Starting in 1987... the height of Bank Robberies in Australia at Lipson St, Port Adelaide (image), I recall how cool it was to see all the Port SANFL players come into the bank and to help them with their deposits & withdrawals.
Image: ex ANZ Port Adelaide in Lipson Street
There were no photocopiers or mobile phones. The computers resembled 'ET' and there was manual telling with surprise cash counts. You used typewriters for the bank cheques and memos. In my recollection, females couldn’t contribute to super until age 22 and there was no super guarantee payment. Maternity leave was only 6 weeks. There were few female leaders that I can remember when I started.
Every day seemed like we went out for lunch, had a morning tea or a Sunset Tea to go to & we socialised with all the banks together as one community.
Being true to my 'why'...has been a key success factor...
For me being a banker for such a long time developed into being true to my ‘why’ which has been about promoting ‘financial literacy competency & business sustainability’.
This commitment to my ‘why’ started early in my career, helping people buy their first car, save & buy a house, budget for a rainy day, buy that asset, figuring out cash flows, lending money, navigating challenges and most importantly putting in place measures for unforeseen risks.
Spending several years in Regional Australia taught me the importance of community, connections, independence and resilience.
Commercial Sales Leadership was one of the busiest and fun times, whilst juggling a young family. The leadership team of that time was inspiring & ambitious. I remain connected to many colleagues from that 'era' and I’m still thankful for that opportunity when I returned to SA in 2010 which led me to bigger things.
Later I transitioned into innovation which unearthed my passion for strategy, entrepreneurship, startups, cross border ecommerce, business ideation, models & sustainability. Best project included Australia’s first Corporate Startup Tech Accelerator Program which opened my eyes to commercialisation and investments.
My last decade, I delivered numerous large-scale conferences, pioneered virtual events during covid and I’ve had the privilege of partnering with one of the world’s best business growth educators. From starting a pilot program in 2014 to helping ‘thousands of businesses learn to grow’ via a unique project called ‘The Business Growth Program’.
In 2017, the project was recognised in Milan by the European in Foundation Management Excellence which recognises the worlds’ most outstanding learning and development partnerships.
Success was underpinned by a high-performance partnership between academia & financial service, vision, belief, resilience, patience, validating and staying true to the mission.
I’m feeling proud of these achievements.
Thank-you to every person that supported me along this journey. I do prefer to be a quiet achiever helping others so if you have got this far reading this blog, thanks again.
For what’s next … my startup will be getting more of my attention, follow me at Australian Tennis Pathways where I hope to help many more young adults access world class education whilst playing the sport they love!
Comments