Speaker 1: You know. I remember sitting in these clients being like,
Speaker 1: I have no idea what I'm talking about. And when
Speaker 1: you're applying for some big job that you're not sure
Speaker 1: if you're qualified for, you're like, well, you know, I've
Speaker 1: kind of been doing work for the last five years
Speaker 1: that I haven't really been qualified for and convincing people
Speaker 1: the direction of everything is like putting these pressure on
Speaker 1: younger people to kind of decide earlier and specialize earlier.
Speaker 1: And even while we're at Union twenty, like, we're just
Speaker 1: trying to keep these options open for ourselves, aren't we.
Speaker 1: Because you're kind of aware that you have no idea.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the seas the Yay Podcast. Busy and happy
Speaker 2: are not the same thing. We too rarely question what
Speaker 2: makes the heart seeing We work, then we rest, but
Speaker 2: rarely we play and often don't realize there's more than
Speaker 2: one way. So this is a platform to hear and
Speaker 2: explore the stories of those who found lives. They adore
Speaker 2: the good, bad and ugly. The best and worst day
Speaker 2: will bear all the facets of seizing your yay. I'm
Speaker 2: Sarah Davidson or a spoonful of Sarah, a lawyer turned
Speaker 2: funentrepreneurshos wapped the suits and heels to Cope, matcha Maiden
Speaker 2: and matcha Milk Bar. CZA is a series of conversations
Speaker 2: on finding a life you love and exploring the self doubt, challenge,
Speaker 2: joy and fulfillment along the way. Hello, lovely yighborhood.
Speaker 1: We are back to our regular.
Speaker 2: Programming after the Soul Diaries last week with a Ripper
Speaker 2: guest kickstart November. How are we in November already? Oh
Speaker 2: my god, I am so thrilled to have Verve Money
Speaker 2: CEO and co founder Christina Hobbs in your ears this week.
Speaker 2: Whose path ya blew me away? Christina is not your
Speaker 2: average financial CEO, although she did happen to found Australia's
Speaker 2: first ethical superfund by women for women. By investing in Verve,
Speaker 2: members have ensured over two hundred and seventy million dollars
Speaker 2: in superannuation. Is not directly invested in fossil fuels or
Speaker 2: other harmful industries, which is already a cool enough story
Speaker 2: of an industry disruptor. But to hear that she came
Speaker 2: up with the idea in a shipping container in Baghdad,
Speaker 2: Iraq during her work with the United Nations World Food Program,
Speaker 2: where she eventually became head of operations. I mean, tell
Speaker 2: me more, all right, what an amazing story. And that's
Speaker 2: just ten percent or maybe even less, of the amazing
Speaker 2: story that she has to tell. So I will do
Speaker 2: just that.
Speaker 1: I will let her.
Speaker 2: Tell you the wild and wonderful story herself. But she
Speaker 2: is just such a fascinating woman doing incredible things in
Speaker 2: a pathier that continues to take amazing twists and turns.
Speaker 2: I just hope she inspires you as much as she
Speaker 2: does me. Chrissy, Welcome to CZA.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for having me on.
Speaker 2: Oh thank you so much for coming on. As anyone
Speaker 2: who has listened to the show for a while will know,
Speaker 2: I think they sort of by now understand parts of
Speaker 2: my brain and the kind of people I fan girl,
Speaker 2: and so your story in so many ways and for
Speaker 2: so many different reasons. Just I'm already found gelling you
Speaker 2: and all the things you've done, so I'm very excited
Speaker 2: to have you on the show.
Speaker 1: Oh that's so lovely.
Speaker 2: I mean, you have an incredible story and I can't
Speaker 2: wait to get into it. But I think one of
Speaker 2: the things that often happens is, particularly with someone like yourself,
Speaker 2: who's a CEO, a really high level, high achiever. It's
Speaker 2: easy to forget that you started somewhere, and I'm sure
Speaker 2: there are parts of your life that are very relatable
Speaker 2: and normal.
Speaker 1: It's funny to like, yeah, I guess here as well
Speaker 1: when people are sort of like a CEO like you,
Speaker 1: and then it's sort of like I'm sitting here, like
Speaker 1: you know, in my bedroom, I'm like, you know, eiding
Speaker 1: a bit months pregnant, are you? Yeah, I mean like
Speaker 1: a sweat jumper, and like it's like, oh, yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1: I am a CEO. Like I just feel that.
Speaker 2: Is oh my gosh, I'll.
Speaker 1: Show you my bum. You won't be able to see
Speaker 1: it on the on the show obviously, but you know
Speaker 1: there it.
Speaker 2: Is, Oh my gosh, Chrissy, you do not look pregnant
Speaker 2: at all when you're sitting down.
Speaker 1: I know. The funny thing is that I'm actually in
Speaker 1: the process of negotiating this really big business deal. I'm
Speaker 1: sort of constantly with all these lawyers and like em
Speaker 1: a lawyers, and you know the other day that was
Speaker 1: in this meeting, there was a lot of swinging going
Speaker 1: on and I was just like, guys, I'm giving birth
Speaker 1: in three weeks. This has to sort of stood up
Speaker 1: and show my belly and mother than you. I was
Speaker 1: pregnant and they were just like, what the hell.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, it's funny said that because I used
Speaker 2: to be an m and a lawyer in my first life,
Speaker 2: and I know the dick swinging. I know exactly what
Speaker 2: you mean.
Speaker 1: I'd never seen before, so I was shocked, but I
Speaker 1: was like, I know how to solve this one, my
Speaker 1: massive belly. Oh my god.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, I love starting every episode with that kind
Speaker 2: of eyesbreaker question because there's always something going on that
Speaker 2: is not what you would expect for the title. You know,
Speaker 2: we often sort of get introduced to people by their
Speaker 2: titles first and have all these preconceptions about how glamorous
Speaker 2: your life must be, and also forget that you know,
Speaker 2: you're also a mum doing all this, like that's wild.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, yeah, Well that was a very relatable beginning,
Speaker 2: so thank you.
Speaker 1: So pretty much.
Speaker 2: The first part of the show is called Your Way Ta,
Speaker 2: which is tracing back through really from the very beginning,
Speaker 2: back to childhood when you sort of had no idea
Speaker 2: where you'd end up, and tracing through all the chapters
Speaker 2: really that make the pathway that leads you to the
Speaker 2: life you have today. And I think if people meet
Speaker 2: you now, it's very easy to assume, you know, you
Speaker 2: know what you're doing, you're incredibly successful, you kind of
Speaker 2: can you know, hold your own in a boardroom and
Speaker 2: negotiate big deals, and it's I think easy to forget
Speaker 2: that there were a lot of times I'm sure of
Speaker 2: self doubt or loss of direction or totally different careers
Speaker 2: in your case, which is my favorite kind of story.
Speaker 2: So can we go back to the beginning and trace
Speaker 2: through all the chapters of Chrissy, like right back to
Speaker 2: maybe even before school, Like what were you like, what
Speaker 2: were your first dreams and hopes and what did you
Speaker 2: think you'd be.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a really good question. I was definitely. I
Speaker 1: have these really early memories of you know, training for
Speaker 1: athletics carnivals in primary school and going on runs, and
Speaker 1: I just remember like as I'd be running, I'd be
Speaker 1: like giving these speeches in my head, which, like now
Speaker 1: they look back, is like a really weird thing to
Speaker 1: have done, but like pretend I was somebody in and
Speaker 1: to like be making up speeches as I was like
Speaker 1: practicing for my school cross country and things. So I
Speaker 1: think I sort of like, I don't know, I guess
Speaker 1: I must have always had an ambition to at least
Speaker 1: be someone was going to be making speeches. I love that, Yeah,
Speaker 1: But I don't think I thought much about work. You know,
Speaker 1: I grew up in Canberra, and I was a very
Speaker 1: like outdoorsy camping kind of hiking you know, just living
Speaker 1: or you know, in the outdoors sort of kid, which
Speaker 1: was really my priority a lot of sport. But I guess, like,
Speaker 1: you know, if I think back, my sort of like
Speaker 1: weird career journeys did start quite young. I was, you know,
Speaker 1: an eleven year old doing a paper on which you know,
Speaker 1: looking back, was sort of slight child labor type.
Speaker 2: ESK, definitely earlier than the fourteen and nine months that
Speaker 2: I think.
Speaker 1: It was like my my friend's older brother got a
Speaker 1: paper on an he like subcontracted it to us, which
Speaker 1: meant that like the hourly rate went form about three
Speaker 1: dollars an hour for delivering pamphlets to about a dollar
Speaker 1: fifty or something. But you know, we thought it was wonderful.
Speaker 1: So you know, I was sort of doing that and
Speaker 1: then it was like working as a swim instructor, working
Speaker 1: at a sort of like a kid's indoor place, and
Speaker 1: to do kids' birthday parties. So I sort of had
Speaker 1: always these like really random jobs that you know, just
Speaker 1: kind of kept progressing. I ended up during UNI being
Speaker 1: at Parliament House and I was working as a gym
Speaker 1: trainer there for some of the politicians. Like so I
Speaker 1: sort of very like eclectic kind of early career. And
Speaker 1: I guess I really, you know, just loved all those
Speaker 1: sort of random experiences that I had.
Speaker 2: I love that so much because I feel like I
Speaker 2: also kind of had a lot of random things and
Speaker 2: none of the dots connected really at the time. And
Speaker 2: I love that when you're a kid that don't really
Speaker 2: need to you just kind of do the things that
Speaker 2: you think are interesting and that you enjoy, or that
Speaker 2: just come up because like a friend of a friend
Speaker 2: has a paper run and I just I love that
Speaker 2: kind of Later you can start to trace through, like
Speaker 2: the themes of the reasons why you were good at
Speaker 2: those things are the reasons why you like them. But
Speaker 2: it's it's so cool because there are so few people
Speaker 2: who go at five, I want to be a doctor,
Speaker 2: and then they become a doctor and now it's sort
Speaker 2: of like you've founded your own superannuation fund, but like
Speaker 2: super wasn't even on your mind, and that that whole
Speaker 2: finance world was just not even playing a part back then.
Speaker 2: And I think that's so cool to remind people.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think, I think definitely, And like how you
Speaker 1: even kind of get there is like quite interesting thing
Speaker 1: as well, And obviously we'll talk about it more, but
Speaker 1: you know, how do you even get from that step
Speaker 1: from step from step? And then you know, even if
Speaker 1: I think the two years before, probably even eighteen months before,
Speaker 1: a year before I did start that find if someone
Speaker 1: had told me that's what I was going to do,
Speaker 1: I would have been like what would It's kind of
Speaker 1: like really weird even to me, So which.
Speaker 2: Is also why the story is so cool, because I
Speaker 2: love that it doesn't have to be something that, as
Speaker 2: again you know, has been twenty five years in the making.
Speaker 2: You can actually do wild amazing things that you know,
Speaker 2: some people prepare their whole lives for, but a lot
Speaker 2: of people don't, and they still make a really amazing.
Speaker 1: Success of it. So I think it's cool.
Speaker 2: Like even looking at UNI, for you, I'm like science,
Speaker 2: you did science, like science and commerce of course, but
Speaker 2: like science commerce, it's like what is that equal? You know,
Speaker 2: what did you think that was going to be? How
Speaker 2: did you choose that? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I mean that one was an interesting one and it
Speaker 1: probably seems almost less random now, like I remember at
Speaker 1: the time, like people were like, this is just super weird.
Speaker 1: It was basically because I wanted to study psychology, so
Speaker 1: I did psychology under a science degree, and I sort
Speaker 1: of had the opportunity to do obviously in your first
Speaker 1: year like different subjects, and I cannot remember why. I
Speaker 1: think it was something like my mum sort of you know,
Speaker 1: her mentality is very much like what is going to
Speaker 1: get your job after university? And I think she was like,
Speaker 1: you need to study like accounting, like I don't remember,
Speaker 1: which is like so weird because like, you know, me
Speaker 1: and my one of my best friends now I met
Speaker 1: in this accounting degree and we just laugh like we're
Speaker 1: just like what the hell were we doing studying accounting?
Speaker 1: Like this is so weird. But I ended up doing this,
Speaker 1: like you know, one accounting unit and it was quite
Speaker 1: in my first year of UNI. And then that was
Speaker 1: just quite interesting because I think the science side was
Speaker 1: very like it was very theoretical. It was very like
Speaker 1: not applied in it was like big picture thinking kind
Speaker 1: of a study, whereas like the accounting and going into
Speaker 1: economics and finance and was very much you know, it's
Speaker 1: extremely practical and applied in a way. What I was
Speaker 1: studying it was like these numbers on this balanchine and
Speaker 1: this is how you do this, and this is how
Speaker 1: you do this. And I really loved that kind of
Speaker 1: having both elements of that and A and ul studyings
Speaker 1: have had a great opportunity to just do a two
Speaker 1: degrees in four years. So for me, I really quickly
Speaker 1: decided like I wanted to do the two degrees. And
Speaker 1: I think probably what appealed to me was is that
Speaker 1: I could really quickly see how that applied to work.
Speaker 1: And I think for me, like I'm a much more
Speaker 1: practical person and more of a theoretical person, so I
Speaker 1: think I found that quite exciting. And then in my
Speaker 1: second year of Union actually got a fantastic job as
Speaker 1: a bookkeeper, so you know, my friends were still slaving
Speaker 1: it out of it, like the fish and chip shop
Speaker 1: where I had been working, and I remember going into
Speaker 1: this interview as as a bookkeeper, and you know, I've
Speaker 1: been like prapping with my mom and I was going
Speaker 1: to ask them for like I think I was like
Speaker 1: twenty dollars an hour and role played that and they
Speaker 1: were like to pay expectation of being like twenty dollars
Speaker 1: an hour and they were like, oh, we were going
Speaker 1: to pay you forty. So like that also was quite
Speaker 1: inspiring at the time because like, you know, getting paid
Speaker 1: like forty dollars an hour, like even now that so
Speaker 1: I was quite good. But this was like, you know,
Speaker 1: twenty years ago at UNI, like I was like, my
Speaker 1: life is made. And then I was like I love
Speaker 1: this accounting business. That sort of inspired me to, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess do those duel degrees.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, I did law arts and I think
Speaker 2: I kind of did dual degrees more as like it
Speaker 2: allowed me to like make less decisions about my future.
Speaker 1: I think that too. I think it's so funny how
Speaker 1: like I feel like the direction of everything is like
Speaker 1: putting these pressure on younger people to kind of decide
Speaker 1: earlier and specialize earlier. And then yeah, like of course,
Speaker 1: like you know, even while we're at Union at twenty,
Speaker 1: like we're just trying to keep these options open for ourselves,
Speaker 1: aren't we Because you're kind of aware that you have
Speaker 1: no idea what you want to do.
Speaker 2: And you also don't even know the jobs that exist,
Speaker 2: then yeah, you don't know until you get into the workforce.
Speaker 2: You can't see all the gray areas in between the
Speaker 2: like professions that we kind of learn about. But even
Speaker 2: if you do, I mean, you're an amazing example that
Speaker 2: even if you do pick one pathway, it's also okay
Speaker 2: to change at very normal and healthy to change your
Speaker 2: mind later and like swop to something completely different. So
Speaker 2: I think that's also something that I try and like
Speaker 2: hammer home a lot in these interviews is to, you know,
Speaker 2: talk to people who have done lots of different things
Speaker 2: and that don't necessarily they're not necessarily different things in
Speaker 2: the same industry either. They're just like you do one
Speaker 2: thing and then later you realize it's time to do
Speaker 2: something else. And I think that's something I definitely want
Speaker 2: to focus on a lot with you, is like knowing
Speaker 2: when the time is to change or and then coping
Speaker 2: with the novelty and lack of comfort and familiarity. But
Speaker 2: before we get there, I mean, it's funny that we
Speaker 2: both kind of started in very corporate context. How did
Speaker 2: you end up at Deloit? And I mean most of
Speaker 2: my friends who went into management consulting still can't explain
Speaker 2: to me what that is. So how did you end
Speaker 2: up there? And what was that as like a platform
Speaker 2: for your career?
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was really interesting. I just remember being at
Speaker 1: UNI one day and I think it was Bin. One
Speaker 1: of the management consulting companies had come and they were
Speaker 1: doing a talk on you know, working there. And I
Speaker 1: don't even know how I got to that talk, but
Speaker 1: I remember going and you know, obviously they would have
Speaker 1: done a great sales pitch and I was like, this
Speaker 1: sounds amazing, and so I applied with them and I
Speaker 1: didn't get the role, but I was quite excited about
Speaker 1: the idea of management consulting. And I think probably looking back,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm a complete ADHD person, and so I imagine
Speaker 1: what probably inspired me. It was this idea of just
Speaker 1: like you know, working across different clients and doing like
Speaker 1: really varied work. So you know, really, if I think
Speaker 1: about Deloit, it was like I just remember at the time,
Speaker 1: like I was like, okay, I didn't get that one,
Speaker 1: and who else is still open? And I just remember
Speaker 1: that they just happened to be open and you know,
Speaker 1: were closing soon. And I think it's like a really
Speaker 1: it's quite interesting because for me, you know, I think
Speaker 1: it also just speaks to like, you know, privilege and
Speaker 1: the kind of universities you go to. Like I was
Speaker 1: really lucky to even find out about that career path
Speaker 1: and to actually find out about it before you know,
Speaker 1: there was still some companies that had applications open, Whereas
Speaker 1: I remember when I started, and you know, some of
Speaker 1: my colleagues I was starting with that had gone to
Speaker 1: like Sydney UNI. You know, they had all actually been
Speaker 1: in feeder programs from the university where they'd been like
Speaker 1: already working doing internships in management consulting firms. They'd found
Speaker 1: out about it so in their first or second year
Speaker 1: of school and like had like tailored their whole careers
Speaker 1: towards that. And you know, it just sort of like
Speaker 1: really highlighted to me this kind of I didn't you know,
Speaker 1: Camera is not a business community place. It's a public
Speaker 1: service town. Even the concept of like business or what
Speaker 1: that means and what those job opportunities are, like, it's
Speaker 1: we don't have that in our culture. And you know,
Speaker 1: I think that just really highlighted that divide. And obviously
Speaker 1: if you're, you know, someone startying in a rural area
Speaker 1: of you're from an even more disadvantage family. It really
Speaker 1: just highlighted to me that you know, even just to
Speaker 1: know what those jobs are and to be preparing for
Speaker 1: them is such an advantage in itself. So yeah, that's
Speaker 1: how I found about DELAY. You know, I applied for
Speaker 1: the job. We did sort of all those interview rounds,
Speaker 1: and you know, by that point, you think you're very
Speaker 1: very special for getting that job because you've gone through
Speaker 1: like six interview rounds, and you think, because you're so
Speaker 1: special for that job, like that must just also be
Speaker 1: like a very special job if they're going to make
Speaker 1: it that hard to get in as well. So they
Speaker 1: did well with that psychology, I must say.
Speaker 2: I think it was a very special job though, because
Speaker 2: the more I was one of those people who didn't
Speaker 2: apply to Baine or McKinzie or anything, because I didn't
Speaker 2: ever hear about management consulting. Even now, it's kind of
Speaker 2: like such a vague thing to describe to people. Like
Speaker 2: one of my best friends was at BCG and I'm like,
Speaker 2: tell me how you explain it? So I can explain
Speaker 2: it to other people, Like you go into companies across
Speaker 2: all different industries and you spend x amount of time
Speaker 2: there making spreadsheets and doing models of financial thing Like
Speaker 2: you know, I couldn't even explain it to you, But
Speaker 2: every consultant that hasn't stayed in consulting has done something
Speaker 2: so cool because the skills that you learn of analysis
Speaker 2: of just everything in the world. I don't know, I
Speaker 2: just feel like it's this amazing. It is a really
Speaker 2: special job. You get taught to think in this crazy way.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think you get taught to think in a
Speaker 1: good way. And I think also what it trains you
Speaker 1: for is it is sort of like sink or swimm
Speaker 1: in terms of make it or fake it. I remember
Speaker 1: my first you know, as a graduate. I was getting
Speaker 1: paid something like forty grand a year in that graduate job,
Speaker 1: and I remember it straight out of UNI. They were
Speaker 1: billing me out at like nine hundred dollars a day,
Speaker 1: and you're like really consciously aware of that. So it's
Speaker 1: sort of like, you know, I remember sitting in these
Speaker 1: clients being like, I have no idea what I'm talking
Speaker 1: about or what these people are talking about, but I'm
Speaker 1: really consciously aware that they're paying this much money for me,
Speaker 1: and so already from day one, you're like know, faking
Speaker 1: it essentially. And I think it's also those skills that
Speaker 1: then go on to help people later because like, you know,
Speaker 1: then when you're applying for some big job that you're
Speaker 1: not sure if you're qualified for, you're like, well, you know,
Speaker 1: I've kind of been doing work for the last five years,
Speaker 1: i haven't really been qualified for and convincing people, so
Speaker 1: you know, like I think it kind of builds that
Speaker 1: skill set as well. And I think, you know, definitely
Speaker 1: to be a successful consultant in the early days, you
Speaker 1: need to just be able to convince people that you're
Speaker 1: bringing a lot of value even when you may not
Speaker 1: be bringing that much value to the table to being
Speaker 1: a management consultant.
Speaker 2: So I'm sure you are bringing a lot of value,
Speaker 2: maybe just that you don't necessarily believe that you're bringing
Speaker 2: a lot of value.
Speaker 1: Except I remember, like I got this one really funny
Speaker 1: story that just comes up all the time where I'd
Speaker 1: gone to work it. It was a rail corp actually
Speaker 1: for the New Southwest government, and it was actually a
Speaker 1: technology focused product. And this was back in the day
Speaker 1: where technology was called it and so anyway, and I
Speaker 1: was like in the project, I was it was a
Speaker 1: first meeting or se commedty with the clients, and it
Speaker 1: was like meeting and the partner a couple of people
Speaker 1: sitting around the room, and they kept talking about ICT,
Speaker 1: which like obviously today everyone knows information communication technology, which
Speaker 1: is just like what you call it. But I think
Speaker 1: that concept was just coming through at that time. I
Speaker 1: remember when I it was like IC two ict IC
Speaker 1: and then I was like, you know what, Christiana, there
Speaker 1: is no such thing as a stupid question, and you
Speaker 1: just need to talking about And I remember being like,
Speaker 1: thank you, you know, this is all making sense, but
Speaker 1: because someone just explained to me what ICT means. And
Speaker 1: I remember the director what sort of spunniest chair around
Speaker 1: and pointed to his door where it was like he
Speaker 1: was like director information communication Technology and was like information
Speaker 1: communication technology, and I was like, and the partner sort
Speaker 1: of like looked to me and his like like the
Speaker 1: color all drained out of his face, and I was like,
Speaker 1: I guess there might be suchleep.
Speaker 2: It was a stupid question after yes, And it was
Speaker 2: probably that one.
Speaker 1: That was kind of like the last time I decided
Speaker 1: to let my guard down.
Speaker 2: Oh my god. That's a really really good point about
Speaker 2: the idea that you know, it's a really important skill set,
Speaker 2: not necessarily to always have confidence, but to be able
Speaker 2: to like work through the fact that you don't have
Speaker 2: confidence and kind of even just fake it until you
Speaker 2: do have more confidence. Like that's the whole I think,
Speaker 2: like one of the big keys to success is literally
Speaker 2: just the ability to deal with yourself doubt in a
Speaker 2: productive way rather an unproductive way. And I'd love to
Speaker 2: tie that into sort of how you from management consulting
Speaker 2: then made a big jump, but not kind of a
Speaker 2: jump that you know a lot of people would make,
Speaker 2: like into a different bank or into something that's very
Speaker 2: business startup focused. You kind of went to the United
Speaker 2: Nations in disaster zones and conflict hotspots in the world,
Speaker 2: and like a massive, massive jump from any any kind
Speaker 2: of career, but particularly from outside of the UN, from
Speaker 2: outside of diplomacy or or war zones or you know.
Speaker 2: I think this is another reason why I'm so excited
Speaker 2: about this interview, because if I hadn't gone into business,
Speaker 2: the way I would have hoped to use my law
Speaker 2: degree was with the UN and we went to visit
Speaker 2: the war tribunals in Arusha for a wander, and like
Speaker 2: that area of I don't love conflict, but I love
Speaker 2: the idea of kind of applying the skills that you
Speaker 2: learn in a conflict zone. And so to talk to
Speaker 2: you is just so unbelievably exciting for me. So how
Speaker 2: did you make such a gigantic jump and what brought
Speaker 2: it about for you? And then of course going into
Speaker 2: a totally different industry, how did you deal with that
Speaker 2: lack of familiarity.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so I think, yeah, it was sort of also
Speaker 1: something that happening in stages, so I didn't really make
Speaker 1: that conscious decision to kind of completely end up doing
Speaker 1: the really extreme work that I ended up doing right
Speaker 1: at the beginning. But you know, essentially, I think i'd
Speaker 1: always heard about this program that the Australian government did.
Speaker 1: It still does it. I'm not sure what it's called today,
Speaker 1: but it was essentially at the time, it was called
Speaker 1: Youth Ambassadors for Development, and I'd heard about it for
Speaker 1: a long time and it was essentially placing people that had,
Speaker 1: you know, some form of work experience into not for
Speaker 1: profits for a year sort of on a volunteer salary
Speaker 1: funded by the Australian government, and so I'd kind of
Speaker 1: heard about this and was always a bit excited about
Speaker 1: the concept, but you know, it was always in the
Speaker 1: back of my head. And then you know, probably I'm
Speaker 1: sure you have a really similar experience of when you
Speaker 1: decided to leave law. But I was living in Bondi
Speaker 1: and Sydney at the time, and I just had this
Speaker 1: one day where it was like thirty degree beautiful sunny
Speaker 1: day and I was in my like suit waiting for
Speaker 1: the bus and it was like crammed on the bus
Speaker 1: on one day road. Everyone's sweating on you standing out,
Speaker 1: you can't get a seat, and then you sort of
Speaker 1: pile off the bus like little lemmings onto the train,
Speaker 1: and then got off the train at Martin Place and
Speaker 1: sort of piled out again and walked down, you know,
Speaker 1: with another like one hundred co working office people to
Speaker 1: like our building, and you know, squashed into an elevator
Speaker 1: and went up the elevator and you know, got out
Speaker 1: into the open plan room and there's two hundred of
Speaker 1: my colleagues and their suits sitting at their computers and
Speaker 1: I just almost his punnic attack of like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: is this like my life, Like I just cannot do
Speaker 1: this any longer, Like I'm sorry, this is so not me.
Speaker 1: And I think I'd really enjoyed like the first couple
Speaker 1: of years of you know, buying my first suit and
Speaker 1: buying my first hair straightener and like you know, buying
Speaker 1: a pair of heels and kind of doing the power
Speaker 1: woman thing. And I'd enjoyed that sort of like you know,
Speaker 1: Friday evening drinks. And but I think at some point
Speaker 1: that novelty had worn off, and I was just like, oh,
Speaker 1: it's just not really me, Like I'm just this isn't
Speaker 1: really who I am. And you know, just making money
Speaker 1: for big companies isn't really like motivating me. And so
Speaker 1: I started having a look at you know, just daydreaming.
Speaker 1: Really I was daydreaming about intrepid holidays in Vietnam, and
Speaker 1: then I was daydreaming about looking up this youth ambassador
Speaker 1: program and looking at placements, and you know, I just
Speaker 1: saw this placement one day that literally sounded like me.
Speaker 1: It was like looking for like economists in a market
Speaker 1: analyst position living in Katman doing Nepal, and I'd actually
Speaker 1: just been on a holiday to Captvin doing Nepal. And
Speaker 1: I have no recollection of this, but the friend that
Speaker 1: I with swears that we were sitting down one day
Speaker 1: and a un car went past and I said to
Speaker 1: him when I'm going to come back and work for
Speaker 1: the un I have no memory of it, but it
Speaker 1: was like six months later and there was this un
Speaker 1: job like in Nepal that seemed really aligned to my
Speaker 1: skill set, so I just applied for it. And actually
Speaker 1: the biggest part of this decision ended up being that
Speaker 1: I'd also been nominated for the Young business Woman of
Speaker 1: the Year award at Deloitte, and of course me at
Speaker 1: this point thinking that like Deloit was like one of
Speaker 1: the pinnacle sort of this was in the entire world,
Speaker 1: and that, you know, me being a Young Businesswman of
Speaker 1: the Year was like extremely important. I just around the
Speaker 1: same time that I had to accept this application, found
Speaker 1: out that I was going to be the winner of
Speaker 1: that for Australia, but they obviously weren't going to award
Speaker 1: it to me if I was about to leave. I
Speaker 1: remember this was like the biggest stressfulest thing, which now
Speaker 1: in your retrospect, I'm like what it was, but at
Speaker 1: the time it felt like I was giving up so
Speaker 1: much and so but yeah, I made the decision basically
Speaker 1: to go, and I did look back sometimes. I don't
Speaker 1: look back today, like there was you know, certain periods
Speaker 1: where I was like, oh my god, I gave up
Speaker 1: that great opportunity, but no, like now in your prospector,
Speaker 1: I was like, you know, like I wouldn't even think that,
Speaker 1: but yeah, and so off I went. It was supposed
Speaker 1: to be a year long program. A year sounded like
Speaker 1: a really long time to me at that time, but
Speaker 1: of course I settled into this crazy life in Katmandu,
Speaker 1: which was like walking to work with like elephants walking
Speaker 1: down the street. And you know, it was I was
Speaker 1: supposed to be this market analyst reviewing at the time,
Speaker 1: it was the high food price crisis, so working with
Speaker 1: the World Bank looking at the impact of food prices
Speaker 1: on small farmers. And it was sort of my second
Speaker 1: week there where I was in a meeting and you know,
Speaker 1: they were discussing like somebody has to go and fly
Speaker 1: in a helicopter and do monitoring of these remote mountainous sites,
Speaker 1: and like nobody wanted to know, like and a Parlis
Speaker 1: all like had their heads down, like trying to hide
Speaker 1: behind these colleagues, like you know, my kind of western
Speaker 1: colleagues that had already been to these areas were like,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm not interested, Like you know, there's no
Speaker 1: running water, you have to sleep in people's houses. And
Speaker 1: I was like pick me. And so you know, I
Speaker 1: don't have been in the job for a few weeks
Speaker 1: when like I was being like flown by helicopter and
Speaker 1: it was like with a local newparlot colleague, and it
Speaker 1: was like basically the job was like you need to
Speaker 1: trek for the next like three weeks from village to village,
Speaker 1: monitor that like our food acisms has got there, and
Speaker 1: then we're gonna give you some coordinates where Helle's coture
Speaker 1: they're gonna pick you up from at the end. And
Speaker 1: I was just like people paying like twenty thousand dollars
Speaker 1: to this kind of trekking adventure and.
Speaker 2: Like, yeah, this is my job.
Speaker 1: I was like I'm sold. Like I couldn't have been
Speaker 1: like more excited or and so that kind of yeah,
Speaker 1: was sort of how that started. And you know, I
Speaker 1: spent about three years in Nepal and it just was
Speaker 1: a really random career where I started it at this
Speaker 1: time where the whole humanitarian environment was going through a
Speaker 1: drastic shift, which was shifting away from giving people things
Speaker 1: like giving people food or giving people shelter in a disaster,
Speaker 1: or giving people water to just trying to where markets
Speaker 1: are functioning, give people cash and letting them sort it out,
Speaker 1: which just seems so obvious today, but it was this
Speaker 1: huge shift that was going on. And the agency I
Speaker 1: was working for called the World Food Program. It's the
Speaker 1: largest humanitarian agency in the world, but it was probably
Speaker 1: at that time about ninety percent men. So the entire
Speaker 1: workforce and the people that made up senior leadership, they
Speaker 1: were logisticitions largely. So it was people that had come
Speaker 1: out of the army that were really good at like
Speaker 1: in a natural disaster there's like a broken bridge, like
Speaker 1: getting a bridge up so they can get a truck
Speaker 1: across it. All people that had come out of sort
Speaker 1: of conflict negotiation where if you're in like a conflict
Speaker 1: and there's five or six different factions, you have to
Speaker 1: deal with negotiating with those factions to get food through.
Speaker 1: And so it was this extremely like masculine, male dominant
Speaker 1: logistics focused organization now being told that they need to
Speaker 1: bring everything into some form of finance you know, how
Speaker 1: do you get cash to people? How can you use
Speaker 1: like mobile technology, like how can you use thumb print technology,
Speaker 1: iris scanning, like how do you get money into people's hands?
Speaker 1: And so like, no one had any idea about money.
Speaker 1: And at some point they were like, oh, Christina, like
Speaker 1: you get economics, like you get like you set up
Speaker 1: these like first systel. So I was like, not quite
Speaker 1: my skill set, but okay. And so I was at
Speaker 1: the real forefront of developing some of these first kind
Speaker 1: of programs in the world. And then that sort of
Speaker 1: just sucked me into this, like you know, suddenly kind
Speaker 1: of the economics work and all that kind of went
Speaker 1: to the side. I sort of got really sucked into
Speaker 1: working in humanitarian emergencies, delivering cash transfers. So I went
Speaker 1: from Nepal, then I went to Rome for a while,
Speaker 1: where I was working where our headquarters were, but being
Speaker 1: sent out to different disasters. So I worked sort of
Speaker 1: in Somalia and North Kenya during the famine, and you know,
Speaker 1: worked on a few different projects, and then eventually got
Speaker 1: sent to Turkey to work on the Seria response. So
Speaker 1: I spent the last sort of six years across Turkey, Jordan,
Speaker 1: Lebanon in Syria, in Iraq working on like you know
Speaker 1: what was the largest custure answer programs ever. So we
Speaker 1: were distributing to millions of people cash, which you know
Speaker 1: doesn't necessarily sound that complicated, but when you think about
Speaker 1: the reality on the ground of you know, many of
Speaker 1: these people never used bank accounts before. People fulle in conflict,
Speaker 1: don't have their ID papers. There's anti terrorism legislation designed
Speaker 1: by the US that if you even get one dollar
Speaker 1: in the hand of somebody who's a terrorist that you know,
Speaker 1: you can actually go to jail for that as a
Speaker 1: person if you're working for the UN. So there's like
Speaker 1: incredibly big challenges to try to resolve in really practical ways.
Speaker 1: Sort of became the focus of what I was working on.
Speaker 2: Then oh my god, I literally if you look at
Speaker 2: your bio, it makes so much sense to go like
Speaker 2: science calm, masters in economics, then Deloitte and then start
Speaker 2: super fun. But then in the middle is just like
Speaker 2: s Gaza, Iraq, Jordan Lebanon, head of operations based out
Speaker 2: of Iraq. Delivery existence when everyone's under seed from isis
Speaker 2: like so rando but incredible, And I think one of
Speaker 2: the things that's really interesting is how male dominated that
Speaker 2: environment is. I think when you think about hamanitarian work,
Speaker 2: you just think about awesome humans helping other humans when
Speaker 2: shit really is going down, But you stop thinking about
Speaker 2: it as a normal workplace, which also has like gender
Speaker 2: inequalities and power and balances and all that kind of thing.
Speaker 2: So the fact that you became a really senior operator,
Speaker 2: like heading up a department in a total totally different market,
Speaker 2: in a totally different sort of set of circumstances than
Speaker 2: you'd ever dealt with back here, how did the self
Speaker 2: doubt play out over there? Like when you're getting becoming
Speaker 2: more and more senior and in this context of like chaos,
Speaker 2: and you know, the fear that most of us have
Speaker 2: at work is like fear about failure or fear about
Speaker 2: looking silly, you're also facing like actual fear about like
Speaker 2: being shelled. And how was that environment?
Speaker 1: It was absolutely crazy and absolutely rogue. I think that
Speaker 1: was the people hear the un and they think one thing,
Speaker 1: But the reality is it is an extremely vogue environment.
Speaker 1: And the more kind of challenging the context, the more
Speaker 1: rogue that that environment becomes. And there's a few aspects
Speaker 1: of it I think that really reflecting compared to Australian culture.
Speaker 1: So one is that it's virtually impossible to fire anyone
Speaker 1: in the UN. It's a criminal level of responsibility. They
Speaker 1: have to commit a crime essentially, So things like chronic
Speaker 1: sexual harasses, chronic kind of bullying, workplace bullying, like these
Speaker 1: not really fiable offenses in the UN. And then on
Speaker 1: top of that, it's a really interesting culture because there's
Speaker 1: no sort of country cultural norm Like if you're working
Speaker 1: in Europe or you're working in Australia, you've got you know,
Speaker 1: really strong cultures around like what those workplaces should be like.
Speaker 1: But when you're operating like in a conflict zone, it's like,
Speaker 1: what is the culture of that place? It's not the
Speaker 1: culture of the country, it's not the culture of you know,
Speaker 1: one of the you know, a European country. It's and
Speaker 1: so I think it's sort of this these factors and
Speaker 1: then just really extreme power imbalances. So one of the
Speaker 1: problems with the UN was that they'd initially had these
Speaker 1: really strong employment contracts, which means that people that are
Speaker 1: permanent employees you cannot get rid of them. So as
Speaker 1: an employment workforce, the way they sort of worked around
Speaker 1: this is to them put everyone else on consulting contractor contracts,
Speaker 1: which just makes these really big power imbalances between people
Speaker 1: in leadership and everyone else in the workforce. And so
Speaker 1: I think that all these factors combine, you get these
Speaker 1: like things that happen in the workplace would just never
Speaker 1: ever happened in Australia. That just shocked me. So for instance,
Speaker 1: like I had every single country director, maybe bar one
Speaker 1: who I worked for, like had tried to sleep as
Speaker 1: an employee really overt way. It's like I had, you know,
Speaker 1: this is like the most senior represent in the unit
Speaker 1: in the country, like you know, smssing, like come over
Speaker 1: to my house. So I'm like not even this, like
Speaker 1: are you crazy, because you know, and this is bizarre,
Speaker 1: Like I had to manage these kind of like harassments
Speaker 1: and things that in Australia, Like you know, I remember
Speaker 1: working at Deloit, like the officers were all glass for
Speaker 1: the reason that you know, they didn't want any impropriety.
Speaker 1: They were so concerned about these issues that you weren't
Speaker 1: even you know, you had to be in glass meeting rooms.
Speaker 1: You couldn't even be in private meeting rooms. And so
Speaker 1: that was like you know, I think constantly throughout like
Speaker 1: my seven eight years at Deloit, it was you know,
Speaker 1: being the woman in that in that situation that so
Speaker 1: many of us have been in where you're like trying
Speaker 1: not to hurt people's egos, trying to like keep them
Speaker 1: out of your whole to your hotel room. Like you know,
Speaker 1: I had situations where like five male colleagues were like
Speaker 1: trying to get my hotel room card from the front desk,
Speaker 1: like because they were all doing trying to get into
Speaker 1: a room, and like you know, the room calling me,
Speaker 1: and then the personal reception feeling bullied, and I'm like,
Speaker 1: you know, like it's just just really really extreme things
Speaker 1: happening all the time in the workplace environment. And then
Speaker 1: I think if you add on that the pressure of
Speaker 1: over time, people that become really good at emergency work
Speaker 1: kind of get stuck into emergency work, and so start
Speaker 1: working for people who have spent the last seven years
Speaker 1: in conflict zones. Their families obviously aren't there, they're in
Speaker 1: locations nearby, so they're completely becoming separated from their friends,
Speaker 1: their families, and the mental health effects on that, and
Speaker 1: then what that leads to in the workplace. So just
Speaker 1: also levels of bullying, like yelling, Like I started a
Speaker 1: job one day, remember my really senior boss who was
Speaker 1: also the head of the country at that time, picking
Speaker 1: up a phone, ripping out the worlds, throwing at someone
Speaker 1: and hitting the wall on my first day, like and
Speaker 1: you just like, this isn't okay, Like everyone calm down.
Speaker 1: So I think, like, yeah, the operating environment was really different,
Speaker 1: and I think the reason I thrived was, you know,
Speaker 1: it was hard, but I think also I was I
Speaker 1: was really young and female for my role, really working
Speaker 1: in the Middle East, and I think it actually ended
Speaker 1: up working in my favor. So I was just really
Speaker 1: able to negotiate well, work with governments well. And I
Speaker 1: think in part it was because people just weren't used
Speaker 1: to handling a young a young woman, and you would
Speaker 1: think potentially that could work against you, but I think
Speaker 1: it was very disarming people and you know, sort of
Speaker 1: being out of those like ego wars that sometimes go on,
Speaker 1: I felt I'd actually just get a lot done. So
Speaker 1: I think it did work in my favor in the end.
Speaker 1: But it was definitely just this wild context and you
Speaker 1: know also what that you know, and I lived in
Speaker 1: Iraq on the end I was living on a military
Speaker 1: base with about two thousand men and there was three
Speaker 1: or four with Oh my god, it was just like
Speaker 1: luckily a bunch of them were they're fig and peacekeepers
Speaker 1: who were just like amazing, but just like a really,
Speaker 1: you know, a really different culture to what you would
Speaker 1: be living in Australia in terms of a workplace, and
Speaker 1: you know all the boys that go along with of
Speaker 1: living with people and working with them and like being
Speaker 1: in confined spaces with them at all times, and then
Speaker 1: just the bizarreness of you know, the way that your
Speaker 1: life looks like at that point is you work twenty
Speaker 1: days on and then you have seven days off. And
Speaker 1: so my life at that point looked on half Austrian
Speaker 1: and so my life at that point looked like twenty
Speaker 1: days on a military base, basically living in a bunker,
Speaker 1: working in a bunker, bad Dad, and then traveling in
Speaker 1: what's called a hippo which is like a bomb proof
Speaker 1: vehicle to a airport, and then flying to Switzerland and
Speaker 1: meeting my Austrian cousin and going skiing for seven days
Speaker 1: and then coming back and it like I think, you know,
Speaker 1: I loved that about the career at the beginning, like
Speaker 1: I was like, this is like amazing, and then I
Speaker 1: think by the time I was like getting ready to leave,
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, this is just fucked up, Like
Speaker 1: this is just like bad. Like I was like, you know,
Speaker 1: my cousin's finishing her ski trip and going back to
Speaker 1: her job. Actually she was a management consultants as well,
Speaker 1: you know, in Vienna, And I was like, oh, that
Speaker 1: sounds quite nice, you know yeah. And I think just
Speaker 1: all that stuff at some point, like you can either
Speaker 1: mentally deal with it or you can just never quite
Speaker 1: reconcile these things. And I think I was always in
Speaker 1: the place of like this is like a fun experience
Speaker 1: or a different experience. But you know, Roo was calling
Speaker 1: me as hom I think.
Speaker 2: Hm, it's so interesting because even just in those two chapters,
Speaker 2: it's like, what was gratifying and successful for you at
Speaker 2: Deloitte then was like completely opposite in this globally meaningful
Speaker 2: but like fast paced, crazy rogue environment you know, overseas.
Speaker 2: And then there comes a point for many people, yeah,
Speaker 2: when you're like okay, and now I need some normality.
Speaker 2: But one thing I would love to know, and oh
Speaker 2: my god, I can literally speak to you about that
Speaker 2: chapter just for a whole separate episode. I'll have to
Speaker 2: call you back one day because this stuff suspends me
Speaker 2: so much. But the idea that like one of the
Speaker 2: things I've found with friends who have been with the
Speaker 2: UN or have been in the military and then like
Speaker 2: come back, like get to the point in their life
Speaker 2: where it's costing them too much and they want some
Speaker 2: normality and they come home. But the pace of life
Speaker 2: that your body has become used to, in the level
Speaker 2: of adrenaline, it's almost like you get addicted to that
Speaker 2: conflict zone and you get addicted to that minute to
Speaker 2: minute thinking, and then it's really dull when you come
Speaker 2: back to safety and it's hard to sort of Readjust
Speaker 2: did you a kind of reach a point where you
Speaker 2: just knew that you were done with that chapter? Did
Speaker 2: you face that fork in the road again of like
Speaker 2: what am I leaving behind to come back just to
Speaker 2: just Australia kind of after like literally saving lives and
Speaker 2: then yeah, that pace of chaos that you got used to,
Speaker 2: you know, you came back to something that's superannuation is
Speaker 2: kind of a very stable It's not like, I mean,
Speaker 2: it's not stable, but it's a very stable topic in general,
Speaker 2: you know, it doesn't involve a lot of global conflict
Speaker 2: or bombs or living in bunkers. Like what was the adjustment?
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was definitely those I had all those feels,
Speaker 1: so like it took me really like two years to
Speaker 1: really pull myself out. So I guess it was a
Speaker 1: couple of stages. So because I've been working conflict for
Speaker 1: quite a while, I ended up having to, I think,
Speaker 1: take it. There was like a mandatory like six month
Speaker 1: break or something that I had to take. And so
Speaker 1: I actually at that time decided we'll take a year off.
Speaker 1: And I was becoming really passionate about climate change and
Speaker 1: climate actually, I guess having worked in a lot of
Speaker 1: natural disasters, and so I made the decision. I had
Speaker 1: money saved, I was like, I'll come back to Australia
Speaker 1: for a year. I just wanted to volunteer in meaningful
Speaker 1: climate work, which was this just amazing opportunity. So it
Speaker 1: was like I came back and I just found like
Speaker 1: really small enjuries that I thought we were doing really impactful
Speaker 1: work and volunteered for them. That was a great thing
Speaker 1: for a year, and I think in my head I'd
Speaker 1: said I was gonna do this for a year. I'll
Speaker 1: do this and then I'll stay. But towards the end
Speaker 1: of that period, I couldn't quite reconcile my new life.
Speaker 1: I was, yeah, I was struggling with pace. I was
Speaker 1: struggling with with what felt meaningful. I felt really detached
Speaker 1: still from my friends and family, like mentally detached a
Speaker 1: bit from life in Australia. And so I did that
Speaker 1: work and that was bizarrely what got me into superannuation
Speaker 1: because I was working for a non profit Cord three
Speaker 1: fifty dot org, and they were doing it's bizarre to
Speaker 1: think about the six years ago, but they were trying
Speaker 1: to campaign to get people to leave banks and put
Speaker 1: pressure on their banks and super funds that were investing
Speaker 1: in fossil fuels. And the biggest thing they had was
Speaker 1: that in Australia, two Prenuation controls half the ASX or,
Speaker 1: it owns almost half the Australian Stock Exchange, so that
Speaker 1: is like the biggest pool of capital in Australia. And
Speaker 1: at that time there was no superhannuation fund that wasn't
Speaker 1: investing in fossil fuels at all, none, not one. We
Speaker 1: were doing this really successful campaigning on the banking side,
Speaker 1: like getting people to go into the banks and telling
Speaker 1: staff we're gonna, you know, cutting up their credit cards
Speaker 1: and something, we're leaving you and we're going to Bendigo,
Speaker 1: bang Call, We're going to whoever. But there was we
Speaker 1: couldn't do that on the superside because there was no
Speaker 1: one and so bizally, what got me into Super was
Speaker 1: that I met a couple of guys that were starting
Speaker 1: the first fossil fuel free super fun called Future Super,
Speaker 1: and so I ended up kind of working with them
Speaker 1: to help them get that off the ground. Just sort
Speaker 1: of threw like, Okay, well this seems impactful now on
Speaker 1: this kind of year off what was bizarrely how I
Speaker 1: got into Super in the first place and being on
Speaker 1: their board. But yeah, I guess back to your question
Speaker 1: was that once that was set up, I still had
Speaker 1: this like what am I doing? Like I'm just working
Speaker 1: back in an office. And at the same time, you know,
Speaker 1: Syria was really a program that I'd tried to get
Speaker 1: funding for I couldn't get funding for. Suddenly because all
Speaker 1: these refugees were going into Europe, the European government decided
Speaker 1: to They literally picked up a project proposal that I'd
Speaker 1: asked for fifty million dollars for a pilot two years
Speaker 1: before and said we're going to fund this with a
Speaker 1: billion dollars. So it was like, you know, my old
Speaker 1: boss was like, can you please come back? And then
Speaker 1: I'd also just to throw in another thing that probably
Speaker 1: wasn't even on my LinkedIn, but I just ran for
Speaker 1: parliament at that point. Oh Chrissy. I'd just run for
Speaker 1: the Greens in Canberra, and the main reason I'd run
Speaker 1: that was that there was a really conservative, a liberal
Speaker 1: senator I was trying to get out who was no
Speaker 1: one of those guys that you know, brought a calling
Speaker 1: to parliament. Anyway, at this point, I'd kind of gone
Speaker 1: through my savings, not having worked for a year, done
Speaker 1: a political campaign, done all my volunteering, helped seth with
Speaker 1: super Fund, and then I was sort of like okay,
Speaker 1: like I'm I think I hadn't settled, and I was
Speaker 1: also like, you know, this job was there, and so
Speaker 1: I went back and did and helped establish that. For
Speaker 1: a couple of years. I knew I had to go home,
Speaker 1: Like I knew that, like every time I was coming home,
Speaker 1: I was feeling more detached and I knew that if
Speaker 1: I couldn't stay now, I just would never be able
Speaker 1: to go home. And so yeah, I did that for
Speaker 1: a bit and then I came back and it was
Speaker 1: actually when I came back that I'd been thinking about
Speaker 1: the women Super Fun. So because I'd ended up on
Speaker 1: the bard or this other Superhnoation fund, I guess I
Speaker 1: was more becoming more passionate about like the power of
Speaker 1: you know, being out invest capital in really good interesting
Speaker 1: things apt investing, and had also another topic that wasn't
Speaker 1: really being talked about then. Had become aware of the
Speaker 1: super gap between men and women, which now is something
Speaker 1: that we talk a lot about, but at that time
Speaker 1: it wasn't really on the radar. And so I think
Speaker 1: I'd been mulling this idea of like, well, what would
Speaker 1: like an impact focus super fun look like that was
Speaker 1: focused on women, focused around sort of financial education and coaching,
Speaker 1: focused around advocacy, and then focus on like how can
Speaker 1: we drive impact investing around gender. And I'd been thinking
Speaker 1: about and mulling it, and I came back to Australia
Speaker 1: on a holiday and you know, I started exploring that
Speaker 1: opportunity and then I had that real slarting door moment
Speaker 1: again where you and HCR had emailed me and there
Speaker 1: was like this fantastic job in Kenya and we need you,
Speaker 1: and you know, at the same time I was doing
Speaker 1: all my medical tests to get ready to go to
Speaker 1: that job. I was doing all the analysis and trying
Speaker 1: to see if I'd be able to get this super
Speaker 1: fund up. And it was this huge sliding door moment
Speaker 1: of do I go or do S day? And I
Speaker 1: think for me, yeah, it was this moment of a
Speaker 1: I knew that if I didn't stay now, I'd probably
Speaker 1: never come back, but b it was like I'd found
Speaker 1: something that I was like, I think I can like
Speaker 1: seek my teeth into this in Australia now, and I
Speaker 1: think this is going to be really impactful. And so
Speaker 1: that was like ultimately it was a big step to stay,
Speaker 1: but I stayed, and yeah, that became.
Speaker 2: Babies found your yayyay. I just get goosebumps thinking about
Speaker 2: like how meaningful and how just perfectly suited you are
Speaker 2: as the person to bring the first Subernovation Fund for
Speaker 2: women to Australia, But how you could never have just
Speaker 2: done that at the start of your career, Like it
Speaker 2: took all of this to mull all of the things
Speaker 2: that needed to happen for verb super to come to lie.
Speaker 2: Like that just gives me goosebumps. That's just what I
Speaker 2: love about these stories is that it took all of
Speaker 2: your life experience to get you to this point where
Speaker 2: it felt right and where there was the chance for
Speaker 2: a sliding doors moment. That so much so that like
Speaker 2: you know, a couple of months before you founded it,
Speaker 2: you couldn't have known that you were going to do that,
Speaker 2: And that to me is just.
Speaker 1: Like so magical.
Speaker 2: I will justly spent the whole episode not on the
Speaker 2: thing that you do now, which is not what I
Speaker 2: intended to do, but just because like it just it
Speaker 2: makes me so excited that people do find the thing
Speaker 2: that they're supposed to do, but that looks different at
Speaker 2: lots of different chapters.
Speaker 1: Of your life totally. And I think something that's really
Speaker 1: funny about well, not really funny, but I do reflect
Speaker 1: on it, is like I remember when we first launched Verve,
Speaker 1: and I think for the first like three months, we
Speaker 1: literally had more people contacting us saying congratulations, like we
Speaker 1: had this idea. I had that idea as well, and
Speaker 1: we never did it. Then we actually had new members
Speaker 1: coming in. It was like like so many people reaching out,
Speaker 1: and all I could reflect on was that, you know,
Speaker 1: if i'd actually worked up through the Superinnuation system. I
Speaker 1: think people that were in that system, so many of
Speaker 1: them had the idea, but they could also see like
Speaker 1: all the challenges and all the complexity, like way more
Speaker 1: clearly than me because they were like more embedded in
Speaker 1: the industry, whereas because I came into it sideways, Like
Speaker 1: I did have an involvement in Superinnuation obviously at that point,
Speaker 1: but I was completely unaware of how hard it was
Speaker 1: going to be, Like I just, you know, I did
Speaker 1: not know that. And also because I guess because I've
Speaker 1: done all these other things, like I felt like, you know,
Speaker 1: I can overcome challenges. But in the end, like I
Speaker 1: think it was almost like a superpower because if I'd
Speaker 1: known how hard it was coming, I don't know if
Speaker 1: we would have done it. You know.
Speaker 2: I often think that naivity is like a really important
Speaker 2: ingredient sometimes in embarking on a new venture, because yeah,
Speaker 2: if you're too aware of all the risks, like sometimes
Speaker 2: it's better just rip the band tad and do it.
Speaker 2: But I mean I've read it variously described as Australian
Speaker 2: women retiring with about thirty seven percent. I've read forty
Speaker 2: seven percent. Either way, Having you know, thirty to forty
Speaker 2: to nearly fifty percent less super than men in this
Speaker 2: country is like, I don't know how that statistic isn't
Speaker 2: more widely known, and I think that's even an old statistic.
Speaker 2: So and that it took till twenty eighteen really for
Speaker 2: there to be a super fun for women is just alarming.
Speaker 2: But you've gone on to like do such important work
Speaker 2: towards leveling that playing field and also not just to
Speaker 2: close that gap, but to ethically invest in super like Again,
Speaker 2: I don't think many of us we all have super funs.
Speaker 2: I don't think many of us, like know what. We're
Speaker 2: not as sort of equipped or not that people aren't literal,
Speaker 2: but it's just not something you think about. When you're younger,
Speaker 2: you're sort of like, oh god, I've got to have
Speaker 2: a super fun, Like they take some money every you know,
Speaker 2: you don't think about it, and then suddenly you realize
Speaker 2: your choices as a consumer are making a big impact
Speaker 2: on like half the ASX. So I'm so sorry I've
Speaker 2: run off so short of time, but very quickly tell
Speaker 2: us about the verb chapter.
Speaker 1: So essentially I decided to start the finest probably work
Speaker 1: to it by myself for close to a year to
Speaker 1: get it to the there's a lot of background works
Speaker 1: to get it to the point of like is this
Speaker 1: going to be viable? So like just the structures of
Speaker 1: super innovation for really good measure, it's really hard to start,
Speaker 1: which I think he's a good thing because, like you know,
Speaker 1: the whole point of that is it's people's retirement savings,
Speaker 1: and so you know, I had to get an external
Speaker 1: trustee in place and external fund money. I had to
Speaker 1: get all these parties in place to agree to this.
Speaker 1: So there was a lot of that kind of negotiation
Speaker 1: and trust building. And then at that point I sort
Speaker 1: of decided, like I don't want to do this thing
Speaker 1: by myself, and so I found two amazing co founders.
Speaker 1: So one had been working in the industry and was
Speaker 1: just super passionate about like women and serving women. And
Speaker 1: she's also just her personality type. You know, when she
Speaker 1: had a bit of a career breakdown, she when it
Speaker 1: became a waitress for six months because she just gets
Speaker 1: so much joy from serving people. So I was like, okay,
Speaker 1: like that co founder I need because that does not
Speaker 1: bring me joy. I want my customers to be served
Speaker 1: like absolute queens. But me doing that no wrong person.
Speaker 1: So Alex was definitely the person for that. And then
Speaker 1: we knew that we wanted financial coaching to be be
Speaker 1: part of it, and so spent a long time trawling
Speaker 1: a lot of financial coaches at the time, and it
Speaker 1: was all very much like save money and buy shoes,
Speaker 1: and I was like, that's not my vibe. And so
Speaker 1: we had run a not for profit for a number
Speaker 1: of years and financial approach ten thousand women from across
Speaker 1: austarlier and just so I called her out of the
Speaker 1: blue one day. I found a number on a website
Speaker 1: and I was like, hey, I'm starting this super fun
Speaker 1: and she was like I'd been thinking about starting a bank.
Speaker 1: She was like literally doing some gardening in a rose garden,
Speaker 1: and like, without even like leaving the rose garden, had
Speaker 1: like agreed to basically like drive from Wagga where she
Speaker 1: lived to Canberra to like help me start this super fun.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we just kind of came together, I think like
Speaker 1: real values alignment, and off we went and you know,
Speaker 1: it was a it was a massive one of taking
Speaker 1: like it it is still you know, it is still
Speaker 1: extremely complex and hard. And you know, sometimes me and
Speaker 1: my co found us, we just dream and we're like,
Speaker 1: our next business is going to be like a tea business,
Speaker 1: sell aromatic teas on the internet, Like wouldn't that be lovely?
Speaker 1: Like but you know, I think what has kept us
Speaker 1: going is like we're really values aligned. We've got a
Speaker 1: really clear vision for what we want to achieve, and
Speaker 1: you know, it's really hard, but we get those breakthroughs.
Speaker 1: Like we've been able to invest some of our members
Speaker 1: Superrehnoation in micro finance pros in Asia in the South
Speaker 1: Pacific for instance. So we're using our Suprenoation fund to
Speaker 1: provide small loans to mostly women businesses in those areas
Speaker 1: so they can go their businesses. And we're able to
Speaker 1: do that with like good returns to the level of
Speaker 1: risk for our members and just being innovative like that
Speaker 1: instead of just putting it in a government some form
Speaker 1: of corporate bond, like putting it into something meaningful and
Speaker 1: like it's those things that you get that energy of
Speaker 1: like okay, great, like we're doing something you know, and
Speaker 1: I think we've really been able to drive advocacy on
Speaker 1: women's retirement outcomes and being really specific about some of
Speaker 1: the legislative changes that we need to see. So those
Speaker 1: moments can be quite few and far between in terms
Speaker 1: of just having to operate a business and grow a business,
Speaker 1: but it has really brought us a lot of momentum
Speaker 1: and allowed us to Yeah, I think I think really
Speaker 1: have the energy to keep going.
Speaker 2: In such a different way to the impact you were
Speaker 2: making in the last chapter. You are like disrupting an
Speaker 2: entire industry and allowing half the Australian population the choice
Speaker 2: that they didn't have pre twenty eighteen, which is enormous,
Speaker 2: and also at eight and a half months pregnant, like
Speaker 2: with already one child. Like if there is a wonder
Speaker 2: woman that walks this Australiana land that we are on,
Speaker 2: it is you.
Speaker 1: No, it is it is It is not. It's just
Speaker 1: like a big struggle. It is dislike a struggle you
Speaker 1: somehow get through. And also I don't particularly advise anyone,
Speaker 1: by the way, to do a startup at the point
Speaker 1: in time that they're choosing to start a family, like
Speaker 1: like the naivety right again, it's like exactly, I was
Speaker 1: single when I started V and I met my husband
Speaker 1: during COVID lockdown, and you know, there was a baby
Speaker 1: sort of conceived a few months later. It was like
Speaker 1: not particularly timed that, you know, I thought I'd be
Speaker 1: having a child at this point in my life. But
Speaker 1: you know, here we are so well.
Speaker 2: It seems like you are very good at doing a
Speaker 2: million things at once in pure chaos, and it seems
Speaker 2: not to be a barrier for you achieving wonderful things.
Speaker 2: So I'm sure there will be lots of listeners, particularly
Speaker 2: our female listeners in the neighborhood, who are keen to
Speaker 2: learn a little bit more about the ways they could
Speaker 2: be part of verb super and make a shift to
Speaker 2: have more transparency around where their retirement outcomes are going
Speaker 2: and where the money is going in their super accounts.
Speaker 2: So where can we find you? Where can we find
Speaker 2: out more?
Speaker 1: Probably the best is going to the website, which is
Speaker 1: the super Do comit Au. Otherwise we're on Instagram so
Speaker 1: you can check us out as well.
Speaker 2: Amazing, Well, Chrissy, thank you so much. I could speak
Speaker 2: to you for another like fifty five hours about every chapter.
Speaker 2: I feel like I literally just scratch the surf as
Speaker 2: you have such an interesting life. I can't wait to
Speaker 2: see what you do next. All the very best with
Speaker 2: baby number two. Thank you well baby number three kind
Speaker 2: of yeah, literally put me on the three. It's been
Speaker 2: an absolute delight and I'll include the links to everything
Speaker 2: in the show.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much.
Speaker 2: Okay, what an amazing human being. I think you can
Speaker 2: hear that I could have talked her ears off four days,
Speaker 2: maybe weeks. If you weren't thinking much about your superannuation
Speaker 2: before this episode, I'm sure you will be now as
Speaker 2: I did, and I've popped all the links to verb
Speaker 2: super in the show notes, as well as some more
Speaker 2: information on Christina herself. As always, please do share the
Speaker 2: episode and any learnings, lessons, or snippets that you enjoyed
Speaker 2: if it feels right. We so appreciate your help growing
Speaker 2: the neighborhood as far and wide as possible. In the meantime,
Speaker 2: I hope you're having a fabulous week and are seizing
Speaker 2: your yeay