Women retire with 28% less super than men on average.

Women over the age of 55 are the fastest growing group of homelessness, driven in large part by lower or nil super balances.

And that super gap is driven by all the barriers we talk about on this podcast all the time - women are paid less so their compulsory super payments are lower, they take time out of they have children and super paid on that is minimum wage level and zero for extended unpaid leave, they face the motherhood penalty that means their earnings suffer after children, they are more likely to work part time…, whether they have children or not they do the bulk of care, domestic and mental load labour which reduces their workforce participation rates and lifetime earnings, and they have a gender available savings penalty that means it's much harder to catch up with savings and retirement.

Today's guest is determined to make a difference to the gender superannuation gap. Lucy Kough worked in advertising, with a superannuation fund client when she learned about the gender gap in super. And now shes come up with a solution. It's called Tap the Gap, and today we're going to learn what, why, and how it can impact you directly.

Enjoy the show!

Australia is one of the wealthiest nations on earth, but your gender can determine how much of that wealth you have.

Australian women are almost twice as likely as men to experience financial insecurity, lower levels of financial wellbeing, and poverty throughout our lives as men.

Today's guest is Jenny Rolfe-Wallace a qualified teacher and financial educator, and a former financial adviser. She stood for election as an independent in the 2025 federal election and on her own podcast, "It's Not About The Money", Jenny considers why we need to stop telling individuals to solve the problems they didn't create and start investing in systemic solutions.

Today, we're talking about money myths, how the system disadvantages women, and what we can do about it.

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What is a fire investigator? Is the first question I asked when a listener recommended I speak with Vithyaa Thavapalan. I don't know the answer yet, but I know it's a very male dominated industry. Women make up less than 5% of urban firefighters and cultures of toxicity have been exposed.

How do you push against gender and cultural expectations to live a life that has meaning for you is another question that is central to my work, and Vithyaa has spent her life doing just that.

Born in Western Sydney, to Tamil parents who fled Sri Lanka during the war, she had to defy their expectations to forge her career path – a path that often finds her the only women in the room. And that has also led to environments of sexism and discrimination. Wanting to follow her dreams without having to face toxic behaviour every day, Vithyaa founded her own fire investigations company in 2024, the first fire investigation company to be founded by a woman of colour in the world.

She also founded Brown Boss Babes, Australia's first women's empowerment organisation dedicated to uplifting South Asian women, and South Asian Foundation Australia. All of this, while raising a very energetic toddler and being open about the very real transition into motherhood.

Through every challenge and success, Vithyaa has remained committed to breaking barriers, creating opportunities, and inspiring others to forge their own paths.

And in her own words, this is only the beginning.

Enjoy the show!

This year, the number of women in both houses of Parliament reached a record-making 50.5%, that's the highest number of women in Australian federal politics ever. And as Ruth Bader Ginsburg said, "Women belong in all places where decisions are being made."

Today's guest, Licia Heath, shares RBG's sentiment, and has dedicated her work to getting more women into politics. Licia is CEO of not-for-profit, Women for Election, a non-partisan group committed to increasing the number of women in public office at local, state and federal levels.

She ran in the high-profile Wentworth by-election in October 2018 and says that she didn't get elected, but she did win. And now she helps others to win.

Licia has over 19 years' experience in the finance industry, established an asset management business, and does it all while raising two boys.

Enjoy the show!

Artificial Intelligence has a gender gap - Women are being left behind and are up to 40% less likely to use AI.

You know what else has a gender gap? Pay. The current gender pay gap in Australia is 21.8%, and every industry has a gender pay gap that sees men earning more than women – including women-dominated industries like retail, and healthcare and social assistance.

Well, what might happen if you brought the two together, and use AI to solve your gender pay gap?

Today's guest is Sorrel Kesby, and she's doing just that. She is cofounder of EvenBetter.AI, a start up using AI to help companies understand their gender pay gap drivers, and what to do to close the gap.

In Sorrel's mind, changing the system is about top down – leaders, executives, and governments changing policies and behaviours, and bottom up – grass roots change and striving for things to be better in our own lives, which has a ripple effect outwards.

Sorrel is a single mum with a background in advertising (notoriously difficult for women once they have children) and tech start-ups (also high pressure environments that are usually gender imbalanced) who's on a mission to create real change.

Enjoy the show!

Laura Stewart had a big career. Then she had a baby. She went back to work, and it was a disaster – sidelined, treated differently, and a toxic workplace. So, like the rest of the 30% of women who leave their jobs within a year of having a baby, Laura left. But also like the rest of that 30%, she didn't leave the workforce, she just left a job that wasn't compatible with also having a family.

She started up a consulting practice called Unravel – helping organisations Unravel complex challenges, and then at the beginning of 2025 joined forces with Vanessa Pilla and co-founded PathMaker – a female-led social enterprise helping organisations drive social value and impact

This path, from big corporate to self-employed, is one that more and more women are taking. The number of female-founded small businesses has grown 77% since 1991, and the most-commonly cited reason is balance and flexibility. But it also comes with its challenges!

Now, Laura's son is 2 and a half, her business is growing rapidly, and in this episode we're talking about shifting from big corporate to small business, becoming a mum, and what the juggle looks like in her life right now.

Enjoy the show!

Leah Ruppanner is the kind of person every single working mother wants to speak to, because she knows all about how your life feels, and how to fix it.

She's debunking outdated gender stereotypes, like women are happier as 'homemakers' and men are bumbling caregivers, often stitching viral tiktok videos to explain, in layman's terms, what the underlying social issue really is.

She's about to publish a book about the mental load and how we better share it, and her podcast MissPerceived is in the top 200 in the US and top 25 in Australia for the sciences.

A research professor at the University of Melbourne, Leah was Australia's Top Gender Scholar in 2022 and 2023, is Director of The Future of Work Lab & The Gender Equity Initiative, and she's been cited on google scholar over 5000 times.

Enjoy the show!

For some people, their authenticity shines through as soon as you meet them, and today's guest Aubrey Blanche-Sarellano is one of those people. With her pink and purple hair, a nose ring, and a big warm smile, she doesn't look like your typical tech person, but she's doing amazing work to embed equitable people & culture (more on what that is later) and responsible AI (more on that later too) into organisations.

The world is changing, the workforce is changing, and Aubrey is doing work to make sure everyone can succeed. In this episode we're talking about what it means to construct your career and non-linear pathways, how we each have influence over ourselves and the people around us, and getting clear on what you need.

Enjoy the show!

Every woman has a story about 'that guy' at work, the who says inappropriate things – or worse. And many women, myself included, have a story about making a complaint and then their contract suddenly comes to an end.

In December 2022, Australia's Respect @ Work legislation came into effect, introducing a new positive duty for companies to proactively prevent sexual harassment, not just respond after the fact, and definitely not by firing the woman who made the complaint.

Dr Anna Cody is Australia's Sex Discrimination Commissioner with the Australian Human Rights Commission, working at the frontline of how these laws work, where there are gaps, and what we can do about it.

She has just released a new report titled Speaking from Experience – The HRC listened to women who have experienced sexual harassment or sex based discrimination, and created 11 recommendations.

In the words of one of the woman interviewed, "talking is lovely, but action is what gets it done"

So if you want to know what action your organisation can and should be taking, and you want to know what you as an individual can do if you come across 'that guy', alongside lessons in leadership from Dr Cody, this episode's for you!

Before becoming the Sex Discrimination Commissioner, Dr Cody had a distinguished career as an academic, as a lawyer specialising in discrimination and as a passionate advocate for human rights.

She was previously Dean of the School of Law at Western Sydney University, has worked in human rights in Mexico, international development in East Timor and Indonesia, at the Centre for Economic and Social Rights in New York, in community legal education in El Salvador, and worked with Indigenous women in Alice Springs establishing a domestic violence service.

Here's a career pattern you'll recognise: first, you're young, ambitious and driven, then kids arrive and you step back. A Nobel prize was actually awarded for research into that step back - so it's officially very common.

Side note, Your husband's career carries on uninterrupted while you manage everything.

Then as the kids get older, you step forward again. And if you had school-age kids during the pandemic, that was a huge couple of years of homeschooling and – generally – pretty difficult work experiences.

This path describes today's guest perfectly. Sarrah Le Marquand is Head of Entertainment at News Corp Australia, founding editor-in-chief of Stellar, and host of the award-winning podcast Something To Talk About. She's also an ambassador for Women's Community Shelters, supporting women and children experiencing domestic violence.

Now, she's got teenage kids and is navigating separation - all while running this incredible career she's built back up.

She's here to talk about those distinct career chapters, and what comes next when you're not starting over but you are starting fresh.