Progress with purpose: a Comms Connect panel preview

Comms Connect Melbourne is being held this week at MCEC on 15–16 October, and will this year feature the show’s first ever Women in Critical Comms panel session. Critical Comms editor Lauren Davis sat down with panel moderator Natalie Kolodziej, Group Owner - Commercial, Private and Emergency Services Networks at Telstra, for a sneak preview of what to expect from this groundbreaking session.

Your panel is named ‘Women in critical communications — progress with purpose’. What does that title mean to you?

We actually recently changed the name. It was ‘Pathways, challenges and opportunities’, and when I was thinking about what I wanted to get out of the session, and I thought about highlighting progress for women, the challenges for women, the opportunities for women, I was just like “Shouldn’t the opportunities be the same for both women and men?” So rather than highlighting men v women in the industry, what I really wanted to do was to highlight the progress that women have made, and not just that, but the achievements of the women on the panel — not just as women, but as amazing individual contributors and professionals within the industry, and the impact that that brings. So that’s what it means to me — that we’re actually making purposeful progress, both in gender representation in the industry, but also from the achievements that those on the panel have made. So that was my reasoning behind wanting to shape it in that manner.

So what sort of topics will the panel cover?

Each panellist will give a 2–3 minute intro on themselves, including their key achievements, and then we wanted to talk a little bit about what women bring to the role — the uniqueness of their compassion as leaders, their empathy as leaders — but also the importance of men and the support that we get from male colleagues. We had a pre-briefing call last week, and that was a really common theme actually — the support that each of them has received from male colleagues to lift them up and to help them achieve. And it’s not just male colleagues, it’s also male partners in life. One of them mentioned that her husband has been incredibly supportive, encouraging her to be the best that she can be. I’ve had male sponsors who have really advocated for me, to get me to where I am, and a lot of the panellists said that as well. It’s not necessarily women looking out for women — it’s also that the men in our industry, and our peers, see us as wonderful professionals, and give us the same kind of support that they would to any other colleague.

The other thing that came across for me, when we had our pre-panel discussion, was that they don’t just want to focus just on gender. They really want to highlight the areas of expertise and the career lessons that some of them have had. And one of the topics that came up was around the importance of mentoring, and also supporting young women in their careers. Because whether we like it or not, the critical comms sector is a very male-dominated industry, so how do we start to support the really talented young women who are coming through, and show them that they have a pathway, and use those who have gone before to mentor and inspire them? And so we do want to highlight the need for experienced professionals that help offer guidance and support for the next generations. We’ve actually had some of our panellists say “I’d love to be that person”. So I kind of want to close the panel on that note — that if you want to come and find us, we’re more than willing to be there and support you.

It also looks like the panel has a good cross-section of women from different stages of life and different areas of the industry.

It really does. So we’ve got the Chair of ACCF, which is Bidar Homsey. We’ve also got Ruth Tovo, who’s one of the Operations Support Officers at the SES. I think that she will resonate most with a lot of people in the audience, because she’s part of the frontline. You’ve then got Rania Wannous, an Executive Director at the NSW Telco Authority; Genie Tan from the Connectivity Innovation Network; and Cheryl Giggetts from the Project 25 Technology Interest Group. So it’s a really wonderful cross-section of people. And when we did our pre-panel discussion the other day, Ruth was sitting there with her six- or seven-year-old son on her lap, just trying to do the juggle because it was school holidays.

And that’s another point that Genie and Bidar both wanted to make — the concept of work–life integration, and how we’re seeing more and more of work and personal life being seamlessly blended, and balancing careers and family responsibilities while still finding satisfaction in your work. And that’s just kind of standard now. So that whole concept of work–life integration, and still having a challenging role that gives you great fulfilment, that’s what’s possible today that maybe wasn’t possible many years ago.

Based on your pre-panel discussion and your own experience in the industry, how would you say the opportunities for women and the representation of women has shifted over time?

I like to think that there is a lot more equality now, and that any opportunities are available to the most skilled person for the role, whether they are a man or a woman. And these days, because we’re seeing a shift in the industry where we do have more and more female representation, naturally you’ll start to see more and more women that are qualified for some of these roles and do have the necessary skills and experience. And that’s what, over time, will shift the needle when it comes to representation as well. You know, we’re coming from a place where women have historically been housewives, so you simply didn’t have women in the workforce. So there is just a natural bias in the industry to men. Now that you’re seeing more and more women in the workforce, we will start to see that needle shift over time. The thing is, because it’s shifting so slowly, it’s going to take a while until we’re really there in terms of 50:50 representation, but we’re getting there, and that’s where the progress that we’re seeing in the industry is so important to continuing that momentum and continuing us on that path.

It’s also about making sure both men and women get the same educational opportunities, isn’t it?

That’s right. For us at Telstra, it’s about that grassroots school and university pathway, and we work really hard on our university engagement, because you start to see the shift there. If you have 50% male and 50% female in a cohort of university students, then you’re likely going to have 50:50 representation in your graduate cohort, whereas when I was at uni you had 10% female and 90% male, so the graduates coming out were predominantly male and you were always going to end up with a disproportionate representation. So it all starts really at grassroots level. I actually don’t think universities are quite there yet — the last I heard, engineering is still not at 50:50 — so it’s slowly but surely changing.

Why would you recommend that Comms Connect attendees — male and female — visit your session, and what do you hope they will get out of it?

First and foremost, I think to hear the career journeys of some amazing industry professionals, and the insights into the career journeys and achievements of these people who just happen to be women. But second, to understand the role that you can play in supporting the females in your organisation, and also how to mentor and support the younger ones that are coming through, because I’ve really benefited from my mentors and sponsors — they give you tips and things to set you up so well.

‘Women in critical communications — progress with purpose’ will take place at Comms Connect Melbourne on 15 October from 4.15 to 5 pm. For more information and to register, visit the event website.

Image credit: iStock.com/webphotographeer