About Us

With her new leadership role, comes new opportunities and challenges.

It was an unexpected surprise when I was offered the acting Chief Executive role in early January and I had to adjust quickly, Sarah says.

“Everyone has been extremely supportive and helpful, making the transition to the role easy.  The biggest adjustment has been making the change from part-time to fulltime hours.

“It feels like an extended version of my Executive Director role where I already lead a broad and diverse mix of teams within Corporate Services.”

Reflecting on her leadership roles, Sarah says it’s important to have confidence. “Don’t label yourself as being at a disadvantage based upon your gender, instead see yourself as someone who is both capable and a role model.”

“For me leadership is about delivering to the best of your ability no matter your gender and backing yourself.  I was lucky to come from a background where we never considered what’s typical for a man or woman to achieve.  It was always based upon merit," Sarah says.

Effective leadership means treating everyone with respect; building trust, being genuine and having honest conversations, while also considering delivery requirements and timing.

“Communicate, communicate, communicate and as much as possible do this face-to-face.”

“Being consistent with messages and not afraid to make hard calls is important as is gaining multiple perspectives.  Put yourself in the shoes of the person you are talking with and consider how you would like to be treated in the same situation.”

“All are clichés, but they really do work,” Sarah says.

Fostering work-life balance is important too, along with taking care of wellbeing.

“Thinking ahead to the coming week and managing commitments at both work and home helps,” she says.

“By balancing my time spent at work and home it means I can collect my children from school.

“The support I have from my family is amazing; we parent together as a partnership and my mum looks after the children two days a week so I can work late if required.”

Sarah always makes time for daily exercise, this can be a mixture of walking the dog, visiting the gym for a combat or pump class or simply an at home yoga session.

“I have a number of levers that I pull, that help create work-life balance; overseas I had a busy role so I can draw upon some of these experiences too.”

If she could give her younger self one piece of advice it would be to not sweat the small stuff and enjoy the journey.  “Don’t be in a rush to get onto the next project, goal or experience.”

“I spent some time in my early career highly ambitious and rushed through some of my early milestones for example, leading a team.

“I never understood when I was given the feedback that I needed more experience.  Now 25 years on in the workforce, this makes perfect sense,” Sarah says.