It’s been a tremendous honour and humbling experience to be selected as AFR/Westpac 100 Women of Influence for 2015. This award has given me the opportunity to reflect on many aspects of my journey, what has driven me; what is my purpose and who I am as a leader.
At 21 I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life or career. I was passionate about fashion and pursued a career in this space which I didn’t feel fulfilled my need to contribute to the community. My mother gave me good advice in my late teens and suggested I get a Business Diploma. This was the most sensible advice I could have received as it gave me all the necessary skills to contribute to the family business which at 21, 32 years ago, I joined for a month!
I then went out and educated myself on everything from business, philosophy, religion, history, art, strategy, marketing and public relations and sought out industry leaders as mentors who have been there for me throughout my career, challenging me the whole way.
Our family company, Regal Home Health (formerly Regal Health Services) has been delivering evidence based nursing care and allied health services to people at home for nearly 50 years across Sydney. After 10 years in my family business, I identified that in order for a truly integrated health system to be realised that the acute sector needed to trust that similar standards of care could be delivered in the community. So I attended all the industry activities with peak and professional bodies to ensure that I had a seat at the table to represent Nursing in the community.
After a good 10 years in my family business, I became very focused on how I could make a difference.
I was involved at an executive level with the Australian Association of Gerontology which resulted in me being invited to convene the World Congress on Ageing at 23 years old. The fact I hadn’t ever organised anything like that before didn’t stop me, I simply asked lots and questions, did my research and made contact with global leaders to organise a successful, widely celebrated conference in Sydney, Australia. We held multidisciplinary conferences for a range of subjects that created great interest amongst professionals, Health Ministers, bureaucrats and industry wide representatives across all sectors. This added to the credibility of my role as an innovator in the company.
At a time of great sadness, when my much loved brother John had sadly taken his life after many years of battling mental illness, my lawyer suggested I go to Harvard, this didn’t immediately seem like a logical next step given that at this time the business growth was at 70 per cent and I was struggling with grief for my brother and two other close friends who sadly also took their lives.
Going to Harvard Business School resulted in one of my greatest career milestones in 2008, I was accepted into the Harvard Owner/President Management MBA Program and graduated in 2010 with an inclusive global network of likeminded colleagues that believe women in business are extraordinary and do everything to support that.
During my time at Harvard I was often referred to as the ‘moral compass’ in the class and this was largely due to my positive view and taking what I believed to be the right path, honouring and respecting all involved. This journey expanded my view of myself, my world and the world.
Regal Home Health has had many challenges from market changes, maturing markets, emerging markets, growth and a firm decision by me to maintain a clinical governance focus when many within the industry were moving toward capturing the rapidly growing aged care market has truly defined Regal as a leader. Despite this, I pulled out my toolkit of learnings, assessed my business and went about transforming it. This took an enormous amount of energy, often working seven days a week and long hours each day. I knew that I had to fulfil the Regal mission to be of service and that the community needed Regal to provide high standards of care and to be a major player in the market.
I set about transforming the business to adopt a large teaching hospital model whereby we are triaging and managing over 1,000 clients per day, managing anything from immediate clinical interventions at home avoiding hospital admissions, acute interventions such as home intravenous therapy; complex wound management and home rehabilitation to supporting people with long-term chronic and complex healthcare needs.
I have a long standing relationship with The University of Sydney and was invited to be an honorary Adjunct Associate Professor in 2012 and am proud of my contribution to the curriculum, mentorship and selection panels for Nursing.
I took all my learnings from life, Harvard, my mentors and my family and set about establishing a board, reaching far and wide for advice, and with sheer persistence ensured a robust bottom line with an extraordinary team.
What I did learn along the way is that not everyone is interested in you being a success and this played out in many ways. Surrounding yourself with people who are wedded to your vision makes the most extraordinary difference. Along the way I was successful in being a Finalist in the Telstra Business Women Awards in 2011. This was at a time when I truly thought all had failed, and the irony of this award astounded me, when clearly I need to continue as I always had having faith in myself in the knowledge that things were just about to turnaround.
Today I reflect on what truly gave me the resilience and drive to continue and it’s to be of service and to advocate for what I believe to be the most powerful group of health professionals working in the community, Nurses, in making a powerful difference in people’s lives in keeping them at home.
I believe giving back in many forms is our corporate social responsibility; I have always, no matter what our circumstance, given back professionally and philanthropically. I encourage other women in business to do what they are passionate about, maintain their focus on what they can do and don’t listen to people telling them what you can’t do, surround themselves with mentors/industry leaders and persist, persist, persist!
