Within the executive leadership team, Macdonald’s time is fairly evenly spread between her peers. “Perhaps I spend more time with general manager of strategy [Paul Simos]; we overlap a little and we really need to be talking and communicating.”
As a team, the executive meets every fortnight for half a day, and goes off site every quarter to review and look at ongoing strategy. “There is a great deal of communication through the team.”
“I sometimes wonder why people like to work where there isn’t a lot of challenge, where everyone has same thought process. To my mind, if they don’t change that, their company is going to die. The digital world is changing rapidly, and you have to get over that resistance. To continue to thrive, you need different ideas and different ways of thinking.”
On 50% representation of women in the C-suite
“If I was to define why diversity is important, it is the different experiences, thought-processes and ideas. In my experience, going from one or two women to 50:50 is a positive. To me, it is a worry that we don’t have as many women on boards. When people say I can’t find [them], I feel like saying let me give you a list. There is a resistance. Where it starts to change is when you get true leaders who understand it.”
Macdonald says the executive team is very collaborative. “In terms of developing an idea, I could go to any one of my team; we challenge and disagree, but when you are challenged, people will ask why – they want to understand.”
Could this be because it contains so many women, I suggest? “It could be,” Macdonald surmises. “My female peers … are very good as questioning and wanting to explore and understand. Subconsciously, that is what might have helped the collaboration.”
Macdonald cites her background at an all-girls school, PLC, and the influence of her sister as factors supporting her career ambitions. “Their thought-process was always to do what you want to do; there were never any barriers.” Early leaders who were “low ego” helped her excel, she says. She took opportunities as she saw them because she wanted “to learn as much as I could”.
At REA, Macdonald feels the support of director, Kathleen Conlon, who is the only woman on the company’s board. “I wasn’t interested in getting up the ranks for title or power, but I would like to influence and contribute, and to be challenged; that is more my motivation for taking opportunities.”
On sponsors and mentors
Macdonald says there is a lot more support for women: mentors – who provide career support and encouragement – and/or sponsors – who put forward a name for promotion. And she encourages women to support each other – something that women can feel uncertain about. “I know we talk about sponsors and mentors, but we need to be more ‘out there’ about helping women achieve and develop as a gender. Helping other women achieve can feel a bit precarious, as can trying to mentor or help people, what with all the office politics.
“I am mentoring someone internally, but I am loath to just do that only for women. I have had staff come to me and I put in half an hour for feedback and how I see the business. It is about relationships and developing those.”
Of her own ambitions, Macdonald is clear that she would like a tilt at the top job one day. “I would like to think I have the ability and opportunity to think that the CEO role is in my view. It is a bit of a lonely role, and I would like to make sure it is with the right company.
“I have just done the Australian Institute of Company Directors graduate program. At some point, I would like to think about a board role. I think that is a really interesting one, being in management and a board member.
“With a CEO role, you are ‘on’ 24/7, and you have to manage that in terms of your health and you are travelling a lot away from family. Boards are more flexible.”
