Wendy McMillan

In her own words 

I was introduced to the world of air and sea freight in my first full time role with Brisbane’s Gambaro family. That nascent experience was focussed when I joined the Port of Brisbane Corporation where we had a huge intersect of shipping and rail, operating the intermodal rail head.  

When I joined the transport and infrastructure sectors, there were women in certain areas of industry, including government appointed chairs, as well within partner and customer organisations. I was lucky enough to see the succession of Kathy Hirschfield AM to become CEO and Refinery Manager at the Bulwer Island Refinery in Brisbane in 2005 and get to know her. She is a great role model as an eminent leader and an absolutely brilliant engineer. 

But in terms of when I was working with logistics, freight, and banking organisations there was a paucity of women, and it still continues today. Particularly in those areas, you are often the only woman in the room.  

I have had the benefit of great mentors – men and women - throughout my career, including former Chief Commissioner of the Victoria Police, Christine Nixon AO when I was the CEO of Rolling Stock in the Victorian Government. At that time, there weren’t many senior females in government, and Christine was a great mentor to me.  

In the era I belong to, women who have been successful have been strong because they had to swim against the tide.  

Design for the 95% 

Recently the Right Hon Theresa May MP, former Prime Minister of the UK spoke in Australia about focusing on building a pipeline of executives to feed into the C suite, out of the traditional female areas of human resources, finance, public relations, and marketing communications. The trips often come from a disconnect between an organisation’s diversity and inclusion policies and people’s lived experiences, particularly returning to work after parental leave.  

Post COVID there is an advantage that working remotely is now accepted and we are at the tipping point of major change. Daniel Pink, the author of The Power of Regret spoke at a recent Wabtec strategy session and said in his research, involving a cohort of 16,000 people, he discovered what people want most is trust and to belong. Consideration must be made in how you design your policies and procedures. Design them for the 95% of your people who do the right thing. If you don’t, you will be left behind.  It’s a complex period right now to re-engage with staff and retain them when the war for talent is extreme, and at the same time continue to pursue a strategy to build your pipeline of women. 

A big difference to even 10 years ago is the investor suite and private equity have also turned the corner. Boards can’t allow a lack of gender balance to occur any longer because they do see sufficient data sets about the economic benefits of having gender balance, and investors are demanding it. 

The settings in smaller organisations can be nimbler; when you are big you will get absolute commitment at the top and the bottom, the issue is what happens in the middle. The point is people are very busy and unconscious bias is the biggest issue to problem solve and remove.  People are conditioned to do things the way they have always been doing them. Sometimes it requires the mandate via from the CEO and the Chair saying, ‘I support this’ to ensure change – such as introducing blind resumes in recruitment – are implemented.  

Furthermore, a good organisation will not just reward on outcomes and results, but the journey on how you got there. Remuneration and incentives should be linked to behaviours and living values in the workplace, not just straight commercial results. 

The cloak of leadership 

My mentors taught me there is a cloak of leadership and to be very aware of yourself as a leader. You are always on show, and you must live your values.  

Leaders always have time. Process is your friend and be patient. Don’t jump. Patience is always a good hallmark of leadership.  

In my current role I love the opportunity for continued growth and to build things, internally and externally. I joined Wabtec because of its commitment to sustainability, safety and investing in its people and products. Working with people is a passion of mine, communicating and developing better outcomes and integrating and building teams, particularly post two major acquisitions since 2016, to be a One Wabtec team.  

A traditional maxim is it will take two years to build the culture you want and only three months to kill it.