Jacqui Walters

In her own words

I first worked in transport when I worked for Price Waterhouse’s international group and built a large activity based costing model for Indian Railways. I lived in India for close to nine months in the early 1990s when the economy was just opening up, and it was fascinating. The project provided my first real exposure to a large operational business that moved people and things and I loved it. 

I undertook my next major transport-oriented piece of work with IBM Australia, living in Hong Kong to implement an integrated system for Cathay Pacific. I was looking after the engineering and financial reporting modules as well as the organisational change aspects. I did a lot of work there on cross cultural change, taking American and Australian methods and translating them into the Hong Kong culture. Interestingly an Australian team was specifically requested for the project because we were seen as more comfortable to adapting to other cultures.

I then worked for IBM on supply chain practice, based in London, with extremely diverse clients across the United States and Europe including one of my all-time favourites  – Lego. 

Lego is a family company and when I became involved they had suffered their first ever loss. They had declined to cobrand anything like a McDonald’s Happy Meal or Star Wars character and consequently had lost market share. They realised they needed to change or they wouldn’t exist any more and I helped them to really speed up their product development process. Their Research and Development took place in a huge hanger where people from across the community and of different generations came in to play with existing Lego and prototypes. On a higher floor above the cubicles we would observe the patterns of play. It was very cool to help save Lego at this time. 

I spent 10 years in infrastructure advisory working on major projects, including the development of national procurement guidelines for significant infrastructure projects for the Australian Government, and was absolutely immersed in the depths of looking at projects that had gone well, those that hadn’t gone well, understanding the learnings and building those learnings into new models for infrastructure projects which included rail and road. 

This led to a Board Role with Building Queensland, a newly established independent body to advise the Queensland Government on investment in major public infrastructure projects; and in 2017 my appointment as Chair of the Queensland Government’s Citytrain Response Unit, created in response to the Strachan Commission of Inquiry.

As the inaugural Chair of CleanCo Queensland from 2018 I became immersed in the world of decarbonisation, recognising it is critically important we decarbonise our transport networks if we are ever going to reach our emissions targets. 

My appointment mid 2023 as National Rail Manufacturing Advocate and Chair of the Rail Industry Innovation Council draws on the breadth of my experience implementing complex projects, driving cultural and organisational change and harnessing technology and innovation. 

Australia has lost a lot of manufacturing capability and while there is some really great work happening, it is smaller than we would like. Our challenge in rail manufacturing (which is well known) is that we have a federation with states who do things quite differently and we are a tiny market compared to the rest of the world. If we as a country tackle the right things together in a coordinated way we should be able to provide an environment where it is attractive for suppliers to enter the market and do more of the building and manufacturing In Australia. This would not only result in better value for money for the states and Australian taxpayers, but also protect us from sovereign and supply chain risk. We need to coordinate a consistent pipeline of work that encourages businesses to invest in the right skills and equipment. 

There is a perception that rail is all about heavy engineering but it is actually an incredibly high tech industry.  So part of our challenge is getting people to understand what sort of jobs there are, attract them, and provide training into new industry areas. Ultimately the view is to not only serve domestic markets but to develop export markets where we are competitive because of our research and innovation and lead the way, and that could be in the decarbonisation space. We do unique work in Australia because of our environmental conditions and there is a big opportunity if we can get all the right things to line up. 

The culture imperative

If you walk around a lot of our factories, they are very male dominated, with few women on the tools despite the fact that there is nothing happening on the floor that requires different physical attributes. Company executives tell me they have to fix the gender issue because the demand for workers is massive. Their motivation is high, and they know they must address the culture because if you are failing to provide suitable work environments, women and other non-traditional employees won’t stay at an organisation and there are plenty of options to go elsewhere.

In the rail and infrastructure sectors there is a pervading male oriented culture and often inflexible work practices which are cultural and not outcome related. Employers know cultural change must happen, but it is proving hard and slow. They must commit to leading and modelling the change from the top and accelerate the shifts needed.

A lot of industry initiatives are focused on getting girls to choose STEM subjects and have had some success although it needs continued focus. One area where we lose these women is  is in the early career years because of hostile workplace environments.  It is difficult to shrug off a bad experience and trust that people are going to behave differently, and you will not suffer the same type of discrimination.

Throughout my career I have championed building better cultures where all people, including women, are welcomed and can thrive. Initiatives I have been involved with include UNIQ You which helps high school girls see the possibility of non-traditional careers and roles by introducing them to women in those careers today; and initiatives that support women navigating the first five years of working in male dominated environments to increase participation and retention.

Open minded to the possible

A long time ago when I was quite junior I walked out of a meeting with my boss who was great and I said: ‘I don’t understand why this and that isn’t happening?’ He gave me a real talking to and said: ‘why didn’t you raise this in the meeting - you cannot sit back and not speak up.’ It was a valuable lesson to me that you have to put your thoughts out there because people don’t know what you’re are thinking. You must do this even if it is an intimidating environment. It’s hard and I have been there and needed to really assert my views, which for women in the workforce is often described as being ‘pushy’, when it is really normal workplace behaviour. 

The results are the proof and no one can dispute that. You need to play the issue not the person, even if others make it personal, and be yourself. I remember saying to one boss when I was quite senior and I knew we were going to have a difficult discussion about the behaviours of others in the workplace ‘if I cry in this discussion it is not because I am upset it is because I am angry and furious. That is how I respond to this type of situation.’ 

I have been in workplaces where I went to the top regarding behaviours that were extremely unacceptable being inflicted not on me but on younger women and found at the leadership level not only an awareness of the issue at hand but an acceptance of the behaviours because the perpetrators were big income earners.  Nothing was done and I chose not to continue to work with those companies. You have to be really clear of the standards you set for yourself and if after taking reasonable action to try and get bad behaviours addressed in a workplace back yourself and find somewhere where your values aren’t compromised. If you don’t it will eat you up. 

My advice is do the work you love, work with people you respect and be open minded. My most awesome roles were ones that when offered I was a bit unsure about but thought I would give it a go. They often turned out to be the best decisions! I also say to women we don’t need to mimic men.  If you can’t work in a workplace where you can be yourself and bring your full self to the job you will never reach your potential and it is not sustainable – pretending to be someone else is exhausting!