do so.  Find your voice and use it.  What you have to say is important.  Speak up more, use your voice to advocate for those who don’t have a voice and to amplify the voices of those who are less heard.  Know your worth and don’t sell yourself short.  Stand up for yourself and ask for what you want and negotiate your terms.  Women are increasingly recognised as being underpaid and undervalued in their roles as a result of the choices they make, well perhaps it’s the lack of choices that they have to choose from.  In trying to juggle the various demands placed on them they choose what seems like the easier option.

I spent years working full-time for part-time pay in attempts to meet others expectations and counter perceptions but I have learnt now to try and negotiate flexibility rather than lesser payment. I have been the only woman on, or the only minority woman on a number of boards and committees and found myself having to speak up for others who weren’t there or didn’t have a voice and to lend my limited experience.  I have learnt to try and find my voice and to speak up.

Find your sweet spot.  For those of you who haven’t seen the (ui) diagram, it’s a lovely description of how you can combine all the things to find your career sweet spot. If you can do what you love, so you can find what you love so you can do more of it.  Find what you’re good at so you can make a difference.  Find what you can get paid for because that’s practical and find what the world needs so that you can actually make a change.

And find joy, how you get from here to there ought to be a joyful journey.  Develop a strategy for your life to help guide you, where to put your attention, to help move your arrow from less hassle to more joy and to help you make the decisions on whether activities are fulfilling or detracting from that mission. It keeps you energised for the hard and challenging work you do and it’s soul satisfying.

Learn to say no.  Saying no creates a space for you to say yes to the things that matter to you and don’t be afraid to say yes.  Take opportunities that come your way, don’t worry about failure, don’t give into impostor syndrome.  Breathe through the discomfort and don’t let fear rob you of your opportunity.  At worst you will end up standing in front of a thousand people and at best you might surprise yourself and might inspire someone else to do something that they think that they can’t.

Know when to walk away.  Not everything can be fixed and not everything is for you. There will be times in your career where you have gone as far as you can go knowing when to walk away from the things that no longer serve you, your purposes or your values is incredibly important.  The key to each of these things is knowing yourself and knowing your values. Holding true to your values will help you determine when to say no, what you should say yes to and the right time to walkway.

Be brave, be kind, stay true to your values and when you are compromised, when they are compromised stand up and speak out, be brave about it.  Be kind to others but most importantly be kind to yourself.  Be yourself, be okay with less than perfect and trust yourself. Listen to your gut and listen to your body, take care of your health, you have only got that.

And use your super powers, and by superpowers I mean find that thing that you’re really good at and it’s often not the thing that we think, it’s actually the thing that we do really easily that most people know us for but we wouldn’t give a second thought to.  It’s something you wouldn’t pay heed to, it might be about connecting people, it might be about making people feel at ease, it might be, whatever it is, find that thing and use it to change the world.  Finally when you have privilege use it to create change for others.  Be more strategic in creating opportunities, sponsoring others who have less visibility and acknowledging others especially women’s actions and achievements and advocating against gender bias.  I felt a responsibility to take greater personal action to change the culture within medicine and my college towards women in medicine.  And I have encouraged efforts to develop medical women into leadership and decision-making.  This led me to start the women in medicine symposium last year.  I had had the opportunity through my leadership sort of development to experience what has happened in lots of other industries and it became apparent to me that not everyone has access to that and particularly a lot of women in medicine didn’t.  It has been great to see increasing numbers of medical women attending this forum as well.  I also started celebrating women docs project which is, we are launching on International Women’s Day on Friday which will have a balance for (ui) and has been inspired by Kirsten’s campaign celebrating women.  It’s really around just raising the profile and the visibility of the work that women do in medicine particularly as women in medicine tend to drop out as the career progresses.  And amplify others.  Both women and men, the people who are going to be the change makers, who are going to change the culture and allow things to be different so that it would be easier for all.

Take time to reflect.  In 2013 I was diagnosed with breast cancer.  I had a three and a four year old.  I had just started in what was my dream job and I grieved what I thought then was going to be the loss of my career which I had worked so hard for and completely defined me.  Since then I have had chemo and radiotherapy and I have had multiple surgeries.  I have had multiple career breaks for my illness but also for both my children, long maternity breaks.  Returning to work after each one was incredibly daunting and I know a lot of women in this room will probably, will probably be able to sympathise with that.  Each time I have had to reassess my goals and my directions but that’s life.  And as Annabel Crabb said this morning as women, when life circumstances change we revise ourselves and we adapt and I think that’s one of the wonderful things about being a woman.  So I say take time, time to reflect on your journey and what you have achieved because chances are you have done a lot more than you think.

And when in doubt if all else fails bring along your own cheer squad.  I just like to say thank you very much to the women and men who have inspired and supported me throughout my career, there has been lots of them but I would also really like to thank my family, particularly my husband and my mum whose support I could not have achieved what I have without.  And I would really like to thank my daughters because they’re the ones who inspire me every day and they teach me every day about myself and about what is important.  So thank you.