Kirstin Ferguson is a company director, columnist, keynote speaker, and executive coach. Beginning her career as an officer in the Royal Australian Air Force, Kirstin has held roles that have included chief executive officer of an international consulting firm, and acting chair and deputy chair of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. She has sat on boards of both publicly-listed and privately-listed companies for more than a decade.

Kirstin has a PhD in leadership and in 2021 was named one of Thinkers50’s top thinkers to watch. In 2023, she was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia for her significant service to business and gender equality. She writes a weekly column on leadership and work in the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, and is also a contributor to the Australian Financial Review and to Forbes. She is the author of Head & Heart: The Art of Modern Leadership*.

It’s often apparent when someone else doesn’t a read a room, but much harder to see it in ourselves. In this conversation, Kirstin and I discuss how we can do a better job of either literally or figuratively reading the room. Plus, we explore several of the actions leaders can take to do a better job at being more proactive at moving beyond their own perspective.

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