The gender equality agenda

Telling impactful stories

The learning curve might have been steep, but it has propelled Simone through an almost-40-year trajectory that spans everything from international development to professional sports, telecommunications, consulting and back again.

“UTS really prepared me for what has been a long and interesting career,” she says.

Among others, she is a former Emergency Fundraising Director for Save the Children; a former General Manager, Corporate Affairs, Communications and Strategy for the AFL; and a former General Manager, Sustainability for Telstra.

But while the work context keeps changing, the path to impact remains the same.

“The skills I’ve learnt so fundamentally through studying communication is really about reaching audiences and telling impactful stories, no matter the context that you’re in,” she says.

In pursuit of authentic leadership

Simone’s expansive CV and remarkable professional achievements mean she’s recognised as much for her leadership skills as she is for standing up for women’s rights.  

For some, operating in the upper echelons of Australia’s business world might mean building an exclusive professional network. But for Simone, true leadership, just like issues of gender equality, is all about inclusion.

She works alongside people at all ages, career stages and life paths, and she prides herself on learning as much from those around her as she teaches in return.

Simone also thinks deeply about her role in relation to her team, the audiences who come to hear her speak and the stakeholders who have a vested interest both in her and the work of UN Women Australia.

She’ll be the first to admit that leaders are made, not born. It’s a process of continuous improvement that requires her to frequently reflect on who she is as a leader, where she’s falling short and how she can continue growing in service of women as a whole.

Moving communities, moving nations 

Despite her frustrations with the state of global gender equality, Simone is nothing if not an optimist. Like many people, she has to believe that things are on the right track because the alternative is too hard to contemplate.

But she’s also bolstered by the tiny seeds of hope that continue to grow in unexpected places. In Afghanistan, for example, a country consistently ranked among the most gender inequitable, women-led organisations are fighting back against education restrictions imposed on girls.

For Simone, and for women around the world, even such incremental progress matters. That women haven’t given up, that a handful of countries are edging closer to gender equality, that people are still putting their heads together to try and solve what so often feels like an intractable problem is proof that the fight’s not over yet.

“It’s about moving communities; it’s about moving nations,” Simone says.  

“I think communication is core to that.”