However, to this Healey added a focus on the enterprise as a whole. “So, not just doing my immediate job, but through my work and my team, actually advancing the enterprise I am working for. That has given me a collegiate and collaborative style, and a willingness to put my hand up to take on challenges.”
In the case of Orica, Healey and two other executives worked around the clock with the newly-appointed leadership to staunch the cash burn and restructure the companies. “Even though that was not in my job description, and didn’t play to my core expertise, there was a job to be done and someone needed to do it. It is that willingness to take those risks and put in that work that has probably given me the opportunity to make a difference.”
Getting noticed
Corporate secretary roles do have one big advantage for ambitious executives. “I have always been fortunate that, despite the daggy nature of company secretary role, it does give you amazing access to the senior executive and the board.”
In the end, her hard work in corporate roles bought her to the attention of headhunters, who put her name forward for the role on the NAB executive.
These days, it is part of Healey’s job to identify and nurture the talented and ambitious from her own team. Although it is not a scientific process, Healey clearly identifies what she is looking for: head, heart and guts.
“The key element I would see for identifying talent would be attitude, people’s willingness to be part of the solution, to make a difference and takes some risks. Their willingness to lead with head, heart and guts. That doesn’t mean you need to already be in a leadership position, but that you can see that someone who combines their intellectual skills with their heart, which engages others, and their guts, which is that ability to step out of the ‘plane’ when you need to do so.
“They are the raw ingredients I look for, combined with some of the interpersonal skills: presence, and intangible ingredients that it takes to engage.
“The experience piece is something that we then think we can work on, by giving them the necessary exposure.”
