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Q NEWS 2012     5
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How the School has flourished since those days. Physically, the 
transformation has been spectacular, with airy and transparent 
buildings that invite the community in, yet merge instinctively into 
the landscape. Technologically, SMARTBoards and “build your 
own salads” over the internet give my daughter (who is in Senior 
School at Queenwood) experiences unimaginable in my school 
days. But most importantly, the holistic emphasis remains that 
Queenwood girls excel both academically and in terms of personal 
and community development.
Please outline your academic and career path since leaving school.
My career path was once described as “textured”. I wasn’t sure if 
that was a compliment or a sign of confusion!
Where did it start? Well, I guess it began in my last years of 
school where Queenwood led the way in introducing Indonesian 
in Years 11 and 12. At the time, Australia was only just beginning 
to engage with Indonesia, and a number of us were selected to 
be on the first ever school trip to Indonesia. Being 1973 we were 
treated to hours of speeches by Army Generals on their 5, 10 and 
20 year plans! We did get the chance to stay with local families 
where even in Jakarta the floors of our home-stays were bare earth, 
and we travelled through Java on local trains leaving for Australia 
from Bali at a time when there was only one international hotel on 
the beach at Sanur and no hotels at Kuta!
This interest in Indonesian led me, at 17, and only a day after my 
last HSC exam, to study at SOAS (School of African and Oriental 
Studies) at London University. But to ensure I was not idle, 
my mother also thought it was timely for me to learn other important 
skills, so I also enrolled at Margery Hurst’s Secretarial School in 
Knightsbridge (learning to touch type on a manual typewriter 
– a real bonus now) and Elizabeth David’s original Cordon Bleu 
Cooking School in Marylebone Lane (hand beating egg whites in 
copper bowls). I had a wonderful time living with uni friends in 
a flat and working as an au pair, travelling through Europe when 
I could.
Back to Australia, I married at 19 and combined community 
work with a degree in Social Science. I graduated at 23 and, 
with a new baby, set up consulting businesses in country towns 
(Goulburn, Tumut and Gundagai). Next stop was Canberra 
where, to better underpin my consulting practice, I embarked 
on a Post Graduate Diploma in Science at ANU, specialising in 
organisational psychology. My thesis focused on RSI, otherwise 
known as the ‘golden handshake’ or ‘kangaroo paw’ which received 
lots of global attention as organisations tried to understand 
why new keyboard technology was leading to serious injuries. 
However, with a growing frustration of working with the negative 
outcomes of Occupational Health and Safety issues, I wanted to 
learn more about the context in which such bad outcomes for 
workers occurred. I was invited to join a UK consulting firm that 
was setting up in Australia which was great in tapping into my 
curiosity across a whole range of businesses. This experience gave 
me great insight into operations management and managing P&Ls, 
consulting to many industries ranging from insurance and banks to 
factory floors across Australia and New Zealand. 
This was a wonderful learning experience - and hard work - 
however, I was keen to apply my own consulting prescriptions 
by working inside an organisation where I would be responsible 
for the outcomes. Fortunately, I was offered an opportunity 
to manage a large team in one of the big Australian banks, with 
the responsibility for reengineering their entire national branch 
network. With my son now starting high school, it also seemed 
like a good time to combine work with an MBA at the Australian 
Graduate School of Management.  
After six years in the bank, Asia beckoned and an opportunity 
to live in Singapore and then Indonesia, working for a US-based 
global consulting firm. Our daughter was born in Singapore and she 
and a nanny or grandma would often travel with me as I facilitated 
strategic planning workshops throughout SE Asia working with 
top teams across a range of national and multinational companies. 
Within days of my son finishing his IB at the British School in 
Jakarta, we were evacuated by the Australian Government as 
Jakarta burned in the riots.  
Next stop was back in Sydney and with a new baby (number 
three), the opportunity to set up one, which became two, and 
then three Japanese sushi bars and restaurants. With young 
children and the restaurants, it also seemed an ideal time to put 
some theory around the practice and complete a full-time PhD at 
the AGSM, reflecting on my consulting and business experience. 
We soon had offers we couldn’t refuse for our restaurants, so 
somewhat reluctantly we sold them.
My focus then shifted to sharing my practice and academic foray 
in teaching and research, with opportunities to publish and speak 
at international conferences all over the world. I also facilitated 
many and varied groups from MBAs in Australia and Hong 
Kong, to executives with the UNSW Accelerated Learning Lab in 
Australia and India, senior officers attending Australian Defence 
Force Academy, as well as company directors with the Australian 
Institute of Company Directors. 
The culmination of all these wonderful, and often very 
challenging experiences, was to have been “head hunted” to join a 
global corporate leadership firm, Heidrick & Struggles, as Partner, 
conducting Board and CEO search and Leadership Advisory. 
With the joys of passing time/age, I feel incredibly privileged to be 
in a position that draws on all my ‘diverse’ experience as I focus on 
bringing a new perspective to placing the best talent on boards and 
advising on Board effectiveness. 
And so now in the role of Chair of Queenwood’s Board, I see 
a unique opportunity to support Queenwood’s executive as we 
seek to influence the development of talented women to gain the 
confidence and skills to enable them to follow their dreams.
Would you mind sharing a little about your life outside career and 
Queenwood… family/interests/goals?
I love to ski, travel, read and learn, best of all with my family - my 
greatest passion.
My goal is to positively influence the lives of those around me – 
at work, at home and at play.   
NEWS

















Q NEWS 2012     23
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PSYCHOLOGY 
CONFERENCE 
BROADENS 
KNOWLEDGE 
An International Baccalaureate (IB) conference on Psychology brought together IB students from schools 
around Sydney to focus on a subject that 
underlies all human behaviour.
The event hosted by Monte School in March included lectures 
and workshops while also giving the students a chance to compare 
notes with others taking the course which covers biological, 
cognitive, social and cultural aspects of the study of Psychology. 
While there are core course components, students also study 
elective elements with Queenwood students this year examining in 
depth the field of abnormal psychology, incorporating topics such 
as depression and anorexia.
Year 12 student, Meg Wallis, highlights how pertinent the field 
of psychology is in all human interaction and how their studies 
can be applied on a daily basis in observing the way people interact 
with each other and the social influences that can shape behaviour.
Science teacher, Ms Sarah Jones, brings real application of their 
studies into the classroom through analysis of reports and articles 
appearing in the media, highlighting the relevance of the topics 
they are studying and interpreting their meaning in everyday life. 
While the Queenwood students may not intend to pursue careers 
as psychologists, they agree it is a subject they would be interested 
in incorporating in their university studies. As Yasmin Stelling says, 
“psychology underlies everything in most situations,” so they all see 
its pertinence in whatever paths they may consider in the future.
The option to study Psychology was a definite drawcard for the 
Queenwood students taking the two year IB course, and sits well 
with other aspects of the course such as Theory of Knowledge 
(TOK) on which Queenwood hosted a conference in late March, 
led by Dr Peter Vardy.  
LEARNING