Time lapse video of painting Georgette’s portrait.

Georgette Nicholas

CEO and MD Genworth Mortgage Insurance Australia

Georgette’s 3 Key Success Factors:

1.       Resilience: I have faced many challenging and difficult situations throughout my life and career.  The ability to recover quickly, reflect, learn and adapt to change has been paramount to my success.

2.       Integrity: Credibility and earning people’s respect and trust is an important trait that I have focused on throughout my career. As a CEO and Managing Director, I believe this sets the tone of an organisation from the top to ensure we have the courage to do what is right, even when difficult.

3.       Living your values: I have a strong set of values that were instilled in me from a young age.  I believe in hard work and leveraging my role as a CEO and Managing Director to make a positive contribution.  This includes giving back to the community we work and live in and delivering on our business mission of helping Australians achieve their dream of home ownership.  I believe one of my roles in life is to develop the next set of leaders by leading by example as a strong role model and mentor for young executives, especially females, working their way up the corporate ladder.

Georgette is the CEO and MD of Genworth Mortgage Insurance Australia.  Georgette brings more than 30 years of financial and industry experience to the role including her extensive global experience in lenders mortgage insurance.

Prior to being made CEO and MD in 2016, Georgette was Genworth’s CFO, a role which leveraged her financial acumen, industry knowledge and leadership skills across finance, audit, controllership, strategy, actuarial and investor relations.

Previously, Georgette worked as Senior Vice President, Investor Relations, Public Relations and Rating Agencies with Genworth Financial Inc. Other senior roles she has held at Genworth Financial Inc. include Chief Financial Officer, US Mortgage Insurance where she was a key member of the management team leading the business through the economic downturn in the US housing market and the GFC, and Global Controller for both US Mortgage Insurance and International Segments.

Before joining Genworth in 2005, Georgette was a Director at Deloitte & Touche providing services to companies in the insurance, real estate and broadcasting industries. Earlier in her career, Georgette worked with Freed Maxick Sachs & Murphy, a top 100 accounting firm, in Buffalo, New York where she focused on audit, acquisitions and mergers, tax and strategic financial planning and prior to this as an Internal Auditor at ITT Corporation.

Georgette has a Bachelor of Science in Accounting from the University of Bridgeport, Connecticut and is a Certified Public Accountant and Chartered Global Management Accountant.

Georgette is a director of the Insurance Council of Australia

Sue Chanon

CEO Virtus Health

Sue’s 3 Key Success Factors:

1.     Focus, hard work, resilience, passion and commitment for whatever you do.

 2.     Integrity, being open and honest with your team builds trust -  surround yourself with good people and enable people to connect.

 3.      Have a vision and be open to change, listening to the call of constant evolution.

Sue is CEO of Virtus Health - market leader in Assisted Reproductive Services. Sue has held senior management positions in various Australian healthcare organisations for over 20 years.

Before her appointment to CEO of Virtus in November 2010, Sue was CEO of IVF Australia Pty Ltd. Prior to joining Virtus, Sue was State Manager for NSW and ACT for Medical Imaging Australia, the National Director of Nursing for Mayne Group (now part of Ramsay Health Care), CEO of Kareena Private Hospital, CEO of Castlecrag and Mosman Private Hospital and CEO and Director of Nursing for Castlecrag Private Hospital.

Cindy Hook

CEO Deloitte Asia Pacific

Cindy’s 3 Key Success Factors:

1. Play to your strengths 

2. Be authentic  

3. Dream big 

Appointed as the Chief Executive for Deloitte Asia Pacific in September 2018, Cindy leads a team of 2,800 partners and 45,000 professionals across 17 countries. Cindy is a member of the Deloitte Global Executive Committee.

Prior to this role she served as the Chief Executive for Deloitte Australia from 2015 to 2018 and lead Deloitte's Audit & Assurance practice in Australia from 2009 to 2014. She was educated in the United States and worked for 20 years as a certified public accountant for Deloitte in San Francisco.

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Amanda Lacaze

CEO Lynas Corporation

 Amanda’s Key Success Factors:

1. Clearly defining what success means. This requires detailed understanding and clear targets.

2. Truly engaging with my staff so they can do their best work every day. If people know what they need to do to contribute to success, then they will do it to the very best of their ability.

3. Work hard – persistence and resilience are key markers of all parts of my life and career.

4. Have Fun! Fun comes from succeeding, from winning. So I place all my efforts on creating winning teams that have fun at work every day. 

Amanda Lacaze is the CEO and Managing Director of Lynas Corporation, an ASX listed company with a portfolio of aligned assets to explore, develop, mine and process rare earth minerals. Rare earths are essential inputs to high technology, high growth, future-facing industries, such as electric vehicles, wind turbines and electronic products.

 Appointed in June 2014, Amanda has successfully led the company through a complete turnaround with many challenges.  This included renegotiating debt facilities, resizing the cost base, re-orienting the company to focus on customer revenue growth and truly engaging all staff in delivering outstanding performance.

 The company has successfully met these challenges. With its Tier 1 resource and its Malaysian processing facility, Lynas has created the only Rare Earths centre of excellence outside China and is now the second largest producer in the world.

 Amanda was recognized as 2018 CEO of the Year in the MiningNews.Net Awards and was featured in The Australian newspaper’s ‘The Deal’ as a business woman to watch in 2018. In 2017, Amanda was named one of the Australian Financial Review’s Business People of the Year and she has been profiled as one of Australia’s 12 most inspirational business women in Woman of Influence.

Early in her career, Amanda developed deep management and marketing experience which led to positions across many industries. She was CEO of Commander Communications, Executive Chairman of Orion Telecommunications and CEO of AOL|7. Prior to that, Amanda was Managing Director of Marketing at Telstra and held various business management roles at ICI Australia (now Orica and Incitec Pivot) and Nestlé.

Amanda is a Non-Executive Director of ING Bank Australia LTD and a member of Chief Executive Women and the Australian Institute of Company Directors.

Amanda lives in Kuantan, Malaysia, near to the site of Lynas’ Malaysian operations.Amanda Lacaze was appointed Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Lynas Corporation on 25 June 2014 following her appointment as a Non-Executive Director of the Company on 1 January 2014.

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Marnie Baker

Managing Director Bendigo ANd Adelaide Bank

Marnie’s 3 Key Success Factors:

1. Authenticity My unifying quality is authenticity. I am proud to have always remained true to who I am throughout the course of my career. I see it as my personal and professional responsibility to encourage authentic behaviour and dialogue which in turn drives Bendigo and Adelaide Bank’s integrity and high-levels of trust.

2. Curiosity A natural burning desire to always ask questions, challenge the norm, learn and always improve, my innate curiosity aligns with Bendigo and Adelaide Bank’s long-proven innovative advances and practices. 

3. Resilience Resilience is overcoming the challenges of an ever-changing reality. In my 30 years in the industry, my resilience has seen me successfully navigate a variety of industry challenges and has enabled me to anticipate and manage change and disruption, and evolve beyond it.

Marnie is Managing Director of Bendigo Adelaide Bank. She is the daughter of a dairy farmer and she is proud of where she has come from as it has instilled the values that make Marnie who she is today. I was impressed that she was promoted from Chief Customer Officer - meaning that she arguably has a better understanding of her organisations customer interface than any other bank leader in the country. Based in Bendigo and married with three sons, Marnie has been with the Bendigo and Adelaide Bank Group since 1989 and an Executive of the Bank since 2000. She was appointed Managing Director in 2018.

Marnie has 30 years’ experience in financial services, specifically Retail Banking, Trustee and Custodial Services, Financial Planning, Insurance, Funds Management, Treasury, Risk and Compliance, Payment Systems, Information Technology, Change Management, Social Media and Digital Technologies, Legal and Human Resources.

Marnie holds a Bachelor of Business (Accounting) from Latrobe University and is a member of the Australian Society of Certified Practicing Accountants, member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors and a Senior Fellow of the Financial Services Institute of Australasia.

Marnie is a Director of Bendigo and Adelaide Bank Limited, Rural Bank Limited and sits on the Advisory Board of the Australian Centre for Financial Studies, Australian Bankers Association, Business Council of Australia, and Mastercard Asia Pacific Advisory Board. Marnie is also a member of Corporate Executive Women.

Professor Caroline McMillen

Chief Scientist South Australia

Three key factors which have made a difference:

1. Backing insights about how the future will be different from the present – critical for shaping bold strategy in the face of fierce competition in a rapidly moving world.

1. Taking the time to enjoy, engage and connect with people from many backgrounds – it is a privilege of leadership and starting up a conversation across a table at the end of a long day can lead to unexpected collaborations.

1. Understanding that personal integrity is at the absolute heart of leadership and that this is not a negotiable.

Caroline McMillen is the Chief Scientist of South Australia. Professor McMillen was the University of Newcastle as Vice-Chancellor and President. She holds a Bachelor of Arts (Hons) and Doctor of Philosophy from Oxford University, and she completed her medical training at the University of Cambridge.

In 1983, Professor McMillen moved to Australia to lecture at Monash University. In 1992, she was appointed Professor, Chair and Head of the Department of Physiology at the University of Adelaide. In 2005, she accepted the position of Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Vice President: Research and Innovation at the University of South Australia, a position she held until her move to Newcastle.

As a biomedical researcher, Professor McMillen is internationally recognised for her work into the impact of the nutritional environment before birth on the risk of developing cardiovascular disease and obesity in adult life. Her research group has been funded continuously for two decades by both the Australian Research Council (ARC) and the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC). She has published more than 200 publications and been invited to present at more than 70 international and national meetings. She is currently the Chair of the Endocrinology, Reproduction and Development Commission of the International Union of Physiological Societies - the only Australian Chair on this international body.

She has served on state government groups focused on building innovation, climate change, manufacturing and the resources industry. Professor McMillen was also a member of the Prime Minister's Science, Engineering and Innovation Council Working Group on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders focusing on maternal and peri-natal health. She has served as Chair of the ARC and NHMRC's grant review panels.

Professor McMillen is committed to building collaborative partnerships between universities, government, industry and communities that contribute to the economic, environmental, social and cultural health of Australia.

Ann Sherry AO

CHairman - Carnival Australia

Ann’s 3 Key Success Factors:

1. Know yourself - without that you won’t have the confidence to do other things. You’ve got to know who you are.

2. Sense of Humour - you’ll need it. You don’t have to be serious all the time.

3. Take Risks

Ann is one of Australia's leading business executives with a career that spans Government, Banking and Cruise Tourism.

She is currently the Chairman of Carnival Australia, the largest cruise ship operator in Australasia and a division of Carnival Corporation & Plc. After joining as Chief Executive Officer in 2007, she has transformed the industry and growth has been in double digits each year since.

Ann is also the Chair of UNICEF Australia and currently holds non-executive roles with National Australia Bank, Sydney Airport, Palladium Group, Rugby Australia, Cape York Partnerships, Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Infrastructure Victoria and Philanthropy Australia.

Beginning working life as a radiographer, Ann became First Assistant Secretary of the Office of the Status of Women in Canberra before moving to the banking sector initially in HR roles, then in CEO roles with Westpac NZ and the Bank of Melbourne.

The Australian Government awarded Ann the Centenary Medal in 2001 and in 2004 she was awarded an Order of Australia. In 2015, Ann was named as the overall winner of the Australian Financial Review 100 Women of Influence Award.

Ann devotes considerable energy to her passion for women’s rights, currently convening the MCC STEM group, opportunity for Indigenous communities, philanthropy and to the arts. Ann’s fourth success factor is to Be Kind.

Angela Mentis

MD & CEO BNZ

Angela’s 3 key success Factors:

1. Be ambitious from the start:  being ambitious for yourself and those around you is fundamental to creating great teams. Set ambitious targets, back yourself to get momentum quickly, own your decisions, learn faster and make a difference quicker.

2.  Be relentlessly curious: never accept the status quo, always ask “why”, listen constantly and you’ll invariably find ways to turn good into great.

3. Focus on what matters: organisations are invariably complex and full of well-intended distractions but what drives us needn’t be. For me, it’s ensuring every action, decision and innovation I take helps deliver better outcomes for my customers.

Angela Mentis was appointed CEO and Managing Director of Bank of New Zealand (BNZ) in January 2018. She has been a Director on the BNZ Board since December 2016.

She has extensive business, retail and institutional banking and wealth management experience, spanning more than 29 years.

Angela was previously Chief Customer Officer – Business and Private Banking with BNZ’s parent company, National Australia Bank (NAB), a position she held from August 2016. In this role, she was responsible for leading NAB Business, supporting customers across the Agriculture, Health and Government and Education sectors, along with Business Direct and Small Business, Private Wealth and JBWere.

Prior to this Angela was Group Executive, Business Banking from August 2014. She has also held senior roles as Executive General Manager, NAB Business – Australia’s largest SME business bank – and Executive General Manager, NAB Private Wealth.

Beginning her career at Macquarie Bank, Angela has held senior management positions at BT Financial Group, Westpac and Citibank Limited.

She holds a Bachelor of Business with a major in finance and economics and a sub-major in business law and a Graduate Diploma in Applied Finance and Investment from the Securities Institute of Australia. She is a graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors, a Senior Fellow of the Financial Services Institute of Australasia (FINSIA) and a member of Chief Executive Women.