Dr Jan Tennent: Making the leap from the lab bench to the boardroom

In this Women of Honour podcast Claire Braund talks to Dr Jan Tennent OAM - an internationally recognised researcher with specialist knowledge of antimicrobial resistance mechanisms and the discovery and commercialisation of vaccines.

Jan was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) for her service to research science, and to business, and today Jan says she hopes to use the OAM “a platform for my future work to remove barriers to women and indeed to all great scientists”.

But despite being six foot tall with a head of long white blond hair, Jan says when she moved from the lab bench to the board tables of big biotech companies “it was still really hard to get noticed around the boardroom”.

As she tells Claire Braund in this podcast, her ‘love affair’ with research began last century, on the first day of the second year of her science degree at Monash University. 

Now a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Technology and Engineering and the Australian Society for Microbiology and a Principal Fellow at the University of Melbourne, Jan’s specialist skills and knowledge gathering in microbiology, molecular biology, antimicrobial resistance mechanisms and vaccine development came from 18 years working as an applied research scientist at Monash during her PhD, as a post-doctoral researcher in the medical school at Umeå University, Sweden, and then as a senior research scientist and program manager at CSIRO Animal Health, Parkville.

Through subsequent executive roles at CSL, Pfizer and ConnectBio, Jan gained more than a decade of experience in the translation and commercialisation of research outcomes to products and practices for the benefit of humans and animals. Her most recent executive role was as CEO of Biomedical Victoria, the premier voice for linking medical research to clinical care in Victoria (2012-2019).

These days, she says she is proud to mentor many ‘next-gen’ researchers and is inspired to apply and share my knowledge and experience through a number of advisory panel appointments and non-executive director governance roles including with the eviDent Foundation, Apiam Animal Health (ASX:AHX), AusBiotech, and Agriculture Victoria Services.

In this podcast, Jan talks to Claire Braund about falling in love with science, living and working in Sweden - “suddenly my world opened up way beyond Footscray and the suburbs of Clayton  to the other end of the world” - and what it was like working for more than a decade with CSIRO as a young female research scientist in the 80s and 90s.

She also discusses the highs and lows of working in the global bioscience space with top-flight companies including CSL and Pfizer and some of the major career challenges she has had to overcome as a leading woman in STEM.

Claire and Jan also chat about what prompted her to take on her first NED role with Tweedle Child and Family Health Service in 2011 and her subsequent move into the boardrooms of big biotech companies - and how having a science background helped around the boardtable. As she says: “In science there is no such thing as a silly question. And in fact it's exactly the same at the board table.”

Podcast Host: Claire Braund OAM, Women on Boards Executive Director and co-founder.

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‘If the door is closed, climb through the window’. That’s the message from board recruitment specialist and director, Bernadette Uzelac, who has been made a member of the Order of Australia (AM), for significant service to the community of the Barwon Southwest region in Victoria.

Growing up in Geelong, Bernadette was married with a baby and selling Mary Kay products by the time she was 18. Three years later she had completed a commerce degree and welcomed her second child. By the 1980s, driven by a hunger to put her own stamp on something, Bernadette started her own recruitment business - despite having no experience.

“I jumped off that great big cliff face into the black hole,” she tells Claire Braund in this podcast. “I had four weeks of annual leave payments, borrowed some money from my father to buy furniture, rented an office and waited for the phone to ring.”

Today Bernadette is an accomplished CEO, entrepreneur and business leader who sits on the Board of the Geelong Cemetery Trust, and was the first female president of the Geelong Business Club in its 50 year history .

In this podcast, Bernadette discusses the changing landscape of recruitment - from the ‘wild west’ of the 80s to today’s focus on gender-equitable practices and avoiding unconscious bias - and the increasing role of AI in the recruitment space. She also shares her top recruitment specialist tips for anyone seeking board roles and discusses the critical importance of networking.

 

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Warning: This podcast discusses suicide A curious child who grew up with an older brother, Julie Adams OAM started challenging gender stereotypes at an early age. “I felt empowered to speak up if I thought I was being treated differently because I was a girl,” said Julie. It was this curiosity, she says, that led to her success as an entrepreneur as the co-founder of Chemo@home -  which offers cancer patients the convenience and flexibility of receiving treatment in the comfort of their own home - and in 2024 being awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) for service to pharmaceutical oncology. Julie was working as a Cancer Services Pharmacist in1994 when she recognised the need for home-based chemotherapy while her Dad was dying from emphysema. After being shown how to administer antibiotics for her father’s chest infections, Julie’s Dad was able to spend his last Christmas at home.    Over the next 6 years July researched ways to treat cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy at home, and in 2013 took a calculated gamble to co-found Chemo@home with business partner Lorna Cook.  Despite being told their business would “never survive without a male company figurehead” Lorna and Julie grew their operation to become a multi-award winning health service, employing more than 80 people across the country. The company has since been widely recognised, winning nine business awards, including Julie being named the 2016 Telstra WA Business Women’s of the Year. Then in 2022 Julie’s world was rocked when her 22-year-old daughter Molly died by suicide related to intimate partner abuse. In this podcast Julie shares her personal story of losing Molly, and how she hopes to expand her purpose beyond home health care and put her “out-of-the-box thinking”, entrepreneurship - and now OAM - to good use, to improve outcomes and provide support services for other women in abusive situations. “I still very much feel passionate about my business, and there's still a lot of work to be done. But I feel that all of my knowledge has now come together, and I can use it in a different area to improve outcomes for women, and also to for men who choose violence.”

Podcast Host: Claire Braund OAM, Women on Boards Executive Director and co-founder.

Content warning: This podcast discusses suicide. If you or anyone you know needs help:

• 1800 RESPECT on 1800 737 732
• Lifeline on 13 11 14
• Suicide Call Back Service on 1300 659 467
• BeyondBlue on 1300 22 46 36
• Headspace on 1800 650 890

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Avril Henry in her own words, is a perfect example of what you can do when you’re willing to work hard and have someone who believes in you. Growing up in social housing in a low income family in a mining town in South Africa, at the height of apartheid, Avril was an “English speaking girl who was not expected to amount to anything”. In 2024 Avril - a recognised and awarded expert on leadership, diversity in the workplace, change management, and employee performance - was made a Member of the Order of Australia AM for significant service to business consultancy, project management and to women. 

“Where I came from was grounded in a background of inequity, which is why my life's work has always been about levelling the playing field - whether you’re old or young, female, a migrant or an indigenous person,” Avril tells Claire in this podcast.

Avril arrived in Australia in 1980 with a degree in accounting and economics from the University of Cape Town, with “two suitcases, $500 and a dream” - to live freely in a democratic society.  

Since arriving in Australia  Avril has had a long and varied and interesting career in finance and HR in South Africa, the UK, USA and Australia before setting up her own consultancy in 2003. An internationally-acclaimed keynote speaker and provocateur who is passionate about transforming leadership models, building diversity capabilities and reforming outdated workplace practices. 

In this podcast Avril talks about what motivated her to leave the corporate world and strike out on her own, her quest for fairness and equity and the challenges organisations face around diversity and inclusion.

An early entrant into the school of diversity, Avril has since forged a big reputation around linking diversity and inclusivity to leadership capability and financial outcomes, and says one of her proudest achievements was being part of the history-making Westpac team in 1995 who introduced paid maternity leave.

In this podcast Avril discusses the need to up the ante on gender pay equity and “antiquated” recruitment techniques. “We are making progress, but it needs to be much quicker.”

“When diversity and inclusion first  made it onto the executive and board agenda people talked about diversity and inclusion being for minority groups. I was the first person to come along and say, hold on, if women make  up 52% of the population and people from multicultural  backgrounds make up 53% of the population, and people with disabilities make up 20% of the population, you're  actually not talking about minority groups, you're actually talking about major parts of society and the workforce.”

 

Podcast host: Claire Braund

Women on Boards (WOB) is an independent and action-oriented organisation founded in 2006 by Claire Braund and Ruth Medd, with a proud history of supporting women to leverage their professional skills and experience into leadership and non-executive-director roles. 

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Make every day count. That’s the advice from architect and urbanist Professor Helen Lochhead, who was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) in the 2024 Australia Day Honours for distinguished service to architecture and urban design, to building regulation reform, to tertiary education, and to professional organisations.  

A graduate of both the University of Sydney and Columbia University in New York, Helen is a woman who has certainly made every day count. A recipient of many prestigious travel scholarships and Fellowships including Fulbright, Bogliasco and the Harvard Lincoln/Loeb Fellowship, Helen also became a Churchill Fellow in 2010 to study recent models of urban regeneration that demonstrate a holistic approach to climate change and sustainability. 

In her roles as Deputy NSW Government Architect for 9 years and then through various academic positions and board roles, Helen has worked on and influenced some iconic projects, including Sydney Olympic Park and Sydney Harbour Foreshore.

She has achieved a significant level of peer recognition and been much awarded. In 2019 the Australian Institute of Architects awarded Helen the Paula Whitman Leadership in Gender Equity Prize for her outstanding and determined individual contribution to the advancement of gender equity in architecture. And in 2015 she was appointed the first female Dean of the Faculty of Built Environment UNSW in Sydney and Pro Vice-Chancellor, Precincts in 2020. An undoubted role model, champion and mentor for current and future female architects, Helen talks to Claire Braund about the challenges and highlights of being an architect and urban designer, the value of mentors and what architects can bring to the boards of organisations.

“What we can do as architects can make a difference to people's lives.  And it's not just about designing beautiful buildings, it's actually about transforming people's lives.”

Podcast host: Claire Braund

Women on Boards (WOB) is an independent and action-oriented organisation founded in 2006 by Claire Braund and Ruth Medd, with a proud history of supporting women to leverage their professional skills and experience into leadership and non-executive-director roles. 

Join or Subscribe to Women on Boards

In this Women on Boards Honours series, WOB Executive Director Claire Braund talks to the 12 WOB members who were recognised in the 2024 Australia Day Honours.

In this episode Claire speaks to Warrnambool cattle and sheep producer and founding member and chair of Food and Fibre Great South Coast, Georgina Gubbins, who was awarded an OAM for service to primary industry, and to the community.

As she tells Claire “I wouldn't probably be sitting here having received this award if it hadn't been for Women on Boards!.”

Georgina started her career as a nurse then moved to Victoria’s Western District in the mid-90s to help on the family farm with husband. After he walked out, Georgina stayed with her two daughters and built Maneroo into a well-known prime lamb and beef cattle property.

“I call myself an accidental farmer because I only stayed on farms so that my two children could have continuity of life. Their life had been ripped apart. That's why I took on the farming, to have stability for the children.”

In this podcast she talks about the challenges she faced becoming an independent and successful female farmer while raising two daughters and about the tragic death of her brother Simon, who died by suicide.

Known as one of Australia's best and most innovative sheep and beef producers on his farm Murroa, Simon shot himself in 2003. His death sent shockwaves across rural Australia and Georgina’s family determined from the outset that there would be no pretence about the manner of his death. As Georgina wrote an article in The Age later that year: "Things happen for a reason and are sent to teach us a lesson”

In 2012 Georgina’s family established the Simon Gubbins Scholarship to study agricultural science at New Zealand’s Lincoln University, aligning with her deep passion about affording career opportunities to young people in agriculture and agribusiness in Australia.  Content warning: This podcast discusses suicide. If you or anyone you know needs help:

• 1800 RESPECT on 1800 737 732
• Lifeline on 13 11 14
• Suicide Call Back Service on 1300 659 467
• BeyondBlue on 1300 22 46 36

Headspace on 1800 650 890

Subscribe (FREE) or join Women on Boards HERE.

Associate Professor Ngaire Elwood AM is driven by a strong sense of purpose that grew out of a life-changing experience that inspired her, as an inquisitive science-loving teenager, to dedicate her life to improving therapies for kids with cancer. 

As a teenager, she was treated for osteosarcoma, a common form of bone cancer that had a survival rate of about five per cent prior to the advent of chemotherapy.

After her bone cancer diagnosis, her treatment involved an above-knee amputation, followed by 18 months of high-dose chemotherapy. Even with this ‘aggressive therapy’ the survival rate is about 60 per cent.

Now she is helping others survive cancer as head of the Cord Blood Stem Cell Research Program at Murdoch Children’s Research Institute and director of Melbourne’s cord blood bank.

She has devoted her career to investigating, developing and providing improved therapies for the treatment of cancer, leukaemia and other disorders and is passionate about the therapeutic application of cellular therapies. 

Her research includes exploring the different types of stem cells that are in cord blood, investigating the use of cord blood in heart repair and the treatment of cerebral palsy, and improving the use of cord blood in bone marrow transplants for treating blood cancers and other diseases.

Ngaire was made a Member of the Order of Australia AM in the 2024 Australia Day Honours awards for significant service to medicine, particularly through stem cell research - an honour she tells Claire Braund was a “bit surreal” and that it is important as a female researcher and amputee to use the platform as a voice for women in STEMM, people living with disabilities and also to raise the awareness of cord blood therapies in Australia. 

In this podcast Ngaire also talks about the development of cord blood research around the world and in Australia - “it's a really exciting time… there’s so much we don't yet know and understand about cord blood biology and its benefits and ind it’s really fun to find out” -  as well as her board career and what skills and qualities medical scientists can bring to the board table, including strategic thinking, grant-writing, risk management and big picture thinking.

“It's knowing that the work you do makes a difference and can make a difference no matter how small the role may be. Whether it's as a research assistant, student or a board member. Everybody plays a role and can make a difference,” she tells Claire.

About Ngaire Elwood:

Associate Professor Ngaire Elwood AM, PhD BSc(Hons) MAICD, is an experienced senior leader. She has devoted her career to investigating, developing and providing improved therapies for the treatment of cancer, leukaemia and other disorders and is passionate about the therapeutic application of cellular therapies.

Ngaire has broad governance expertise, and holds a diverse board portfolio. She is the immediate past Vice President of the international Board of Directors for the Foundation for the Accreditation of Cellular Therapies (FACT), Non-Executive Director on the Boards of the National Stem Cell Foundation of Australia and international Cord Blood Association, and previous Chair of the Board for the Australian Sickle Cell Advocacy Inc (ASCA). She was previously the Australia New Zealand (ANZ), Regional Vice President for the International Society for Cell & Gene Therapy (ISCT) and is a member of the ISCT Board of Directors (2018-2020; 2022-2024). She is Chair of the FACT Education Committee, is a FACT Cord Blood Bank Inspector and sits on the FACT Cord Blood Accreditation Committee, FACT Cord Blood Standards Committee, FACT Regenerative Medicine Task Force and the FACT New Business Development Committee.

Ngaire serves as Chair of the AusCord network of public cord blood banks and is a member of the TGA Advisory Committee on Biologicals. As Director of the BMDI Cord Blood Bank, a TGA-licensed manufacturing facility, Ngaire has extensive expertise in GMP, regulatory compliance and quality management. She sits on the MCRI Institutional Biosafety Committee for Genetically Modified Organisms and has broad experience in human research ethics, previously serving as a member of the Australian Bone Marrow Donor Registry National Ethics Committee. With a scientific research career spanning more than 30 years she has made significant impact in the field of cellular therapy, cancer, cord blood, stem cells and leukaemia. Ngaire was inducted into the Victorian Honour Roll of Women in the category of "Change Agent" in October 2022. She was made a Member of the Order of Australia AM in the 2024 Australia Day Honours awards for significant service to medicine, particularly through stem cell research.

Find out more about Ngaire on LinkedIn

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In this first episode of the new Women on Boards Honours Podcast Series - featuring the 12 WOB members recognised in the 2024 Australia Day Honours - WOB co-founder and Executive Director, Claire Braund, chats with Emerita Professor Lesley Hitchens.

Lesley was made a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) for significant service to tertiary education, and to the law. This is only the second year that the majority of honours were awarded to women since the national system formally began on 14 February 1975 – nearly 50 years ago.

Lesley had a long and distinguished legal career, starting in Sydney at Allens before she headed overseas to London in the mid-1980s and became immersed in the world of legal British academia.

She returned to Australia in mid 2000 and took up roles with the University of Melbourne and then UNSW and UTS where she finished up as Dean and then Acting Provost. 

Lesley has received many honours from peers including as a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Law and awarded the Financial Times Australian Legal Innovator Award in 2018. She is on the board of Shopfront Arts Coop.

Find out more about Women on Boards Visit our Events Calendar Subscribe (free) or join Women on Boards Follow us on LinkedIn

 

Growing up in South Africa Lisa Carlin experienced apartheid in its truest form.  “I just felt this complete sense of unfairness of it all, and that's really carried with me today” she says.  Through this she has become extremely passionate about transformation to give a voice to those who don’t have one.

Lisa is the cofounder and CEO of global advisory FutureBuilders Group and author of Turbocharge weekly. Her portfolio includes mentoring founders and CEOs in the HRTech, EdTech and workplace talent sector, she is on the Advisory board for Rebelliuz and Chair of the University of Cape Town Australia Trust.

In this podcast Lisa talks to Claire about how her desire to embed transformational change stems from her upbringing in South Africa and how this has carried with her to the workplace today.  She says while it's important for organisations to understand workplace transformation on many levels, it imperative just to stay relevant and ahead of disruption.

Lisa’s professional focus is to accelerate growth transformation and scale ups, which she explains is more about strategy execution than strategy.  She stresses the importance of culture and talks about why it’s one of the main reasons that execution fails. She also discusses her appetite for risk, the reason she sits on an Advisory board and why her mantra is “Communities magnify momentum”.

LinkedIn   Lisa Carlin (guest) Claire Braund (host)

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Claire Braund spoke to 3AW Drive Host, Tom Elliot on 23 Sept 2023 about a decision by HESTA that they will vote against select director re-elections of ASX300 companies where the board has less than 30 per cent of female representation.

Claire says HESTA and other investment firms are taking a stance on “merit”,

“We like to think of merit as something objective … but it’s actually defined by culture, values and expectations … which means only some parts of merit are to do with how hard one works,” she told Tom Elliott.

Read HESTA's four key expectations for ASX300 companies in 2023-24 AGM season HERE