Ten stunning career changes that made leading women - Women's Agenda

Ten stunning career changes that made leading women

If you spend years working towards a particular career goal or job, the thought of giving it all up to try something else can be daunting.  So daunting that many women keen on making a career switch never actually fully commit to it. 

Earlier this year, a survey from recruitment site SEEK found that 68% of Australians are unhappy in the industry they’re working in, but just 23% are likely to attempt a career change this year.

Clearly, there are plenty of obstacles standing in the way of making a big career move. Is it worth the risk and upheaval? What if you’re no good in your new role? Will you lose your contacts, networks and everything you’ve worked so hard to build up? Will recruiters and new employers consider your ‘transferable skills’? What if you disappoint mentors, sponsors and other supporters in the process?

Will you lose money? 

This month, we’re exploring the idea of career changes at our breakfast network events in Sydney and Melbourne – starting with our first next Thursday.

Speaking with successful women who’ve made seriously big career moves including Naomi Simson, Angela Lovegrove, Lisa Pryor and Janine Allis we want to know how and why they made the moves that they did.

But before then, we’ve listed 10 women below who’ve made significant career changes on the path to where they are today. 

Janine Allis

Janine Allis is the co-founder of Boost Juice, Australia’s largest juicing company. Her success as an entrepreneur has seen her go on to write books, mentor others and feature on Channel 10’s Shark Tank. But Janine has had many former careers — including as a yacht stewardess, publicist, cinema manage and even camp manager. A lack of qualifications has never bothered her: “You work it out as you go. I don’t have the experience, but I’m a quick learner and I think common sense is very much underrated,” she told us in 2013. 

Shirley Randell AO

Shirley Randell is in her seventies, and still working in development work in Bangladesh, having worked all over the world in the last couple of decades.

Her reason for being on this list is not so much because of a career change, but a late-starting global career that is still going strong. “I was 55 at the time,” Randell recently said on being made redundant from a local government position. “I thought, ‘there’s no real reason for me to look for roles in the public service’. A friend of mine who was in PNG at the time said I should consider an Asian development bank role there.”

Naomi Simson

Naomi Simson is the founding director of RedBalloon. She’s a prominent blogger, author and regular go-to woman for entrepreneurial advice — now also featuring as an investor on Shark Tank.

But Naomi had a long career in the corporate sector before deciding to launch her own business. She’s worked with some of the world’s most recognisable brands including Apple, Ansett, KPMG  and IBM “resigning” a few bosses along the way. ““I would coach young people now and say ‘Don’t resign [from] a boss because they could leave’, but I did,” she’s previously told Women’s Agenda. .

Kerry Chikarovski

Kerry Chikarovski is a media commentator and government relations consultant, and the first female leader of the NSW Liberal Party.

She wanted to be a politician from the age of 13, but it took a number of career changes before making it happen — as well as a few gentle nudges from mentors and supporters along the way. In her mid thirties, while ironing the kids uniforms one night, she decided to throw everything at a political career. Months later, she won her local seat. 

Jan Owen

Jan Owen is CEO of the Foundation for Young Australians, a social worker and author.

She’s also, as she describes its, a ‘serial high school and university dropout’ who has been coming up with business ideas since the age of 11. And convinced the education system failed her, rather than the other way around, she’s been on a mission to help empower young people to create the careers they want.

Deborah Harrigan

Deborah Harrigan is a General Manager with Dell, managing offices all over the world and 3000 staff.

But Harrigan started her working life doing something completely different — working as a hairdressing apprentice. A bad illness and a couple of mentors put her on the path to pursuing a technology career. Meanwhile, she says accepting a job in Malaysia after becoming a single parent gave her the push she needed for a global leadership career. 

Angela Lovegrove

Angela Lovegrove is a Regional General Manager with Telstra, responsible for leading a major transformation of the business.

Lovegroves career is unique in that shes moved from start-ups to corporate – against the trend of many women moving the other way. Lovegrove spent the first couple of years of her career in the policeforce – where she says she got an excellent foundation for discipline and running businesses – before moving on to work with a number of entrepreneurs. Just a few years ago, a business coach advised her to get big corporate experience. She took on a director role with Salesforce.com in 2012 and moved over to Telstra in early 2014.

Emily Bitto, novelist

Emily Bitto has just won the Stella Prize for her debut novel, The Strays.

Having always dreamed of writing a novel, Bitto told Women’s Agenda she put off getting started for years, pursuing an academic background in literature instead. When she turned 30, she decided it was time to make it happen and enrolled in a PhD in creative writing. The piece she submitted was subsequently published. 

Jodie Fox

Jodie Fox is a co-founder of Shoes of Prey and Sneaking Duck, and is fast becoming one of our most recognisable female entrepreneurs.

She started her career as a banking and finance lawyer, before moving over to the advertising industry and later partnering with a couple of former Google employees (whom she met while studying law) to launch a major and disruptive retail start-up.

Gail Kelly

When it comes to big career changes, you can’t go past Gail Kelly. The former CEO of Wespac, who has only recently stepped down from the role, Kelly’s rise to the top has been truly unique. A former teacher in her home country South Africa, Kelly started her new working life in Australia as a bank teller and has climbed the corporate ladder ever since.

Have you made a career change? Let us know. Limited tickets are still available for our Sydney breakfast on the 7th May, and in Melbourne on the 28th May. 

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