Apoche Production. Welcome to another episode of Brave Always the CEO series. This series we launched into the new world of brave leadership.
Happy people create happy businesses, true.
Emotionally intelligent leadership. I've picked up Vombit once on our about our four flight and everybody thought, well it was good enough for him. I can do it now. We will be joined by culture and leadership experts and some superstar CEOs who will courageously tell us the truth behind their brave leadership journeys. Today I'm joined by one of
my absolute saves, Laurie Argus. Laurie Agus is the CEO of Melbourne Airport and took up this role in twenty twenty two after seven years as Chief of Aviation and Chief of Ground Transport. Laurie started her career in Canada before relocating to Australia and joining Virgin Australia. In her teen years at the airline, she was appointed Manager of International Airport Operations and General Manager of Ground Operations in twenty seventeen. Lauri Greg wed with an Executive NBA from
Bond University. Laurie is an active member of Chief Executive Women and of the Australian Institute of Directors and became a graduate of AICD in twenty nineteen. Laurie is also a non executive director of the Australian Airport Association Airport Council International World Governing Board. She's also a wife, a mom to two beautiful kids, and just one of those people who lights up the room when you walk in. Welcome, Laurie, is so great to have you here today.
Oh thanks, Emma, thanks for such a nice intro.
Look. I can't start this without noting that Laurie and I met back in Virgin Blue days, well over sixteen plus years ago, and Laurie, you were one of the first female influencers for me in a senior leadership role that I looked up to. I'm sure I've told you that that is the truth. You have me there. It was true even back then. I think you had this presence about you, like you were championing the flag for
women in leadership. Was that always like a goal of yours or did you not even know you were doing that?
I one hundred percent didn't know I was doing that. And I'll tell you why I know that.
I mean, I.
Remember being alone, I remember being the only female in the management ranks at Virgin my boss at the time when I was a middle manager, there was ten of us and I was the only female. And I remember going up against all the other men in the GM job, and I had a great executive HR at the time who was advocating for diversity, and I'm not sure if he wasn't around that I would have got that job, because he was pretty passionate about it and he really
supported me through that recruitment process. But talking about women, it was years later when I had somebody tell me I was a feminist and I said to him, I said, oh, I don't know if I'm a feminist, Like genuinely, I answered the question honestly. I said, I don't know if I do properly advocate for women or if I'm a feminist. And she said, well, do you believe in equal pay for women? And I said, well, yeah, obviously. And she
said do you believe in equal opportunities for women? And I said yes, of course, and then she said, well, congratulations, you're a feminist. So it wasn't until I kind of had that conversation with her that I really started digging into what it meant to really lift women up and advocate for women, and so I'm far better at it nowadays. Maybe it was informal.
Formal Yeah, okay, So I ask you where about that? So where your family decided to leave Canada and migrate to Australia. There must have been a guess, a huge decision for the family and quite a change. How did you cope with that? So? How old were you when you did move here? Well?
I came by myself, so, which is a funny story in itself, because I was sitting in Edmonton, Alberta. I was working at night shift in network operations seven pm to seven am. It was minus forty nine in the middle of winter, and a.
Job ad for Brisbane, Australia came across the fax machine. I'm like, across the fax machine, I just went, I've got to get out of here. I can't live in this weather anymore. So I just applied and everyone told me.
You know, I was twenty six, so everyone was like, You're never going to get an airport manager job at twenty six across the world. It was one of our key stations we were launching Australia, and I'm like, well,
you know what, I'm just going to try ironically. You know, of course women shouldn't always say it was luck that they got an opportunity, but I do think in that experience it was a little bit of luck and a little bit of talent because I was easily movable, and I was up against a lot of other really high caliber candidates, but they had families and their kids needed schools, and they needed visas, and there was all these complications.
So I think when I said, hey, I can be in Australia in four weeks and just stick me in a hotel and let's get started, I think that was quite attractive to the management. And so I moved and I packed up and left my family in Canada. I lived at the Seeble in Brisbane for about six months, and then I helped start the airline in Australia. So one of the scariest times of my life. I never went out for months. I didn't have any friends. I wasn't brave enough back then to go out to dinner
by myself or to a movie by myself. I certainly do that all the time now, but back then it was, you know, I just stayed in my hotel room and worked.
How did you get through that? Like, I mean, it's a big thing to jump at a plan and come hit me. You didn't even know what it was like working in Australia. Was it was it a different way of working? What was it going to be?
Like?
Where did you get that confidence from?
I don't know where it comes from deep within me, but I just have this drive to just never give up, and I have this kind of resilience and or grit. I think I've been working through trying to work out what it is. But I think I had kind of a pretty bumpy use and I just think it's taught me just to push hard. And of course I was terrified. I mean I got on the plane. It was the middle of winter there, it was the middle of summer here. I remember being so hot, and ironically it was only
April in prison, so it wasn't that bad. And I had this moment in the hotel where I went you know what. Because the airline hadn't set up yet, I was doing all the work remotely, so I was negotiating with quantas to do our ground handling remotely. I wasn't yet positioned at the airport because we didn't have aircraft here.
And it was about one or two weeks in that I had this moment where I went, you know what, I'm completely alone, and even if something happened to me, like you know what, my parents probably wouldn't work it out until they didn't get an email for me a week later. But I must say I had this beautiful concierge at the hotel who every day when I'd work, he'd come up and he'd be like, what are you going to do this weekend, Laurie, And I'm like, well,
I'm working. And he was the one that pushed me literally on my first bus down to the pineapple farm. He convinced me to go on some tours. I met a few people, like he was quite influential, Like you know, there was lots of times of loneliness, but he kind of pushed me around. And then you know, six months in, once I was starting at the airport, I met lots of great people and kind of the rest is history.
Twenty six is pretty young right to go into a leadership role, and then also added to that, you know, you ought to be one of the few female leaders there. Did you experience any doubt from other people like you're coming in, like, hang on, who is this lady? What's going on? Can she really do this? Oh? One percent?
Because at the time it was at Brisbane Airport, all of the station managers were at least fifty plus years old old men. I don't think I recall meeting any women for quite some time. So the station manager job in airports is pretty senior and pretty special, and people really aspire to have them because they're great. You get to move around the world, you get to experience different countries.
But that wasn't my background. I had just worked in one location my whole kind of career up until that point, and I considered myself quite junior. So yeah, lots of self doubt and lots of people, particularly you know, no offense to Quantus, but particularly Quantus management back then. You know, they were all very senior, and so when I was kind of coming into a room to negotiate them working for me, that was interesting.
How did you overcome that?
Well, we were a smaller airline, I mean, we only had one daily flight, so we weren't that important to Quantus back then. But I always overcome that by just being honest and kind and building relationships and connecting with people on a human level. I think that's the most important thing to do. Like it's not just about the work. It's like, who are you and how do I get to know you? Let's go for a coffee and you know, and these are relationships. I literally have the lovely Henry.
If he's listening, he was one of the station managers back then. He's well retired now, but we still keep in touch, Like we actually bump into each other. We talk about those days. He was kind of put his arms around me to say, hey, guys, you know, let her into this club and into this circle. But Emma, you will know that that was one of the biggest
mentors for me at that time. Too, was Brett Godfrey because he was launching Virgin and he was also a kind of underdog and smaller fish in the pond, you know, And he was always really nice and kind to me too, so just kept me pushing.
Brett was one of the first I interviewed on the series actually, and I mean, he is an amazing guy and it goes to show what he did and the opportunity to give people and just how down to earth he was about everything. It just allowed us all to sort of shine. I guess. So he was one of those early mentors for you yeah, one hundred percent.
And I don't even know if he remembers this, but you know, he was the one that said to me, you know, any time you want to come across at Virgin, there'll be an opportunity. And I sadly, and this has been brought up recently seeing what everyone at Bonza and going through is. You know, I was sadly one of those people that when our airline went into administration, I was in Brisbane and that's when I've never felt so alone, Like I had the administrators lock up the office, take
my company car. All of my personal belongings were locked up, like accessing getting my own things back and kind of being here stranded in Australia. And unfortunately it was at the same time as ANSET, so you know, they canceled my visa. I didn't know what I was going to do. I sat on my friend's couch for three months, kind
of going what happens now. Unfortunately I couldn't work in aviation because you know, there was a lot of people out of work, a lot of Australians out of work and rightly so the government at the time was prioritizing them. But Brett was the one that said, if you ever work it out, like, if you work out if you're staying, you know, let me know. And I think it was like a year and a half it took me to get my permanent residency, to go through all of that stuff.
And I called Virgin once I had permanent residency and said, hey, would you still consider me? And then that was the next ten years. Yeah, So that was amazing to end up there where I did after such kind of hardship that was pretty specise.
And does it help you realize now that that impact that someone could happen? You're like, you have that for people in Albany, import now when you give them a chance?
Oh one hundred percent. I mean, the thing I worry about all the time is my wake. So what is the wake that every single thing that I say leaves on somebody? Because there's nothing well, I feel like there's nothing worse. There's nothing worse than having an interaction with somebody that you think is so profound and then you meet them five years later or ten years later and you talk about it and they're like what are you talking about?
I have no idea what you're talking about.
And I find that fascinating that people can have such an impact on somebody's life with one conversation, and it can kind of guide your career or guide your decisions, and then they cannot remember it. So I always think about that every single thing that I say as a CEO is it's important to leave people intact, and I just think about the wake of the ripple of what I say and the impact that that might have on somebody down the track. I think about that a lot.
Yeah, I love that, and I mean there's something to be said for having done those roles at a more junior level and moved your way up. There seems to be a big consistency, right being in a role. You get it, You've been there, you've done it, you know what it feels.
Like, correct. I think that's what has been game changing for my career. And I had somebody say to me recently and I hadn't really thought about it, is I will talk to my electricians on the airfield exactly the same way that I will talk to my board of directors in the boardroom. I just try to look at well, what's important to the person I'm talking to, and how do I tailor my conversations that it's interesting to them
and that it means something to them. So I think just having those experiences, you know, I still go out in the operation. I still go jump in the safety cars, drive around the airfield, I still walk through the terminals. I still help travelers, like you have to just stay connected to your operation most importantly. But I think working from the ground up, there's a lot to be said
for that. I mean, you read a lot of success stories of CEOs that started in the mail room or you know, worked their way through, and I think that means something to people because you just didn't get handed everything.
Absolutely. I think ego, I mean, you have to have some of it right in order to get anywhere, especially at your level. But how do you temper that? Sometimes? Does it sometimes overwhelm you? Like, whoa, look, how far I've gotten, the influence I've got I'm sitting at the top of the food chain here in the space. I'm meant, do you ever have to kind of bring yourself back down and you know or not? Really? Oh?
Look, so my kids bring me back down every day. They don't they don't think I'm special. It was funny. Actually, my daughter did an economics test recently and she didn't get a very good mark. And I get the automatic updates from the school when you get marks, and I text her said, hey, that wasn't a great mark. And she copied and pasted an article out of the Herald Sun that related to the airport and she said, well,
you're not doing a great job on this side. And I was like, oh god, so but now, like I guess, you do have to have ego. And I often think about for me, it's really important to stay ground. Yeah, And I always think about, you know, the two most important things to me are humanity and humility and caring about the people I interact with, the people that work for me. And I just think you need to be really careful that ego doesn't run away for you, because
it's even being an internal promotion. People will hold back their true feelings when they're talking to a CEO. So you've got to create an environment where people are comfortable enough to tell you the truth, where you've got people that will tell you you're wrong. I have people tell
me I'm wrong all the time. But I think you know, there's lots of case studies in the world where if you have a team that works for you that just tells you everything that you want to hear and isn't going to tell you when there's bad news, those cases can end up pretty dangerous.
How do you create an environment where people go, you know what, it's safe to tell Laurie the truth, even though she's not going to like it.
I realized really early on when I got promoted and the kind of walls went up with everyone. I thought it was going to be different as an internal promotion because I knew everybody. I'd been there for seven years.
People knew me deeply, I knew them deeply. My first kind of one or two interactions with people that I knew really well, more junior people in the organization, I could see that that nervousness about continuing a conversation with me in the new capacity, and that's when I really went, Okay, Wow, this is bigger than I thought it was. So I just work really hard to make sure people are comfortable, to make sure that whoever I'm speaking to, it's not
about hierarchy, it's not about me having an opinion. I read something recently in the boss around. You know, there's this CEO that says, it's just an idea. It's like, let's workshop an idea, it's not a direction, and I kind of take bits and pieces of that too. Example I can give is the dirty windows. So I did a live. I did one of your lives. So I put workplace into the company. I do a workplace live
every second Friday. I talk to all the team. They can ask questions, and you know, I get feedback that people love that. I just tell them what's been happening for the last couple of weeks. But I did one in the boardroom one day. Somebody said, oh, the windows are really dirty behind you, and I looked and I was like, oh, yeah, they are really dirty. And I came in the next day and the windows were spotless.
And that's when I remembered thinking, I can't even say the windows are dirty because somebody's gone out of their way and probably out of their maintenance schedule to clean
those windows because I said they were dirty. So every time I kind of think about what I'm saying, I think dirty windows don't say something that somebody's going to run off because I think CEOs can really create a lot of work too for people by just launching bright ideas and or saying they want something done and really not understanding the impact of what it takes on individuals to get that.
Suff I hear that all the time from companies I work with, is just the fact that yeah, they're really vibrant, you know, chatty ceo, but they're just they're often just throwing at ideas and then they walk at that meeting and we're all left to go reschedule our plans and work out suits. I think that's a great insight. I haven't heard another CEO say of the fourign here, so
thank you for that, Laurie. I remember when you fell pregnant with your signup virgin okay, And I bring this up because I remember thinking at the time because, as you said, you were one of the few gms who were a female actually, and in all honesty, I can't actually remember another female GM taking Matt leaf, right, And I remember at the time just thinking to theirself, oh, like,
how do you do that? Like, I mean, now it doesn't seem like a big deal at all, right, Like you can take Matt leave, you still get a promotion when you're a matt leave like you know. But at the time, I remember it just being vivid in my head, going, oh, like, how's that going to affect your career? What's going to happen? What was that process like for you? And did you feel pressure to sort of come back early or even own the fact that you'd fallen pregnant and this is going to happen or.
This is dangerous territory? Okay, because it didn't work out right, if I'm honest, I ended up leaving virgin when my son was three weeks old. But I'll tell you about pressure because I was a GM and because there was no example, and I was surprised to have fallen pregnant because I was forty and so you know, of course, my husband and I were hopeful, but we were realistic that mathematically the likelihood of falling pregnant at that age is less likely, not so much anymore, it seems, though.
So I was terrified when I got pregnant because number one, I didn't think i'd actually get pregnant, and then number two, there was no example in the organization on how to deal with it at all, and the concept of having somebody so senior step out for Matt Leeve was just foreign to everyone, and so it took me. If my old boss ever listens to this, he'll laugh because it took me five months to tell my boss I was pregnant. That's how scared I was.
Wow.
And every day I'd go in and my husband was like, Okay, you have to tell him, and I said, yeah, I know. And so every day I'd come home and he'd go, did you tell him? And I said, no, my chi can know. So when I did finally tell him, he laughed and said, yeah, no kidding, because you could see that I was pregnant by that point, right, I mean, Win and Freddie could probably see that I was pregnant by at that point. We had a great supportive HR
person at the time as well. But I think, you know, the reality was that it got tricky and it didn't really work, and there was a lot of pressure, and there was a lot of pressure in the early weeks of my son's arrival, and that's ultimately what made my decision to leave. The thing I reflected on the most, really, if I'm honest, is when I had that first few
weeks with him. I also had the luxury of seeing my daughter at school, like there was quite a gap between them, so she was in prep or grade one maybe, you know, I realized that I never got to go to her school. I didn't know her teachers, I missed her start completely. So when that happened, I just thought, you know what, I'm not going to miss his start and I quit. And he was three weeks old when I quit. And that was my eleven year work anniversary
as well, So that was intense. And yeah, I had a bit of a mid well, it can't be a midlife crisis at forty but forty one, but it was a bit of a mid career crisis for sure because it was a long time. It was a long period of time there. And that is something that I worked quite hard on at APAC, is policy around flexible parenting. Like I meet so many dads that would love to stay home, but the reality is people take the highest paid person to stay at work and the lowest paid
person stays at home. So for me, pay equity for women is number one. Fix that, and then the female might stay at work and the man can stay home. And then I mean go more broadly, it doesn't have to be a female and a man. It could be a single person. It could be IVF, it could be adoption, it could be grandparents, it could be fluid parenting. It doesn't really matter to me. It's how do we make sure that the person that wants to stay home gets to stay home.
Yeah, thank you for showing that it was a defining moment in your life. I'm sure in terms of even the balance of being a parent and working and having a successful career. But it was defining for a lot of us to work there because we all even though we didn't know that and the details of it, it was really something I always remember and it made me when I bentually got pregnant, going, how does this work?
Because we knew that you left, and no one kind of necessarily knew what the ins and outs were, but it seemed, you know, the timing wise was she had a baby and then she's not here anymore.
So it did.
It made a lot of us sit up and go whereas I think today there's a across the board, a bit of a better approach towards these things. But yeah, it goes to show.
And that's a really good point to you, Emma, because why don't we communicate things. Why don't we explain when people leave businesses, Like, of course there's going to be reasons why you can't explain, for their sake or for ours, why somebody is departing the business. But I think there's a way to let people know that somebody has departed
the business. I mean when I started at Melbourne Airport, I started around the airport and there were checking agents that were coming up and hugging me and welcoming me back from Matt leave. And I'm like, no, why don't work for the company.
Yeah. I remember sitting with you in Melbourne, probably at the beginning of twenty twenty two, I think is the craziness of COVID was lifting, and I distinctly remember you cruising up on this e scooda super confident and this like highlighter tracksuit or something, and we're meeting to have a cocktail because like no one had like socialized in a while, and I had only just started my business.
And you told me at this point that you were actually putting your hat in the ring for the role of CEO, a role which I then found out was traditionally only held by men. But you know, your accolades, your experience, your strengths speak for themselves. But did you ever feel like that opportunity you might not get it because one you're FEMA, two you're a young C suite as well in the scheme of things. Did that sort of ever cross your mind or not? Really?
Oh no, of course. I mean when I put my hand up, it was a big process, and so it should be. It's a big company, and we were all kind of treated equally and there was a pretty robust, lengthy process. But the person that believed in me the most in that process was my daughter, because she was like, of course you can do this. You've been running the airport for years already, like in my operational roles. But
it was fascinating how many people, including myself. I mean, of course I'm going to have self doubt, but everyone around me had it too. I had a really fascinating experience, whether it was old peers or friends even go oh look, you know, put your hand up and give it a go, but don't be too disappointed. And these were some of my biggest supporters, So I was like, oh, wow, this is really we just kind of made me think about, well, this is a really big deal, and I have to
try really hard and work really hard. But I did some deep soul searching through that process. So I got to a really great place at the end of it, where you know, I presented everything I stood for, everything I wanted to do with the organization, and at the end of the day, if our board didn't want that, I was completely at peace with that because it was aligned to what was important to me and my values, my belief So yeah, I mean, good god.
It was hard, but rewarding the right woman for the job. What sort of surprised you the most in terms of things you are like, what did you thinking in your head that's where it's going to be like and it's not. And what's made you go, Wow, that's so much better than I ever thought it could be.
I mean so many things, Like in one respect, you get to the top and you think, oh my gosh, I can actually override you know, if we agree to disagree as an executive team, or if there's a problem, I could actually just say no, we're doing this. If I really want to. Now I don't. My style is
I never want to do that. But realizing that you kind of have the ability to make any decision is pretty empowering and overwhelming, but equally back to your question on ego earlier, I think that is where some missteps can happen, because if you start just making all the
tea when you're disempowering your team. So really, I just spent the first year navigating You're in this kind of aura honeymoon period, I feel like, where you're just so excited or I was so excited to have gotten the opportunity, the guns blazing for everything that I wanted to and then kind of year two sets in where you go, gosh, this is complex, this is hard, this is constant, this
is twenty four to seven, seven days a week. I've spent my career as junior in a lot of junior roles, looking up to people and thinking, well, gee, they get paid a lot, but what do they really Until you get to the point where you are solely responsible for everyone's psychological safety, physical safety, operational safety, the burden that CEO is carrying I think around their obligations, it's a pretty big deal, and you have to have some really
good support people around you to navigate that. I think I maybe underestimated my responsibilities of what I carried once I got here, and then, like I said before, around people that knew me, I genuinely underestimated that. I thought people would just trust that I was still the same person. But that friction of getting treated differently kind of instantly was overwhelming. And I think we've navigated through it pretty well.
And I would hope that any of my team listening to this would one feel that they know they could walk through my office door any day of the week, they could come up and have a conversation about anything. I'm pretty candid about my home life and my work life and things we all navigate, but don't ever underestimate
the title of the role. I think that's what Brett taught me in the early days, is that yes, you can lead a company and be a CEO, but you're not the most important person in their room, and you should be the person that speaks last, which is hard for me.
You know, you touched on a really couple of minutes in points there, but one was around this immense responsibility, right. And the truth is, for a lot of people in more junior ors, they look at where you're at and they do put you in this superhuman category, right because it's every day. It's relentless, like you can't be like I can't be bothered today. Quite frankly, you can do
that depending on where you're at in the company. Right, you might go to Tom having a two day break from it, not going to deal with this anymore, and it doesn't really happen in your space.
And it was interesting.
I was talking to Paul Scara and he said to me that one of the hardest things about being THEO is you are so available now, right, Like people's access points to you are constant, Like it's you know, you were kind of ring fenced in the older days where
you had to go through this. I mean, you have an amazing EA, but you know sometimes you have his eas It just won't let anyone touch you, right, That's how it used to be, And these days it's like you're trying to be You're on workplace, right, which makes you highly accessible via social media. You know, you've got an open door policy. Like this kind of accessibility can be exhausting mentally.
It is exhausting, and I laugh. I mean, my EA is amazing, but she's like my camp counselor too. She's the only person or my kids or my husband that I can say I've had a bad day, like really genuine, you know, I always talk about that I love Mondays, I just love my job, I love the airport. I never have an issue getting in a bed and getting straight out.
That amazing.
But that's not the same for everyone. Problems don't get to my desk until they're really home, because if they weren't really hard, then they would have been solved by the four hundred and fifty talented people working for me. It's those multifaceted, really complex situations that by the time they get to my desk you kind of sit back with a handful of people and go, wow, like this is hard, Like how are we going to solve this?
And so I think you just spend all of this time in this process where your top priorities are all pretty complicated, yeah, and long lasting. And I think that that's the double edged sword is when you are approachable, people approach to and I can understand why people get to where they are around kind of closing that office door sometimes because you need some headspace, you need some space to think things through. So it's hard to manage. But I also would never want to turn down a
conversation with somebody either. So you just got to be disciplined where you can be.
How do you manage that constant So, yeah, there's a constant strains. I mean, you're passionate about aviation and I know being in aviation too. It's one of those things that's in your blood. But you will still get to burn out at some point, So what's your strategy managing that? Yeah?
And I do worry about that too, because when you read everything about burnout, people kind of say it just creeps out overnight, right, it creeps up. My rituals are things like, you know, I don't want airlines to put Wi Fi on planes, please, because that's when I do my deep work on planes. I don't want to be contactable. So every time I get on a plane and see a Wi Fi signal, I sigh because I feel this obligation to be contactable.
Doesn't Literally I can't remember the last time.
I have some kind of sacred rituals around my travel. I do a lot of deep work during my travels. I have a sacred ritual around well, Saturdays, I mean Saturdays are for kids sport, but and I do lots of driving around. But I really use my time effectively. So if I'm sitting at diving with my son, or if I'm sitting at volleyball with my daughter, that's when I'm doing my kind of deep work and deep thinking. Of course, I'm looking at them and smiling and taking photos of them.
Too, But I do love the honesty because we're all the same. Mom. Did you see that? Yeah?
Did I see that dive? Yes?
Yes?
And then you're thinking, oh god, I missed it. All the time, I call myself a bit of a hibernation bear because I don't get a lot of sleep through the week. But then I have this kind of ritual and my whole family knows about it, which is like early to bed on a Friday night and I'll sleep in on a Saturday. I have this ability to do one big sleep in a week, which I love and
look forward to, and it's really sweet. My son won't play the drums during that time, and you know, like everyone pitches in sleep in, And then every now and then, if it all gets too much, I just go to my fabulous EA and say it's time for a spa afternoon at Crown or Body Freedom and just you know, block out an afternoon and go do something that's just for me.
Yeah, okay, amazing, I love it.
Do I have the balance? Probably not? I don't know. I always say to my team, anyone that's got younger children, like you've done a full day before you show up to the office, the more like the routines and the school and the obligations, and you know, that's a full time job in itself.
So I appreciate that.
No one gets it right, and I won't get it right either.
I think you can hear still the energy and passion in your voice, which always indicates to me that you're doing a good job. I think that leads into this idea that I know people who work for Apac Whipt, you know, know that it's a great place to work and they love working there. So how have you cultivated that culture? Like, is there things that you'll learned from virgin days or do you have a particular thing that
you're like me? I know, living with purpose and values is a big one for you guys, Yeah.
So really big. So the work we did in my early start, which we cultivated with everyone. This wasn't just me sitting in a room thinking out values. We did it from the bottom up to work out, well, what's important to everybody and how can everyone have a connection
to what we're doing. And I think that that's really important because the account's payable team is not going to have the same experience that the terminal coordinators out in the field have, and so you have to kind of just find simple ways to connect people's work to purpose so that they know what we stand for. So I think the work that we did around our purpose and our vision it's more than just a document, and it's not something that we're just going to plaster on a
wall and a lunch round. Like I think we all talk about it genuinely are stepping forward program. So the program that we've all been through ourselves and all of our contractors around what are our golden rules around how we support the travelers in our terminal, Like everyone is all in on that. And I love it because literally, if I can see a plumber in the terminal with a lanyard on, he or she has been through our
program and helping customers. I get letters now all the time about somebody that's navigated this incredibly complex environment that people have to get through, Like it's not easy to get through an airport, So I think, you know, those kind of programs. I think deciding what you really stand for is important, but I equally recognize that's hard to do. So if I think about you know, we've created our Women in Apac Advocacy group, We've created our Pride Advocacy Group.
But that's tricky too, because there's a lot of complex issues happening in the world, whether they be religious or political, and it's a fine line about when you take a stand and when you don't. And we saw that play out with the Voice, and it's tricky.
You know.
I have people in my business that are directly affected by things that are happening globally in the world and in their home countries, and so corporately finding the balance of when you should have an opinion and when you shouldn't is I think one of the hardest things we
have to do. But I anchor back to inclusivity. So no matter what your origin, sexual orientation, religious beliefs, political beliefs, I want you to walk through the threshold of our door and know that you belong and that you have a voice.
Yeah. Love that. I also read that I think you nominated to do some work at a leadership summit that was around giving compassionate feedback. I'm fascinated to know, like what your thoughts are and why giving feedback is sort of something we still avoid. Is it something that you really focus on and who do you ask the feedback from.
I'm obsessed with this. We don't give difficult feedback because, like we're human, we don't want to hurt somebody's feelings. And arguably giving difficult feedback when you don't give it, it's more about your protecting yourself, not the other undercent So put yourself aside, what's in the best interests of this other human And I've seen so many people in my career that were absolute superstars that have you know, had a tumbling exit. And I've seen people that have
been absolutely pigeonholed as difficult become superstars. And it all comes down to feedback from okay, because if somebody doesn't have self awareness, you have to help them, like you have to make them aware, you have to support them. So I really am all about feedback all of the time. And it doesn't have to be hard, like it can be quick, it can be in the moment, it can't be weeks later. It can't be twice a year in a performance review. I mean, oh my god, it's a skill.
We did a session recently with about sixty of our leaders with this lady. Oh, she was fantastic, and she does this course, which I highly recommend if anyone needs guidance around feedback that doesn't suck. If you google that, she'll come up. But giving feedback in a way that you're keeping somebody intact, you're not stripping them down, you're not doing it to hurt them. But that's where I
come back to Compassionate leadership has to come from. You're giving somebody difficult feedback because you want them to be better and you want them to do better and to be more successful. And I just think still we're all just too polite on so many occasions. So my team and I work quite hard on that with each other. If there's tension in a room on a conversation, we won't leave the room until it's aired out. And I
think that that's healthy. And the more that people see that, particularly across the ranks, the more people get confident to speak up, and the more somebody takes the feedback not as a criticism but as a constructivepportunity to learn the intent.
But it's important, though, isn't it right? Like you said, you have an intent to want them to be better? Whereas I don't know if everyone gets into that headspace before they deliver feedback, is that really their intention or is it to prove a point or is it to be right correct?
This is probably one of the biggest learnings for me over my career as well, is people, I mean people want to be right. Of course, you want to be right, and particularly technical people like knowledge workers or people that have a technical skill if that's being kind of disrespected or challenged. And again it comes back to creating those environments.
But you know, it's like slowing down past a car crash, right, Are you slowing down because you want to get out and help somebody that's just been in a motor vehicle accident? Or are you slowing down because you have this seen curiosity about wanting to know what happened. If you're giving feedback that you think you're giving because you want to say I told you so, or you want to say you did the wrong thing, then you should just be quiet really because and I'm not perfect, I'm laughing now
because one of my team will be going right. So you know, you said I told you so this week, and there was something that I went, oh geez. I got some really great advice from a great CEO when I started, which is my job is to only intervene if something's going to go really wrong. Otherwise empower people, let them go, let them make mistakes. If it's going to be kind of you know, a serious impact to the business, then of course you have to intervene and
share your opinion and maybe give different direction. But if you're giving regular feedback all the time, if you're having those robust conversations and you're doing it in a way that's compassionate and kind, then it becomes the norm. But I think that too often feedback is maybe a leader's opinion and not a constructive learning, or it's personally driven.
If what you're about to deliver isn't going to serve that person, then I think you need to take that moment to pause as a leader and go, how is this going to make this person better? And if it's really just going to make them go home and feel worse, then you haven't done your job.
Yeah, when you talk about compassion. That for me is the ear of brave, which is empathy, right, And you know you've got to have that part where you're able to hold that space or person for an individual like yourself who is just self confess go get her and get it done. How hard do you find sitting in that space of holding space to something like do you want to fix it? Or you fix that? Is that something you could say? Of course? Is it a space
for you that you want to grow in? For you to think of which area of leadership for you is like, that's the one I struggle the most with. Which one would that be? For me?
For sure? It's self mastery, It's when to stop talking, when to leave the problems to my team. I'm just by nature a person that wants to help people, and I do it at home all the time. And my kids tell me that they're like, you can't fix this problem for me. I just need you to mand me and I'm like, yeah, got it.
Yeah.
Particularly having a background of operational pedigree, like you kind of trained to fix the true and so you have to untrain yourself to not fix everything for everyone, or set an environment up where they come to you because they expect you to fix a problem. So the self mastery around that, the self mastery around not taking direct action is one that I work on every day.
Not the worst problem to have, now, Laurie, I could literally talk to you for another hour and stuff that I know I'm not allowed to and we can't, so I'm gonna have to. I've hactually look down my list and go, what's two questions I can wrap up his? So it's just too oftenish on me. One is what sacrifices, if any, do you if you've had to make in order to have such a successful career.
I've made so many sacrifices, Like when I think about my career, because I was very ambitious quite young, and that can be good and that can be bad. You know, I was always job first, location second, So you know, the sacrifices around living overseas when my dad is still in Canada, the sacrifices around I live now in Victoria, which is we love this city and I'm passionate about the city and the airport that's in it, but we have no family network here, like the rest of my
family is somewhere else. So I've got a husband that's moved away from his Like, we've all made deep sacrifices, I think. So I think lots of different family sacrifices and family sacrifices around recognizing that I can't be at everything and I can't be everything i'd want to be for my children and getting okay with that very hard to do with mother's guilt. But yeah, I would say those you know, friends, family, There's been lots of sacrifices along the way, I think, and that's just working out
that trade off. And like I said, that was kind of one of the turning points for me with my son, is making the call to say, I'm not going to sacrifice this time right now, but you'll never get it perfect.
I think that's why it's so important to make sure that you're doing something you're passionate about. You have to look at kids in the face and then to see that look what mum's been able to do and give, and look how happy it makes her.
Right.
I think that's a big part of that. So I get that, all right. Last question for you, Laurie, I guess aviation is off the table. You're not allowed to do aviation. You weren't allowed to do it. That's sorry, it's gone. What other job then would you be doing if you couldn't do that?
This is going to sound really leg as an answer, Okay, but I had somebody tell me once it wouldn't have to be aviation. It could be widgets and you could get passionate about it. In my mind, I am very focused on team culture, developing people, lifting people up, creating a legacy that matters, creating something that my kids can go, Wow, that's pretty awesome. I'm pretty proud of that. Like it's funny as I sit here and talk about family sacrifices.
The irony is I'm fifty two years old and still just want my parents and my kids to be proud of me, right Like, at the end of the day, that's what we all want. I mean, people may laugh when they hear this. I don't think it has to be aviation. I think it has to be a company. It has to be something that has purpose and meaning, and that could be anything connected to customers. But it's
about the team and the opportunity to deliver. And that is why I get so passionate about Melbourne and Lonsstin Airport. Also we own and operate. They are both two airports that are going through massive transformation, big growth. You know, we're delivering the biggest airport to the biggest city by twenty three. And if I can leave that legacy job done and that I hope is something that everyone at the airport and in the city can be proud of.
I want to walk away knowing that. You know, Victorians love this airport. But there's lots of different outsets and lots of different companies. I'm sure that could be passionate about that as well, But it does come back to me, I think to say, what's the opportunity, what do they stand for? What do they believe in? Would I want to be a part of that?
That's where I start, you know, even though in my head I was thinking, I wonder if she'll say professional skateboarder or you know, something out there. I actually loved that because it leaks nicely to something I picked up
when I was looking through your resume. There was one time you left and you went and did I think you went for urban utilities for two years, right, so you got out of aviation to years and I think the one thing I read when you were talking about that was that what you recognized during that time was that what people need is good leadership, right that it
needs to transcend industry. And I think that's what your aunts is beautifully saying, right that, Yeah, I know you love aviation, but you just want to be a really really good leader and have an impact on no matter where that is. I love watching a journey, Laurie, and thank you so much for coming on here. It's been a pleasure. It's been great to see you again.
Thank you and about you too.