Choose to Challenge: International Women’s Day 2021

To celebrate International Women’s Day 2021, Objective held a power hour panel discussion with three women leaders across different departments to discuss their careers and experiences throughout the past year.

The event began with IWD themed cupcakes in every Objective office and staff attended in person and on Teams. Objective CEO, Tony Walls, opened the event.

“From my perspective, we’ve had another big year of change, and I’d also like to say how wonderful it’s been to see all the women on the team who have made fantastic contributions to the Objective that we have today,” Tony remarked.

I’d like to say how wonderful it’s been to see all the women on the team who have made fantastic contributions to the Objective that we have today.

Tony Walls

CEO, Objective

Rebecca Finbow, Global Head of Customer at Objective, led the event. The panel included:

• Andrea Breen - Director of Content Solutions, Melbourne
• Kirsty Dusting – Head of Customer Solutions for Objective RegWorks, Wollongong
• Pratikshya Kuinkel – Product Manager, Sydney

“The theme for this year’s International Women’s Day is Choose to Challenge. I personally cannot think of a better theme, given the journey that we’ve all been on over the last 12 months. I’m really proud to stand here today and to say that somebody once said to me, ‘Never waste a crisis!’ and I don’t think that we’ve wasted a crisis at all,” Rebecca said.

“I think what we’ve done with the last 12 months is we’ve chosen to challenge the situation that we are in and we’ve brought about fundamental changes, such as working remotely and supporting our people through it,” she continued.

“Most importantly, we’re moving to a very fundamental and very exciting time in history. The world now expects equality, diversity, and inclusion. I’m really proud to work for an organisation and to work for a CEO who very much backs that 100 percent.”

Most importantly, we’re moving to a very fundamental and very exciting time in history. The world now expects equality, diversity, and inclusion. I’m really proud to work for an organisation and to work for a CEO who very much backs that 100 percent.

Rebecca Finbow

Global Head of Customer at Objective

Here’s what the panel had to say about their careers and the past year:

Q. Tell us about your career journeys

Andrea: “I had a diverse journey from a land surveyor to tech. I’m in a fortunate position to work for a company like Objective that’s so inclusive because, certainly along my journey, I’ve seen evidence of companies that are not quite along the lines.”

Kirsty: “I have been in the RegTech industry for eight years and when I joined Objective RegWorks, formerly Itree, I saw lots of opportunities for improvement. I’ve had the chance to have a really diverse range of roles here, including product, quality, testing, business analysis, project management, and service delivery. It’s been quite fun that it’s been so varied. I think, as long as you’re always learning new things, then that’s what keeps me happy.”

Pratikshya: “I had mixed experience with corporate as well as academics. When I moved to Sydney, I entered the job market as a developer. I always say I didn’t choose product management; product management chose me. That was the challenge that was presented to me, and I just opted for that challenge, and never regretted it. I feel like product management is home for me.”

Q. How have you challenged yourself in the last 12 months with communication style to the team and customers?

Kirsty: “I think, in a way, leader or non-leader, I think it has been a real challenge for everyone. In a way, it’s been a big leveller – we’ve all had to develop new skills and new ways of doing things at the same time. The biggest challenge, to myself and to my team, has been to keep going. I think it could have been easy to say, ‘This is too hard now!’ or ‘Maybe we won’t do this,’ but we kept going, and that’s been a really great success.”

“The past year has also required myself and everyone to be flexible – both with ourselves and with each other – and to try and be understanding about the context. Someone may have just come online straight away from another stressful meeting with only two minutes in-between time. They may have just walked away from a screaming child to sign into a Teams meeting. Just having a bit of understanding that the context someone is in might not be the same as what you are in at that time, and just giving people a bit of flexibility and friendliness to make that ok.”

The past year has also required myself and everyone to be flexible – both with ourselves and with each other – and to try and be understanding about the context.

Kirsty Dusting

Head of Customer Solutions RegTech at Objective

Andrea: “From my perspective being in sales, when you walk into a room physically, you read a lot of the situation from being in the room. You go into a negotiation meeting and you can read someone’s body language. When you get onto a Teams call, you don’t have any of that information generally. I think you need to work on different techniques to try and tease out some of that information and see where things are at. I give people a chance to relax and get into the groove of their communication style.”

“Once I was in a tense Teams meeting and all of a sudden everyone started laughing. I turned around to find my son crawling behind me to get something off the printer. It was great timing as my son’s behaviour broke the ice, and I think it made people realise that everyone is human and they do have family there at home with them.”

Pratikshya: “With the development team, we would have held planning sessions in person, writing the sticky notes, sticking them all over the walls. When this pandemic happened, we suddenly lost that interaction, and we had to switch to a digitised version of doing things. Again, technology came to our rescue. Meetings were all on Teams and we used Micro boards in order to do some of those crucial planning workshops.”

“A big positive was that Teams meetings started and ended on time and you didn’t have to wait for someone to arrive or leave the meeting room. However, I would have to say that you really have to segregate between your professional and personal life. Otherwise, it gets difficult to draw the line and say when work finishes and your personal life begins.”

Q. Share your journey to leadership, how you’ve challenged barriers and how you’ve approached driving change?

Andrea: “I’m a bit fortunate in this respect – that I’ve had people who helped me on my journey to leadership. A former boss of mine reached out to place me in leader position while I was working part-time three days per week and had two small children at the time. He said we will work around that and so I ended up going into the leadership position. The business and I made it work, and I’ll never look back from that point on. “

“I think one thing there is to look at people’s circumstances. If they’ve got the right capability and the right qualities, then work around the things that might be inhibitors to drive a successful outcome.”

For me, as a leader, I like to be approachable. Nothing is off limits. I like to be able to give my time to my staff and my people when they need it – on anything they need it for. I like to be available to them. I think that makes a difference.”

Andrea Breen

Director of Content Solutions at Objective

“I think you learn something from every leader that you work for, and it can be qualities that you want to see in the way you lead, and it can also be things that you wouldn’t consider useful in the way you would shine through to manage people. For me, as a leader, I like to be approachable. Nothing is off limits. I like to be able to give my time to my staff and my people when they need it – on anything they need it for. I like to be available to them. I think that makes a difference.”

“I just think you never throw out a trick, I like to say in life. You know, I think a warm empathetic style works well, and just open communication.“

Pratikshya: “I believe that, in order to be a driver of the change, first you need to be very receptive of the change yourself. Whenever you are presented with an opportunity, don’t shy away from it.”

“I believe that, in order to be a driver of the change, first you need to be very receptive of the change yourself. Whenever you are presented with an opportunity, don’t shy away from it.”

Pratikshya Kuinkel

Product Manager at Objective

“From the tech journey perspective for the tech leadership role, I have had a wonderful mentor who has always believed in me and given me room to experiment which is very important. You know, you should have that space to experiment without having that fear of failure. I think you need to establish that trust and that helps a lot.”

“It’s really good to have that shared respect for each other as well. I think the people that you work with, it’s a team effort. Even if you are in that leadership position, it does not come just from you. It’s about the people that surround you. I think everyone is so inspiring over here.”

Kirsty: “I once worked with a woman who was the program manager of a large data project and who then went on to be the chief operating officer of a large company. She was like the hired gun that they’d bring into any project that looked like it was on a track to failure. She would come in and help to break it down really quickly. The way she managed to help people to see what others necessarily couldn’t see but did it in a way that meant everyone felt like they were part of solving the problem was pretty impressive.”

“In terms of advice and in terms of my own career progression, I would say don’t be afraid to put your hand up and to ask what might feel like a stupid question. In my experience, I often find you’re actually voicing what nine out of ten people in the room are thinking, and everyone else is perhaps afraid to say it.”

In terms of advice and in terms of my own career progression, I would say don’t be afraid to put your hand up and to ask what might feel like a stupid question. In my experience, I often find you’re actually voicing what nine out of ten people in the room are thinking, and everyone else is perhaps afraid to say it.

Kirsty Dusting

Head of Customer Solutions RegTech at Objective

“Most times, when things go wrong, I always point back to that quote. It’s a quote from George Bernard Shaw who is a playwright. It’s that “the biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has occurred. If you feel like things might not be quite clear, just ask or point out something.”

“Also, I think giving feedback to others – both positive and negative – and encouraging is well-received. Most people actually do like to hear feedback because they feel that they can learn more when they hear it. Feedback is direct and it is real and genuine.”

Q. Share the challenges that you faced managing work and home life and how you manage expectations

Pratikshya: “For me, when the pandemic started, that’s where the struggle was a little bit more in terms of setting up your workspace. My partner and I had to set a rule that even though we are not going to the office, we pretended to be in the office, so that we were not stepping in each other’s zone that much and had separate workspaces.”

“Because I live a little bit far, my time used to be wasted in commute a lot, and I felt like during the pandemic I was able to pay attention to myself and dedicate that time which I would be spending in commute for things that I ought to do – like exercise or go for a walk. You have to make conscious choices in order to have more balance.”

Kirsty: “In my experience, it is both men and women who face these challenges. There’s a book called Lean In and what I took away from it is that you need to lean out at home, and that means not being the catch-all, and being open to things not going right at home sometimes. Maybe a child doesn’t go to their music lesson because someone forgot and actually just being okay with that. You don’t have to be the supermum as well.”

“To get to that executive level, it’s very hard without someone bearing more of the burden of managing the home life. I think that is a reality just because of how much headspace executive-level positions take up. I think you can’t just focus on what you need of the women. You need to make the space for the women to succeed by giving the men the option, too.”

Andrea: “I think too that trying to achieve balance comes in many different guises but I gave up on the idea of balance many years ago. I just try not to tip the scales too far in one direction rather than try and get them in some sort of equilibrium that I’ve never seemed to be able to achieve.”

“What dawned on me – probably later than it should have – was I’m really good at delegating in my role as far as getting other people to do the things I need them to do. I wasn’t so good at that at home. I recently decided it was time to delegate some challenges and some tasks across the family. There’s a bit of a schedule on the fridge, and people are asked to do their tasks. Really, they’re quite happy to do them and it’s been quite successful.”

View the photos from the event: