Why we're putting Ann Sherry on the Women's Agenda stage - Women's Agenda

Why we’re putting Ann Sherry on the Women’s Agenda stage

In 2014, we officially inducted Ann Sherry AO into the Women’s Agenda Hall of Fame, for her lifetime career in business and in helping women achieve.

The decision was easy. Sherry’s cracked numerous glass ceilings and played a major role in developing paid maternity leave in corporate Australia. She’s fought for gender equality her entire career.

In 2015, we’re putting Sherry on stage again, after the influential businesswoman agreed to join Women’s Agenda for a Q&A session at our Sydney networking breakfast on the 25th June

But getting this date in Sherry’s diary was no easy feat.

As the CEO of Carnival Australia, Sherry is running one of the largest cruise ship operators in the world, having just passed the one million passengers a year landmark. She’s constantly travelling, attending the launches of new and improved safety and luxury features on the ships, dealing with everything that can go wrong on a major cruise — from bad weather to potential suicides and even once a case of swine flu — and advocating for better ferry terminal services and transport options.

Earlier this year, we sat down with Sherry’s EA to find a date in which we could make it work. When we found an opening, we didn’t hesitate. We immediately locked her own and then went about organising the venue and other logistics in order to make it happen.

That’s because we know just how much we can all learn from Sherry, who’s one of our most energetic, inspiring and resilient businesswomen.

Sherry’s had a big, expansive career across the private and public sectors. She was approached for her current position with Carnival in 2007 after bumping into a former female colleague on the streets of Sydney (that’s the power of making great career-long connections). She was at the time the CEO of Westpac New Zealand, a position she’d taken after successfully leading the people and customer side of Westpac’s merger with the Bank of Melbourne and later being appointed CEO of BoM.

Giving up the Westpac CEO position was a significant gamble. It involved packing up her family and successful career in New Zealand to cross back over to Sydney to take the helm of a company that was then in terrible shape, following the tragic death of passenger Diane Brimble.

“It was a big risk, I understand that … I stepped into a business that was really getting hammered from a reputation point of view and in a way I lent my reputation to it,” Sherry told Women’s Agenda back in 2013. “Equally, I understand that resuscitating businesses that are in bad shape is a really energising task. And I love people businesses and this is the ultimate people business!” 

Indeed, risk-taking has made Sherry’s career. She believes risk-taking pays dividends, and she has personally reaped the rewards. She’s moved from Brisbane to London to Melbourne, New Zealand and Sydney, each time having a short conference with the family — her husband and son — about starting life again in a new city, with even more responsibility.

“At every point people were saying, ‘Why would you do that? You have a great job. You stay here and the prize is yours’, which may have been true. The question is: do you really want that prize or do you want to try something different?”

There are so many questions we have for Ann Sherry.

And you are going to love hearing from the answers, and meeting with like-minded women and sharing your own stories. Join us on the 25th June in Sydney for breakfast

×

Stay Smart! Get Savvy!

Get Women’s Agenda in your inbox