Coles chief financial officer Leah Weckert studied chemical engineering and science. Alison Harrop, who is about to take on the CFO role at property group Stockland assumed she would pursue a career in the classroom. Rachel Grimes, who has the top finance job at financial services company Challenger, spent more than a decade in mergers and acquisitions and life insurance, among other roles, at Westpac’s wealth division.
Arguably, Macquarie was the making of Harrop the executive. She worked at the investment bank in two stints for 13 years in total.“I had a really great grounding at Macquarie early on in my career that taught me a lot of things about ownership and accountability and getting on with stuff and not waiting to be asked,” Harrop says.“It was an amazing introduction to corporate life.”
“Whilst you can be very collegiate with your colleagues on the executive, at some point you may have to say: ‘Well, actually, so-and-so’s business is rubbish, and it’s not making money’.” When King was promoted and Westpac appointed an external CFO, Grimes decided it was time to look around. A call from executive search firm Spencer Stewart came at just the right time.“I’ve rarely ever taken a call from [recruiters]. I had a lot of them, but I was very happy at Westpac. But this was an opportunity that I really had a good look at, and I grabbed the opportunity.
“I saw that these were the people who had some of the controls in their hands, who could influence how a company moved forward, and that appealed.”As a teenager, Janelle Hopkins used to charge her older sister to borrow her clothes. By the age of 29 she was the financial controller at MLC, the wealth arm of National Australia Bank, presenting regularly to the board.
Not your average accountant then?
Quotas for female positions like Victoria with penalties for failing to meet them. There are losers when quotas take over from merit & that is middle aged males. Bunnings now 70% under 30's female, usually on their phones & have no idea where the left handed screw drivers are 🤔
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