Speaker 1: Just challenge yourself, even within the job that you're doing,
Speaker 1: to do it as well as you possibly can, because
Speaker 1: people take notice. I take notice of team members who
Speaker 1: do that. That is one thing I learned at a
Speaker 1: footy club. Think about what your superpowers are and think
Speaker 1: about what you're good at and what you bring to
Speaker 1: the team, and don't worry about the ten things that
Speaker 1: you can't do because other people can do those instead.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the sees the Yay Podcast.
Speaker 3: Busy and happy are not the same thing. We too
Speaker 3: rarely question what makes the heart seeing. We work, then
Speaker 3: we rest, but rarely we play and often don't realize
Speaker 3: there's more than one way. So this is a platform
Speaker 3: to hear and explore the stories of those who found
Speaker 3: lives They adore, the good, bad and ugly.
Speaker 2: The best and worst day will bear all the facets
Speaker 2: of seizing your yay. I'm Sarah Davidson or a spoonful
Speaker 2: of Sarah, a lawyer turned unentrepreneur who swapped the suits
Speaker 2: and heels to co found matcha Maiden and matcha Milk
Speaker 2: Bark CZA is a series of conversations on finding a
Speaker 2: life you love and exploring the self out challenge joy
Speaker 2: and fulfillment.
Speaker 3: Along the way.
Speaker 2: Given that International Women's Day fell on a Saturday this year,
Speaker 2: considered this week's conversation to be our annual dedication episode.
Speaker 2: And I don't think we could have had a more
Speaker 2: perfect guest for the occasion than the woman currently holding
Speaker 2: the highest position that exists in one of the most
Speaker 2: traditionally male dominated landscapes in Australia, the AFL. We are
Speaker 2: so lucky to have Laura Kine with us today, the
Speaker 2: executive General Manager of Football at the AFL since August
Speaker 2: twenty twenty three. We so often talk on CZA about
Speaker 2: how you don't need to know where you'll end up
Speaker 2: because the job you'll end up having might not even exist. Yet. Well,
Speaker 2: Laura's did exist, just not for women until she became
Speaker 2: the first woman to take the reins, then build an
Speaker 2: executive team around her that's forty percent women, and counting
Speaker 2: getting her mum to write a letter to her school
Speaker 2: so she'd be allowed to play oskig instead of netball.
Speaker 2: Laura's love for footy has been long standing, but growing
Speaker 2: up before women could play football professionally, she started her
Speaker 2: professional life in law instead. This wasn't the only thing
Speaker 2: we had in common either with a career as Stella
Speaker 2: as hers. I completely expected her to be much older,
Speaker 2: but it turns out we both grew up in the
Speaker 2: nineties era of playing Snake on Nokia thirty three tens,
Speaker 2: and it humbled me immensely to learn that we're the
Speaker 2: same age as a powerful, intelligent, but incredibly down to
Speaker 2: earth woman who I actually connected with through and so
Speaker 2: that gives you an idea already of the kind of legend. Sheers,
Speaker 2: and thank you so much, Anne for the hookup. I
Speaker 2: was and still am fangirling so hard. So I will
Speaker 2: stop myself there before I read out her entire life
Speaker 2: story and gush my way through an hour without even
Speaker 2: introducing her. I mean, obviously, she tells her own story
Speaker 2: way better herself. I hope you guys are as inspired
Speaker 2: by Laura as I am. Laura Caine, Welcome to Cca.
Speaker 1: Thank you, it's great to be here.
Speaker 2: Orcano, I believe is one of the.
Speaker 1: Names, one of many.
Speaker 2: That's my so I love that you have an afl wname.
Speaker 2: You had an AFL name, And then there's I would
Speaker 2: have called you my learned friend originally back in our
Speaker 2: legal careers. There's so many hats that you have worn
Speaker 2: so many and I mean, I'm just so grateful and
Speaker 2: privileged to have you here as the executive General Manager
Speaker 2: of Football at the AFL, pretty much the highest role
Speaker 2: that exists in football. You are a true example. I mean,
Speaker 2: CZA is all about pathways and how you don't necessarily
Speaker 2: need to know where you're going to end up when
Speaker 2: you're younger, and we talk a lot about people who
Speaker 2: end up in jobs that didn't exist when they were younger.
Speaker 2: But what's amazing about your stories. Your job did exist,
Speaker 2: it just didn't exist for women. So it's amazing to
Speaker 2: sit across from you now and for one of our
Speaker 2: beautiful co hosts, and to have had a career in
Speaker 2: football because things have changed since you first went through.
Speaker 2: But yeah, thank you so much for everything you've done
Speaker 2: and everything you continue to do. I'm so excited to
Speaker 2: have you.
Speaker 1: Thank you. That's quite the introduction. I appreciate it.
Speaker 2: I mean, we will have done a bio before this also,
Speaker 2: which is so incredibly impressive. And before I looked you
Speaker 2: up on Wikipedia doing some research, I thought I'd be
Speaker 2: sitting across from a fifty year old woman with all
Speaker 2: the things you've achieved. I'm like, we are the same age.
Speaker 2: This is so embarrassing you well, it's accomplish.
Speaker 1: Sure, relative you've achieved an unbelievable amount too, And I
Speaker 1: listening and I quite enjoy it. I do you really
Speaker 1: do well.
Speaker 2: I love that we have that in common, our sort
Speaker 2: of legal background growing up in the nineties, the fact
Speaker 2: that our first phones were not here thirty three tens. Like,
Speaker 2: there's a lot of ground that we have to cover here.
Speaker 2: And I do want to get to you know, your
Speaker 2: incredible role and how trailblazing that is, and I imagine
Speaker 2: you know the many challenges you've had to face to
Speaker 2: get there.
Speaker 1: But I love to start.
Speaker 2: Back at the very beginning and trace through all the
Speaker 2: chapters that came before the one people often meet you
Speaker 2: in now it looks like it was an overnight success.
Speaker 2: It never is. And I like to go back through
Speaker 2: all the things you thought you would be, all the
Speaker 2: chapters that came earlier, and I think, yeah, showing how
Speaker 2: the dots connect, even if you don't know it at
Speaker 2: the time. So take us back to Chanside Park. I
Speaker 2: didn't realize actually that you had a Greek background and
Speaker 2: that Caine comes from your Irish side. Tell us about childhood,
Speaker 2: what did you think you'd be. I definitely don't think
Speaker 2: it was GM at thefl.
Speaker 1: I don't think so. You're right. Both my parents and
Speaker 1: families are bought from overseas, so a Greek background and
Speaker 1: Irish background. It's a very loud, robust family. So whatever
Speaker 1: I was, whatever I was going to do, was going
Speaker 1: to be something that enabled me to be robust as well.
Speaker 1: But growing up in Chanside Park football was a very
Speaker 1: big part of my life. I don't think I bought
Speaker 1: for a very long time that it would be a career,
Speaker 1: and we can get into that, but I don't know.
Speaker 1: I was older sister one younger brother. I liked rules,
Speaker 1: I like following rules. I liked telling him what to do.
Speaker 1: I don't Finally that weren't afraid of feedback. So maybe
Speaker 1: the legal career was not a happy accident. It was
Speaker 1: something that I was destined to do and maybe, yeah,
Speaker 1: combining that skill set with my love of foot is
Speaker 1: now seen me get this job. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, I loved looking back at how strong that football
Speaker 2: connection has been, even if it wasn't necessarily for a career.
Speaker 2: But you know, you played oz kick when you were younger.
Speaker 2: I think you had to get your mum to write
Speaker 2: a letter to let you not do netball. That's right, AF.
Speaker 1: So that probably is another sign something there.
Speaker 2: From very you weren't taking no.
Speaker 1: No, I wasn't.
Speaker 2: I wasn't And so when you were, you know, starting
Speaker 2: to think. I think we look back at like our
Speaker 2: first jobs or your first passions. What did you think
Speaker 2: that you wanted to be. Was it like astronaut or
Speaker 2: vallerina or was it football or did you think?
Speaker 1: I'll tell you what my first job was fourteen and
Speaker 1: nine months.
Speaker 2: I was gonna say it wasn't fourteen and nine moths.
Speaker 1: Of course it was, but I've never told anyone this,
Speaker 1: so you'll love this answer. My very first job was
Speaker 1: data entry at a dating agency. No where I can't
Speaker 1: even remember, but it was on Victoria Parade. It wasn't
Speaker 1: far from here, and we used to enter the data
Speaker 1: from people's profiles and match them. So I did that
Speaker 1: for about two years. It was through one of my
Speaker 1: friends at school and we were all just doing data entry,
Speaker 1: but the content was unbelievable. So I was playing football
Speaker 1: at the same time and entering dating profiles information for
Speaker 1: dating profiles was a fifteen year old and.
Speaker 2: You were doing the matches. Like, imagine if they knew
Speaker 2: on the other end there was this fifteen year old.
Speaker 1: I think someone checked it. I think we had to
Speaker 1: go so well before online dating.
Speaker 2: So, oh, my goodness, that's not.
Speaker 1: What I thought I would do, what I thought my
Speaker 1: career would turn into. But yeah, I had all usual
Speaker 1: jobs through my teenageys school. I did work experience at
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court when I was in high school and
Speaker 1: I loved it. So that was always my path from
Speaker 1: the back end of high school into university, and I
Speaker 1: never thought I would do anything else. I really loved it.
Speaker 1: It was footy was probably the only thing that would
Speaker 1: get me to jump across to something else.
Speaker 2: Wow, and you did play I think for quite a while.
Speaker 2: Did you know at the time, I think I listened
Speaker 2: to you on another podcast that you didn't think it
Speaker 2: wasn't normal to not be able to have a career,
Speaker 2: Like at the time, you just kind of accepted that
Speaker 2: this was going to be my hobby and I'd have
Speaker 2: to find something else to do. And it's beautiful that
Speaker 2: now women don't have to or young girls don't have
Speaker 2: to sort of face that ceiling. But if you think
Speaker 2: back to that time, was there a moment where you said,
Speaker 2: I'd love to do that, but I can't. I've got
Speaker 2: to do something else.
Speaker 1: I think what I refer to there is you finished
Speaker 1: playing football with the boys at twelve, and there was
Speaker 1: no option. So at the time I was too young,
Speaker 1: and I think you sort of there's nothing that you
Speaker 1: could have aspired to beyond that, so you didn't even
Speaker 1: think about it, And that feels a shame, probably quite
Speaker 1: important in my path and my journey to reflect back on.
Speaker 1: But there was no option, so you just you picked
Speaker 1: basketball or apple or changed sports or you know, unfortunately
Speaker 1: didn't don't play sport for a lot of young girls.
Speaker 1: So I think being able now to reflect back on
Speaker 1: young boys and girls who know no different is the
Speaker 1: most unbelievable part of my job. But yeah, couldn't play.
Speaker 1: Stopped playing. And then I often tell a story about
Speaker 1: seeing women training, seenior women training when I was a
Speaker 1: teenager in high school, just next to the children's hospital,
Speaker 1: and I can remember it because it's the first time
Speaker 1: I saw women that weren't young girls actually playing.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, And it just goes to show I
Speaker 2: think that visibility, Like if you can't see someone else
Speaker 2: doing it and imagine yourself in those shoes, you can't
Speaker 2: conceive of yourself having that career. So that moment I've
Speaker 2: heard you speak about it on another podcast, that you
Speaker 2: kind of got out your phone and called your mum
Speaker 2: and were like, girls are playing football, Like yeah, that's.
Speaker 1: How I knew about Snake, And I was glad to
Speaker 1: call my mum on the on the tram home. That's it,
Speaker 1: that's why you would be friends.
Speaker 2: I was like, Snake was an era in itself. When
Speaker 2: you speak to someone it was about Snake, you like,
Speaker 2: we're going to get along. We were alive at that time.
Speaker 2: So then kind of shifting to your focus, you know,
Speaker 2: towards the future. I think one of the not sad
Speaker 2: because it often it sort of lays foundations for things
Speaker 2: later on. But one of the difficult things I think
Speaker 2: that happens in high school is we do like I
Speaker 2: was a ballerina in my first iteration of me, and
Speaker 2: you do kind of start to stop making decisions based
Speaker 2: on what you love and what you're good at and
Speaker 2: what lights you up, and start to think about what's successful,
Speaker 2: what's going to be a respectable career and what should
Speaker 2: I do? You kind of they can marry out, but
Speaker 2: I don't think we often know that at that stage
Speaker 2: of our lives. So when you did start to think
Speaker 2: about law, what do you think guided you into that?
Speaker 2: Was it because it was sensible? I think your mum
Speaker 2: was a lawyer. Were you influenced by that or was
Speaker 2: it just that I can't play footy, I've got to
Speaker 2: do something else.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So interestingly on my mum, she was an academic
Speaker 1: and after she helped me proof free to signments and
Speaker 1: get through my degree, she went back to UNI in
Speaker 1: her fifties and became my life.
Speaker 2: So you started it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Oh, that's amazing her following in my footsteps. Maybe
Speaker 1: I was really interested in studying law. I was really
Speaker 1: interested in the profession. I'm not sure. At the time,
Speaker 1: as a teenager, I was thinking about what's the long
Speaker 1: term career trajectory, but obviously it was a good one.
Speaker 1: So I knew that it was something that if I
Speaker 1: could get into and I could achieve through the back
Speaker 1: end of high school and at UNI, that it would
Speaker 1: set me up for what you would pop in the
Speaker 1: successful career or the possibility to have a successful career
Speaker 1: at the time, having no comprehension of the skills that
Speaker 1: you learn, and you would know this through a law
Speaker 1: degree and even through practicing for a couple of years
Speaker 1: that help you in so many other ways. And the
Speaker 1: problem solving and the advocacy and calmness and the sort
Speaker 1: of the clinical approach sometimes to issues now is something
Speaker 1: you know everyone should do it if they could, or
Speaker 1: because you learned so much. But I really enjoyed practicing.
Speaker 1: I enjoyed it as a career and like I said before,
Speaker 1: I probably would still be doing it if it wasn't
Speaker 1: for this sport. So yeah, I'm not sure it had
Speaker 1: some sense of justice or something happening as a teenager.
Speaker 1: And I don't know if it was older sister syndrome
Speaker 1: or what. Yeah, I all must be right in this way.
Speaker 1: I think it was all heading in one direction.
Speaker 2: Did you face and before we come to sort of
Speaker 2: the big pivot, did you have any family influence over
Speaker 2: that kind of decision making at the time, Because I
Speaker 2: know a lot of people who grow up with families
Speaker 2: like as first generation have sort of this sense of
Speaker 2: I need to make the most of my time here
Speaker 2: or get swayed or feel like you know, you want
Speaker 2: about your parents fright, like was there any influence of
Speaker 2: your family on what you were going to do or
Speaker 2: were they very support.
Speaker 1: They're very supportive. In fact, I can remember as a teenager,
Speaker 1: I remember asking my mum what subjects I should do
Speaker 1: in year twelve and she said, I can't tell you.
Speaker 1: You have to decide, and I remember being upset. I
Speaker 1: remember the conversation and saying, why can't you just tell
Speaker 1: me that it's up to you? Do you make my decisions?
Speaker 1: So you have to decide And so that again, at
Speaker 1: the time, you don't know sort of what that kind
Speaker 1: of guidance does or how it helps you, but it
Speaker 1: does help you. My parents would let us do anything.
Speaker 1: So we had drum kits, we had bass guitars, we
Speaker 1: had footballs, basketballs, We did every random activity you could
Speaker 1: think of, sometimes for a short time, sometimes for a
Speaker 1: long time. But you know, they would drive us around,
Speaker 1: drop us off, said yes to everything. So I'm very
Speaker 1: grateful for that because I think it also in the
Speaker 1: back of your mind, you always think that you can
Speaker 1: because you've never been told no or no one sort
Speaker 1: of stopped you. And I think I could do anything,
Speaker 1: and they would be proud. So I'm lucky.
Speaker 2: I love that my family were very much the same
Speaker 2: and we've had a hobby of all kinds and so
Speaker 2: much equipment and so much commitment to them driving us around.
Speaker 2: And now I'm like, oh, I've got to pay that
Speaker 2: forward as a parent. Oh my goodness. But I think
Speaker 2: it does really influence how you perceive yourself and how
Speaker 2: you perceive trying new things, and your risk tolerance is
Speaker 2: higher because you've tried everything. You know, you've been used
Speaker 2: to sort of trying things and maybe not everything sticks,
Speaker 2: and it's okay to kind of bounce around.
Speaker 1: It's a privilege too. You have to not forget that,
Speaker 1: and we talk about it a lot from community football.
Speaker 1: People are on their own journey and it's not easy
Speaker 1: for everyone. So whatever we can do to create a
Speaker 1: straight line a pathway for people just to play footy
Speaker 1: is what we should try and aspire to because we
Speaker 1: know that off the field, so to speak, is not
Speaker 1: always as easy.
Speaker 2: And I love that the common thread in your career
Speaker 2: seems to have been that you've been incredibly passionate about
Speaker 2: the game and about every aspect of it, but that
Speaker 2: it's always been about more than football. It's been very
Speaker 2: much about the impact you can make and the change
Speaker 2: you can make in people's lives off the field as well,
Speaker 2: which we'll get too, But first let's just touch on
Speaker 2: the legal career, because I didn't know that you'd started
Speaker 2: out as a layern and I did a bit more research,
Speaker 2: and I love that you were also someone who wasn't
Speaker 2: a corporate refugee because you hated it. I think a
Speaker 2: lot of ex lawyers the narrative is it was oppressive.
Speaker 2: I didn't like it. I was making other people money.
Speaker 2: You know, there's so many narratives that come out of
Speaker 2: ex lawyers. And I also actually quite enjoyed practicing. I
Speaker 2: think there were lots of parts of it that were
Speaker 2: really enjoyable, and you were doing incredibly impactful work that started,
Speaker 2: I think in your work experience with Victoria Legal Aid.
Speaker 2: So talk us through working on a commission and what
Speaker 2: it was like to feel like you'd found something that
Speaker 2: you really did like, but then be head hunted and
Speaker 2: pulled in a different direction without looking for it. I
Speaker 2: think that's quite unusual.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I did love it. I felt passionate
Speaker 1: about the work that we were doing. I started at
Speaker 1: a firm called Wala Legal when I was in a
Speaker 1: UNI as a paralegal and interned there throughout and then
Speaker 1: ended up practicing there for a couple of years, and
Speaker 1: that coincided with the Royal Commission, which was incredibly difficult
Speaker 1: and for so many people, such a harrowing time. I
Speaker 1: say that I loved it. I didn't love the stories
Speaker 1: I was listening to. I didn't love the issues we
Speaker 1: were dealing with. I didn't love that people had had
Speaker 1: these lived experiences. But I loved that we could help them,
Speaker 1: or that they felt heard, or that they had advocacy.
Speaker 1: They could be anonymous to receive that help and support,
Speaker 1: and I think that was one of the most important
Speaker 1: parts of the Commission, that even though the subject matter
Speaker 1: was horrific and horrendous, it was really important for people.
Speaker 1: And sometimes people were telling you stories that they'd never
Speaker 1: told anyone. And so I think being young and being
Speaker 1: in that environment taught me so much and so much
Speaker 1: more than I realized at the time. But the firm
Speaker 1: that I was working for was unbelievable, and I just
Speaker 1: I had so much responsibility. But I think we really
Speaker 1: valued that responsibility because it was people's lives I would
Speaker 1: still be doing it if it wasn't, as you said,
Speaker 1: a complete curve ball at the back end of the
Speaker 1: Royal Commission, and certainly not something that I thought I
Speaker 1: would be changing into immediately post that inquiry.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's reassuring for anyone who is in
Speaker 2: law or aiming for law that you know, you do
Speaker 2: hear a lot of stories of people who don't enjoy it,
Speaker 2: but you can make incredibly meaningful, enjoyable careers in law.
Speaker 2: You do not have to leave everyone. And that is
Speaker 2: never what I'm trying to say, just because it turned
Speaker 2: out for us. Obviously, it's not always something you have
Speaker 2: to walk away from. At the time, did you face
Speaker 2: any I think you were very very young to be
Speaker 2: working on something so heavy and with such serious consequences,
Speaker 2: And by contrast, in commercial law, I had a lot
Speaker 2: more leeway to learn and not feel like, you know,
Speaker 2: if I made a mistake, that it was going to
Speaker 2: have such serious consequences. In that context, the term imposter
Speaker 2: syndrome more self doubt is quite different. I think for you,
Speaker 2: did you feel that when you first went into the
Speaker 2: industry and were given so much responsibility on something so
Speaker 2: serious so quickly and how did you cope with that
Speaker 2: feeling of I'm really making a difference in people's lives.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean yes and no. Our principalslicitor was unbelievable,
Speaker 1: and she led all of us and ultimately was responsible
Speaker 1: for what was happening and representing our clients. But sometimes
Speaker 1: you would think, goodness, this is heavy and this is hard.
Speaker 1: But then very quickly would realize that whatever approach I
Speaker 1: was taking, or whatever my natural instinct was in say
Speaker 1: an interview or meeting with a client, was working. And
Speaker 1: I noticed that there felt a sense of calm and safety,
Speaker 1: and that was representative of the firm, not just me.
Speaker 1: But I started to realize that when people are delivering
Speaker 1: really emotional, difficult, stressful, hard information, how you are and
Speaker 1: how you receive it is probably the most important thing.
Speaker 1: And it's not a comparison now, but we also deal
Speaker 1: with very stressful, very difficult, very high pressured situations, just
Speaker 1: completely different topic. And so, to be honest, I'm not
Speaker 1: sure I was old enough to work through im imposter syndrome.
Speaker 1: That probably comes a little bit later you aren't even
Speaker 1: aware I'm enough of it, But I remember reflecting on
Speaker 1: the fact that the way you are and the way
Speaker 1: you receive information, and almost if you can sort of
Speaker 1: click into gear when someone is highly distressed, you can
Speaker 1: navigate situations in a much better way and you can
Speaker 1: sort of put them at ease much more quickly. And
Speaker 1: I think it was the style that I realized worked
Speaker 1: with the support of all of our lawyers and everybody
Speaker 1: else who worked on the cases themselves.
Speaker 2: Yeah, which has obviously set you in very good stead
Speaker 2: for every chapter that came back. In fact, so the
Speaker 2: big sliding doors moment. I often you will be intoviewing
Speaker 2: a guest and they have been sort of trying to
Speaker 2: generate a change or generate a pivot in their life.
Speaker 2: They're looking for some kind of big change, but sometimes
Speaker 2: they fall in your lap. And I think part of
Speaker 2: it is positioning yourself well to always be open to
Speaker 2: the right opportunities. But also there's having a you know,
Speaker 2: I love the word that you said. I think it
Speaker 2: was in League Leaders about professionalizing your hobby, And that's
Speaker 2: something that comes up a lot on this show because
Speaker 2: it works for some people. Some people it doesn't. They
Speaker 2: want their passion to stay their hobby so that it
Speaker 2: doesn't have deliverables and expectations and all that kind of thing.
Speaker 2: For you, it came out of being headhunted. Now that
Speaker 2: is extraordinary. You were in an industry that wasn't related
Speaker 2: to football, but you've been playing football, you'd coach, like,
Speaker 2: how did that all come about? Most of us don't
Speaker 2: even know that football administrators exist, but of course they
Speaker 2: do well.
Speaker 1: I certainly didn't at the time.
Speaker 2: I mean, obviously someone has to run the show, but
Speaker 2: you just don't think about that.
Speaker 1: I was playing footy at Melbourne UNI and coaching at
Speaker 1: Melbourne UNI. We had formed a partnership the women on
Speaker 1: the committee before me and our era, if you like,
Speaker 1: had formed a really great relationship with Northmanelburn Football Club.
Speaker 1: And there's a story that doctor sonyah Hood, who's now
Speaker 1: the president of the club, shares around lots of different
Speaker 1: clubs coming to the North Melbourne Footy Club asking to
Speaker 1: train on the oval Adam Street's amazing.
Speaker 2: You know, we don't have a lot of time there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we don't have enough ovals and would just ask
Speaker 1: for access and our club was the first club to
Speaker 1: ask for access. But also say that the players and
Speaker 1: the women, most of whom were at UNI or studying
Speaker 1: or professionals in their own right would volunteer at the huddle,
Speaker 1: which was not his North Melbourne's community, which is unbelievably
Speaker 1: impactful and so Sonya reflects on that often to say,
Speaker 1: it's the first group of people that said we can
Speaker 1: help you and if you can help us. So we
Speaker 1: were training there. What coincided with that period of time
Speaker 1: was the AFL announcing the AFL W competition and in
Speaker 1: twenty sixteen, I think people thought it would be twenty twenty,
Speaker 1: it would start in twenty twenty, and in twenty sixteen
Speaker 1: Gil announced it for the following year. Was very quick.
Speaker 1: It's a very girl thing to do, but it was
Speaker 1: the best thing. It was the best thing we now
Speaker 1: ever did. And so I got to know the footy
Speaker 1: club in their bid for a license and was meeting
Speaker 1: with their CEO to help put together the application from
Speaker 1: the perspective of the women's club that were most closely
Speaker 1: aligned to North and we had a couple of meetings
Speaker 1: where we were racking our brains trying to work out
Speaker 1: who we would approach to run the program. And I'm
Speaker 1: trying to think of people and one of my very
Speaker 1: good friends who was on the committee and working in
Speaker 1: the huddle at the time, so it was connected to
Speaker 1: these conversations said what about you do it nice? It
Speaker 1: just did never occurred to me, and she also asked
Speaker 1: that question of the CEO. And then fast forward three
Speaker 1: months and I wasn't a lawyer anymore and I was
Speaker 1: walking into a footy club and thought, what have I done?
Speaker 1: I don't know what's happened here. That's also fast, yeah,
Speaker 1: really quick, really really quick, and it was great. It's
Speaker 1: the best thing I ever did. But at the time
Speaker 1: was I think I wore a blazer on my first
Speaker 1: day and realized no one wears and they wear shorts
Speaker 1: and T shirts that are commonly branded. But yeah, it
Speaker 1: was a very big adjustment.
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh my gosh. Well that's I think another thing
Speaker 2: that I'd love to to sort of break down a
Speaker 2: little bit, and that's the decision making process. It's so
Speaker 2: overwhelmingly hard to make decisions that a lot of the
Speaker 2: time in life things aren't mutually exclusive. You can go
Speaker 2: along doing both for as life. And that's my attitude
Speaker 2: is be a yes person. Just say yes to all
Speaker 2: of it, and then you never have to make a decision.
Speaker 2: It's a great method until inevitably one has to be
Speaker 2: full time and one you know you can't keep doing
Speaker 2: both when you love both and you want to say
Speaker 2: yes to both, that's when it gets really hard. It's
Speaker 2: easy if you want to leave Lauren jump, but if
Speaker 2: you don't, necessarily you are walking away from something that
Speaker 2: you've spent a lot of time building reputation and a
Speaker 2: skill set and a life path in your mind. How
Speaker 2: did you decide? Was it like making pros and cons list?
Speaker 2: Was a consulting family and friends? Was it I do
Speaker 2: like a future regret management kind of thing. What will
Speaker 2: myself in fifty years regret or be glad about? What's
Speaker 2: the once in a lifetime opportunity? Did you think that
Speaker 2: far into it? I did, Yeah, I wish it like
Speaker 2: an instinct.
Speaker 1: I don't even do that now, so I should I
Speaker 1: should probably think feather ahead. No, I'm an instinct operator,
Speaker 1: and I often think you can only make the best
Speaker 1: decision that you can make at the time, and so
Speaker 1: when you reflect on decisions, it's usually because you have
Speaker 1: either more time or well, you do have more time,
Speaker 1: but usually it's because you have more information. And so
Speaker 1: I try not to be harder myself for others because
Speaker 1: you can only you would make a better decision if
Speaker 1: you had that information, but you didn't, and so I
Speaker 1: try not to reflect too much backwards. You know, obviously
Speaker 1: you trying to get better. It felt easy at the time.
Speaker 1: It felt easy. I'd played footy with the boys. I
Speaker 1: couldn't play than I could play. I'd played for a
Speaker 1: couple of years. I was on the committee. It was
Speaker 1: what I did for fun. I looked forward to it.
Speaker 1: I would leave work and look forward to going to
Speaker 1: footy training, look forward to go going to games on
Speaker 1: the weekend. It didn't feel like a chore. And so
Speaker 1: when there was an opportunity to do that and get
Speaker 1: paid for it, I thought, well, this feels easy. All
Speaker 1: this feels like an easy decision. But it was daunting
Speaker 1: just from the perspective of no one understood what the
Speaker 1: job was. It's really easy, and you would know this.
Speaker 1: It's really easy to meet people and say I'm a lawyer.
Speaker 1: It's really easy, and they don't even really need to
Speaker 1: know what area or and you know how broad being
Speaker 1: a lawyer is, but it's really easy. It's really hard
Speaker 1: to say I work at Northmaburn Football Club. We didn't
Speaker 1: get an AFLW license. That's why I came to the club.
Speaker 1: So now I look after academies. No, it's not in
Speaker 1: the girls. It's in the boys. Now I'm in Tasmine.
Speaker 1: It's really you need.
Speaker 2: A PowerPoint on like at USB to be like here,
Speaker 2: here's story.
Speaker 1: That's right. And so yes, I just talked to the
Speaker 1: players every day. Yes, I talked to the coaches. People
Speaker 1: don't it didn't understand it the time. So easy decision.
Speaker 1: A little bit hard to navigate early doors when we
Speaker 1: didn't get a license, but it's the best thing that
Speaker 1: happened to us because we had more time to look
Speaker 1: and watch and analyze and do it better the next
Speaker 1: time when we finally did. So. Yeah, very interesting time.
Speaker 2: I mean I can't imagine going from working on a
Speaker 2: royal commission and then just three months later just walking
Speaker 2: in to a job in football, right, yeah, in a
Speaker 2: blazer walking into a gym and a blazer.
Speaker 1: Day what is my job? Was in a T shirt?
Speaker 1: Very quickly shorts.
Speaker 2: Oh my goodness. So I think were you like mid
Speaker 2: twenties around this time, twenty six and that's young as well,
Speaker 2: Oh my goodness. Okay, so this is where a lot
Speaker 2: of people I think would then kind of have that
Speaker 2: self doubt imposter syndrome thing really hit hard. You've changed industries,
Speaker 2: you haven't necessarily gone You've gone to UNI for your
Speaker 2: law degree. I think it's very straightforward how you become
Speaker 2: a lawyer, how you become a job that no one
Speaker 2: knows what that means is not a straightforward and the
Speaker 2: skill set that you need when you don't know what
Speaker 2: the job is is even more complex. When you arrived
Speaker 2: and sort of was, you know, brand new to this
Speaker 2: whole environment, how did you feel any self doubt? Firstly,
Speaker 2: how did you cope with like the quick upskilling? What
Speaker 2: was your did you have mentors? I think that's a
Speaker 2: big change leaving the law as you go from having
Speaker 2: a senior associate a partner, like there's such a clear
Speaker 2: hierarchy of knowledge. And then in most industries outside of
Speaker 2: it is not a structured necessarily, especially not when you're
Speaker 2: like president. You know you're very senior from the beginning.
Speaker 2: How did you navigate it?
Speaker 1: I remember the first week I said to my manager
Speaker 1: in my old job, we would have quite regular supervision.
Speaker 1: Was a regular part of your week? And I said,
Speaker 1: so can we meet twice a week, and I remember
Speaker 1: him just looking at me saying, probably not. We're probably
Speaker 1: not doing that here. That's a no. But the big
Speaker 1: things that exist in a footy club that I wish
Speaker 1: every organization in the world adopted. It's a team, so
Speaker 1: you're part of it. You are literally part of a team,
Speaker 1: and everyone is trying to work together to achieve the
Speaker 1: same thing, which is win, have a good culture, run
Speaker 1: a good program, create good people. And so straight away
Speaker 1: we're moving into an environment, a team environment. You feel
Speaker 1: supported regardless of your job. At that point, I'm now
Speaker 1: wearing all the same colors as them in the uniform.
Speaker 2: You'd grown into the ditch. Nice. But that's step one
Speaker 2: in dropping the MPOs.
Speaker 1: The other superpower that I see our players have is
Speaker 1: their ability to give and receive feedback. And it is
Speaker 1: completely understated because I don't know of any other industry
Speaker 1: in the world that every single day, every minute of
Speaker 1: the day, every meeting, every clip, every minute of a
Speaker 1: game is how do we do this better? How do
Speaker 1: we get better, how do we win? How do we
Speaker 1: overcome this adversity? And so it was a really safe
Speaker 1: place to not really know what you were doing, because
Speaker 1: they wanted you to succeed, they being the club. More broadly,
Speaker 1: they wanted me to succeed. Once you're in, you're part
Speaker 1: of the team. And the environment was one that I
Speaker 1: was used to, which was robust feedback that never ends,
Speaker 1: which is my family in a professional capacity. So I
Speaker 1: say to players now all the time, when you're going
Speaker 1: for job interviews or you're meeting with people after football,
Speaker 1: that is the one thing, outside of being the most
Speaker 1: punctual organized people on the planet, you have a superpower
Speaker 1: that other people would love to have, or love in
Speaker 1: their business, or love in their environment. So I could
Speaker 1: work it out, and I quickly realized too, that the
Speaker 1: approach is really important. It's a high pressure situation with
Speaker 1: a lot of scrutiny, So being calm and trying to
Speaker 1: be pragmatic and receiving that pressure and sort of providing
Speaker 1: a calm answer or being as thoughtful as I could worked.
Speaker 1: And it was the same kind of environment, just really
Speaker 1: different subject matter.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Oh my gosh, I love that. The transition was
Speaker 2: really really positive.
Speaker 1: It was really good.
Speaker 2: Any breakdowns along the way or probably.
Speaker 1: There were so many. There were so many good times.
Speaker 1: We had a lot of change and a lot of
Speaker 1: hard times at North Melbourne. I learned a lot from
Speaker 1: that too, a lot of change in leadership, and that's
Speaker 1: often what people reflect on us. Really hard moments. We
Speaker 1: had hard off field moments, We had hard people moments.
Speaker 1: But you just learn from them and try to take
Speaker 1: what you can and it helps you know. When I
Speaker 1: got to the AFL, it wasn't a short time later.
Speaker 1: We had a leadership change, and I watched some people
Speaker 1: react in a particular way because it creates uncertainty, and
Speaker 1: rightly or wrongly, I was used to it North Melbourne,
Speaker 1: and so you learn a set of skills that you
Speaker 1: wouldn't otherwise learn unless you lived it. Footy clubs are
Speaker 1: an unbelievable place. They're so good, they're so much fun,
Speaker 1: are so supportive, and they all want to do the
Speaker 1: same thing. They want to win, and it's an amazing
Speaker 1: thing to experience and be part of.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, well, how special to have made a
Speaker 2: move into something that you've loved for so long and
Speaker 2: that didn't seem like it was on the cards to
Speaker 2: be part of your future. To then have just jumped back,
Speaker 2: sort of done this full circle, backhead first into it.
Speaker 2: And I love that when you were born. I think
Speaker 2: it was you were born across the road from the
Speaker 2: mcg and you were held up to the window and said, like,
Speaker 2: we hear something about Collingwood winning, but.
Speaker 1: Collin would win a premiership here in three months.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then old yeah yeah, And then to see
Speaker 2: you then sort of now head of the football in
Speaker 2: the country, you know, is just really special and extraordinary.
Speaker 2: But as you mentioned, like footy clubs are such an
Speaker 2: exciting place to be, but where or used to watching
Speaker 2: them from the outside. We kind of come to the
Speaker 2: game at the end of the process of all the
Speaker 2: things that have happened pre season, like in the off season,
Speaker 2: and then you know, making it to actually game round
Speaker 2: one to sort of get to the finale. Can you
Speaker 2: talk us through the roles that you had from is
Speaker 2: it Muggers? Is that what they call it?
Speaker 1: You can call it that. That's the cool name? Is
Speaker 1: that the call? Is that the core name Melbourn Girls
Speaker 1: Aussie Rules squad.
Speaker 2: Oh, is that where I can start?
Speaker 1: So Muggers?
Speaker 2: Yeah, So from Muggers andrel Krune that I use.
Speaker 1: That she will too and Muggers run very good.
Speaker 2: And then getting the AFLW license and then sort of
Speaker 2: being part of that really foundational for years of the
Speaker 2: AFLW and then moving into into the AFL like talk
Speaker 2: us through your roles and what they were as you
Speaker 2: kind of change because we don't know. Yeah people, I
Speaker 2: think that same visibility thing. Other people won't know they
Speaker 2: could have this job in the future if they don't
Speaker 2: know what it is.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So North Melbourne I started in the boys academy space.
Speaker 1: We'd missed a license for the AFIW competition, but we
Speaker 1: I still looked after women's footy and that was the
Speaker 1: relationship with the Muggers malwourn UNI, and then relatively quickly
Speaker 1: moved into a football operations role, which a lot of
Speaker 1: people aspire to do and people, particularly in the sports
Speaker 1: administration stream which I wasn't as familiar with, aspire to
Speaker 1: do those jobs. And they're really really hard jobs and
Speaker 1: really good jobs. So football operations for the men's and
Speaker 1: then that just started to expand through my time at
Speaker 1: North Melbourne, so we went standalone in our state league program.
Speaker 1: In the men's we'd had the relationship with Melbourne UNI,
Speaker 1: so I got experience setting up programs and clubs and
Speaker 1: teams for the first time. We then did the same
Speaker 1: with AFLW and that was a really enjoyable experience. We
Speaker 1: went a bit wild recruiting players and got players from
Speaker 1: everywhere and it was a lot of fun. But I
Speaker 1: learned a lot of things. Being able to work in
Speaker 1: the men's program as we were setting up these other
Speaker 1: programs helped, and I probably realized that the unlock to
Speaker 1: doing something like afiw WOW was making sure the boys
Speaker 1: were integrated and on board and understanding of the importance.
Speaker 1: So we had players involved in our list recruiting, list
Speaker 1: management and acquisition of players, which was really cool. It
Speaker 1: was really really good, and they got very competitive when
Speaker 1: we challenged them to go and get the best players
Speaker 1: from other teams.
Speaker 2: It's like fantasy football, but like you get to real life.
Speaker 1: Were going to play. We were in contact just a
Speaker 1: few months ago when the girls played in their grand final.
Speaker 1: One of the boys is still at the club, but
Speaker 1: the rest of them moved on to different clubs or
Speaker 1: different programs or different careers, but we stayed connected over
Speaker 1: building that team. So yeah, football operations at the back
Speaker 1: end of North Melbourne. It moved into more broader club strategy,
Speaker 1: which I really enjoyed and exposed me to a whole
Speaker 1: heap of other things across the consumer, commercial, membership, media realms,
Speaker 1: but always had a big interest in football, so looked
Speaker 1: at the strategy around list management and recruiting and acquisition
Speaker 1: of players and how do you build a team that
Speaker 1: can win. At that time in the Boys, we needed
Speaker 1: to rebuild and at the time in the Girls we
Speaker 1: were trying to win one. So we're in really different phases.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you were doing both, just doing both all
Speaker 2: at the same time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we're redeveloping the facility. So I got a lot
Speaker 1: of really great opportunities to get experiences in all different
Speaker 1: parts of running a footy club, and then joined the
Speaker 1: AFL in twenty twenty one, where that sort of all
Speaker 1: came together from a competition management perspective.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Oh my gosh, So how did that shift happen?
Speaker 2: Because I think one of the things that you mentioned
Speaker 2: in one of the podcasts was that there's often a
Speaker 2: negative connotation around switching from AFLW to men like women's
Speaker 2: to men's or men's to women's, and that you said
Speaker 2: it as a really positive thing. But was that a
Speaker 2: shift you were looking at. Was it something that you
Speaker 2: like in your growth at the level of your career,
Speaker 2: you wanted to move to a new position. How did
Speaker 2: the change happen?
Speaker 1: I was at North. The CEO at the time said,
Speaker 1: as a people leader, as a manager, you should always
Speaker 1: buyer to make yourself redundant, so you should always push
Speaker 1: your staff. And then I might have done a pretty
Speaker 1: good job of that because I didn't really know what
Speaker 1: my job was going to be and made it up.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was ready.
Speaker 1: I even have handed over all of these things and
Speaker 1: now I don't really know what I'm supposed to do.
Speaker 1: But it was a good thing because we were able
Speaker 1: to develop our young staff. I think the shift to
Speaker 1: the AFL was twofold. I was feeling like I could
Speaker 1: contribute more to the broader competition. And I've had a
Speaker 1: pretty good experience at North for nearly seven years, learning
Speaker 1: about how the programs run and how to set them
Speaker 1: up and so on. But I was also at the
Speaker 1: time the AFL were running women's leadership program called JENW
Speaker 1: and it was for a small group of women in
Speaker 1: the industry, all parts of the industry. But a part
Speaker 1: of that program was that you were assigned a sponsor,
Speaker 1: so not a mentor, but a sponsor. Senior males and
Speaker 1: females in the industry, and it was quite coordinated and organized,
Speaker 1: so your relationship with your sponsor was mapped out and
Speaker 1: the questions that you would talk about in your meetings
Speaker 1: were prepared. And over the year I found that being
Speaker 1: in an environment like that helps extract so much more
Speaker 1: advice and good conversation than just sort of the networking
Speaker 1: coffee fee. Yeah, and so my sponsor was Andrew Dillon,
Speaker 1: So it's probably not a surprise now he's been you know,
Speaker 1: I've been in his team the whole time I've been
Speaker 1: at the AFL, but that transition was made much easier
Speaker 1: moving into his team when he looked after football.
Speaker 2: And I think that's a great point as well, that
Speaker 2: the networking coffee is something that I'm a big proponent of.
Speaker 2: It can lead you to relationships you don't even need
Speaker 2: to go into it thinking that you know what you
Speaker 2: want to get out of it. I think always networking
Speaker 2: before you need it is a really it will stand
Speaker 2: you in good stead because you know, the more contacts
Speaker 2: you have, the better place you are, I think to
Speaker 2: achieve whatever you want to. But having conversations that are
Speaker 2: structured and with particular people that have planned you know,
Speaker 2: you do get a lot more out of it. And
Speaker 2: also there are pivotal people at every junction along your career.
Speaker 2: I think that guide you towards the next thing that
Speaker 2: you're going to do. What would you say to anyone
Speaker 2: from the outside who wants to kind of follow in
Speaker 2: your footsteps about positioning themselves to kind of end up?
Speaker 2: You've gone from being outside of football altogether to like
Speaker 2: the top role in the whole league. How did you
Speaker 2: position yourself? Was it networking coffees outside of the mentors
Speaker 2: that you had inside the league? Was it people outside
Speaker 2: of football?
Speaker 3: Like?
Speaker 2: How were you constantly kind of working yourself towards this
Speaker 2: and were you working yourself towards it? Did you sort
Speaker 2: of want that top position or was it just kept coming?
Speaker 2: These opportunities just kept presenting themselves.
Speaker 1: Obviously was thoughtful around the path that I would take,
Speaker 1: but probably the opportunities kept coming, And so I reflect
Speaker 1: on why did that happen? Or why did the opportunities
Speaker 1: keep coming? It's not a role I didn't aspire to.
Speaker 1: It's just that I didn't think it would be possible
Speaker 1: and the time frame or available. I think you to
Speaker 1: go back a step, if you know working in our industry.
Speaker 1: There are unbelievable people with decades and decades and decades
Speaker 1: of experience, and the most common story if you speak
Speaker 1: to someone in a football department, they all start at
Speaker 1: community football. Everyone has a community club. Everyone has had
Speaker 1: some experience with state leagues, everyone has had some experience
Speaker 1: with clubland. And that's slow and hard, and that's the
Speaker 1: part that I think can be glossed over. And people
Speaker 1: sort of coming in in leadership positions are certainly possible,
Speaker 1: and we're always looking at ways we can bring people
Speaker 1: from outside the industry in for new ideas. I've done
Speaker 1: a lot of work. More than fifty percent of our
Speaker 1: obsenior leaders are women now in our industry, and it's
Speaker 1: something that you know. It's up from sixteen percent in
Speaker 1: twenty eighteen. It's a huge jump. That's hush so AFIW
Speaker 1: has done unbelievable things for our industry, for women in
Speaker 1: our industry. But I think you still have to do
Speaker 1: the hard yards. And it helps you because do you
Speaker 1: understand at the end of the road, how it's all connected.
Speaker 1: We're in the really fortunate position to look after everything
Speaker 1: from OZ kick. The first time you know a young
Speaker 1: child picks up the footy and plays. I was kick
Speaker 1: all the way through to you can be Andrew Dillon
Speaker 1: and the CEO of the AFL and where responsible for
Speaker 1: all of it. And I think that's also a privilege
Speaker 1: and something that we take seriously. But I sort of
Speaker 1: focused on just do your job really well, the job
Speaker 1: that you have, what's right in front of you. And
Speaker 1: we used to say it when we're volunteering on the
Speaker 1: committee at Melbourne UNI, but do your job one hundred percent,
Speaker 1: you know, well before you start looking at other things
Speaker 1: or or trying to get involved in other stuff for
Speaker 1: changing jobs. And I've taken that approach. I've tried to
Speaker 1: think differently about things, tried to bring a different lens,
Speaker 1: and over the journey in you know, nearly a decade now,
Speaker 1: it's worked and people really relelnded to it and people
Speaker 1: who have found that alternate perspective helpful. So we last
Speaker 1: on this. But my team often talk about I think
Speaker 1: good leadership is that you're consistent and that you are
Speaker 1: predictable in the way that you respond behave think But
Speaker 1: I think ideas should be unpredictable, so you should know
Speaker 1: lots about lots of different things. You should throw in
Speaker 1: different ideas about different sports. You should challenge conversations with ideas,
Speaker 1: and have a predictability in the way that you behave
Speaker 1: and that you respond and your approach and that you
Speaker 1: treat people, but be totally unpredictable with ideas and picture thinking.
Speaker 1: And yeah, so yeah, I think style has worked for me.
Speaker 2: I think that's so interesting because often most of us
Speaker 2: struggle with quite quite a bit. Is that tension between
Speaker 2: ambition for more while also sort of still performing in
Speaker 2: where you are, and people have a lot of trouble
Speaker 2: accepting well I do anyway, is sometimes I'm really enjoying
Speaker 2: where I am, but I also I want to be better,
Speaker 2: and like you're always striving for more and what's the
Speaker 2: next thing? And our heads spend a lot of time
Speaker 2: like projecting into the future. But then I think that's
Speaker 2: really good advice is also just the job that you're in,
Speaker 2: Like do it one hundred percent and learn everything you
Speaker 2: can in it, and you don't always need to be
Speaker 2: like what's next, what's next? And we've become so inst
Speaker 2: gratuity focused that I think we all want to get
Speaker 2: to the end really quickly. But those hard yards are
Speaker 2: where you learned, you've done every role in the chain
Speaker 2: that you now coordinate, and that I'm sure gives you
Speaker 2: an insight that you wouldn't have had if you kind
Speaker 2: of just come in that's right and gone.
Speaker 1: Straight to the top. That's right.
Speaker 2: And there's something to be said for time, like laying
Speaker 2: down the time, just.
Speaker 1: Being content and you know, for a while then football
Speaker 1: operations was my job, and it was getting the players
Speaker 1: from A to B and communicating with them. And it
Speaker 1: can feel relatively straightforward, but find the best most efficient
Speaker 1: way you can do it. Get information to people as
Speaker 1: quickly as you can. So just challenge yourself, even within
Speaker 1: the job that you're doing, to do it as well
Speaker 1: as you possibly can. Because people take notice. Yeah I do.
Speaker 1: I take notice of team members who do that.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely. So, speaking of taking notice from a workplace perspective,
Speaker 2: I think there's a lot of conversation, particularly for women,
Speaker 2: around asking for things when you do want the promotion,
Speaker 2: or you do want to pay rise, or you do
Speaker 2: feel like you've reached one hundred percent or one hundred
Speaker 2: and ten percent or a hundred fifty percent of what
Speaker 2: you're doing, and then it isn't getting noticed or you
Speaker 2: aren't sort of getting propelled towards where you might want
Speaker 2: to go. And you've faced an extra layer of being
Speaker 2: not just a woman in an industry where when you
Speaker 2: were coming up in the nineties there were no females
Speaker 2: pretty much in the AFL, and being a young female
Speaker 2: adds a whole nother layer to the grounds for skepticism
Speaker 2: or for criticism, or for people just not believing that
Speaker 2: you can do it. What's your advice to other women
Speaker 2: in football, but then other women in any industry, and
Speaker 2: anyone in an industry where they're going into something where
Speaker 2: there's a chance that you know, they'll face obstacles, doubt,
Speaker 2: or maybe even people actively trying to not support you
Speaker 2: to get there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a really good question. I get asked this
Speaker 1: a lot. And sometimes you have to put the blinkers on,
Speaker 1: is what I'll say. And sometimes you have to block
Speaker 1: out too much noise. But if you reflect on the
Speaker 1: fact that you don't often hire yourself, so someone else
Speaker 1: has put you in a position, or other people have
Speaker 1: decided that you are capable, and you should remember that.
Speaker 1: And I think that's often glossed over that you get
Speaker 1: a position, but you have to someone had to hire
Speaker 1: you to get the position. Yeah, unless're running your own business.
Speaker 1: So take comfort in people who would seemingly have more
Speaker 1: senior roles than you or with different levels of responsibility,
Speaker 1: have backed you in. And don't forget that because that's
Speaker 1: ultimately why you're there, because they think you can do it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and they will be responsible for what you do, so
Speaker 1: they wouldn't put you there if they didn't think that
Speaker 1: you could do it, you'd hope. Yeah. So that but
Speaker 1: I think is really important and often forgotten very quickly,
Speaker 1: and you go to everyone else and what will everyone
Speaker 1: else think? And don't you know, think too much about
Speaker 1: the people who who got you there to begin with.
Speaker 1: I think you can only do what you can do,
Speaker 1: and I think I love working with our clubs, and
Speaker 1: I love it because they know I've done it and
Speaker 1: they know that I've worked in pretty tricky club environments.
Speaker 1: You know, take programs that are successful, programs that are
Speaker 1: unsuccessful on the field, I mean, and sort of have
Speaker 1: the experience of what it's like to, you know, have
Speaker 1: the grind of a footy program that's not winning. So
Speaker 1: I don't day to day with all of the people
Speaker 1: that I talk to, feel that and you know, we
Speaker 1: navigate issues as a team, and we work together and
Speaker 1: we challenge each other, and you can pretty quickly forget
Speaker 1: what your gender is or your age. The only other
Speaker 1: thing I'll say to it is I sit in a
Speaker 1: lot of meetings where I'm the demographic that we're trying
Speaker 1: that we're talking about. And so I sit in a
Speaker 1: lot of meetings around our comms and our messaging, and
Speaker 1: you know, our fans and a lot of focuses on
Speaker 1: young fans, and you know, we are appealing to everyone,
Speaker 1: and in particular, are we appealing to the next generation,
Speaker 1: the next generation that have children, the next generation that
Speaker 1: don't that the kids themselves, And so don't forget that
Speaker 1: being young and being in young relative terms and being
Speaker 1: in positions of power is somewhat of a superpower.
Speaker 2: I was going to say it, it's a superpower.
Speaker 1: So, and I think having different perspectives gender, you know,
Speaker 1: inclusive representation, age, you make better decisions. And I think
Speaker 1: businesses know that now, organizations know that. And our game
Speaker 1: is the national game for the entire country. And the
Speaker 1: entire country is made up of lots of different people
Speaker 1: from lots of different places who identify all differently. So
Speaker 1: I think it helps us as a team from an
Speaker 1: AFL perspective, and I think for anyone second guessing themselves.
Speaker 1: Just think about the stuff you're good at. That is
Speaker 1: one thing I learned at the footy club. Think about
Speaker 1: what your superpowers are, and think about what you're good
Speaker 1: at and what you bring to the team, and don't
Speaker 1: worry about the ten things that you can't do because
Speaker 1: other people can do those instead.
Speaker 2: Oh that's such a good one. When you first were appointed,
Speaker 2: were you met with any skepticism or were there any
Speaker 2: reactions that surprised you or or even actually any kind
Speaker 2: of at any stage along the way, was there anyone
Speaker 2: who's like, this is a young woman in a very
Speaker 2: male dominated industry. Did you ever find that or feel
Speaker 2: that or has it not sort of been your experience.
Speaker 1: I'd certainly come up. But you know, I've done interviews
Speaker 1: where people will say you're female and you're young, and
Speaker 1: I'm thinking, I literally wrote down your female and as
Speaker 1: a young female, did you underlie it? It's in literally capitalist,
Speaker 1: But I just take it as it's interesting to people.
Speaker 1: It's interesting to people that you might be different to
Speaker 1: what they expect, or you might be different to the
Speaker 1: person before you, or you might be different to the
Speaker 1: person after you, or whatever it is, but don't take
Speaker 1: offense to it. I think great, there's lots of young
Speaker 1: females now that look at it and think, wow, I
Speaker 1: could do that too, or in my chosen career, maybe
Speaker 1: I don't have to wait ten years, or maybe I
Speaker 1: can bring a different perspective to this job or this organization,
Speaker 1: and maybe we can just think differently about the benefit
Speaker 1: of having people who are different, which we certainly do
Speaker 1: every single day at the AFL. So yeah, some resistant,
Speaker 1: some people a little bit, you know, asking questions, but
Speaker 1: mostly it comes from a place of curiosity. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: they don't. They just want to know how it all happened.
Speaker 1: Then they very quickly want to talk about holding the
Speaker 1: ball and score review and all the fun stuff. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I think it is because we do make assumptions because
Speaker 2: it's there's been such rapid change, which is so positive.
Speaker 2: But I think because we all remember a time when
Speaker 2: you weren't allowed to play past twelve, that that same
Speaker 2: woman in just one ten year block could now be
Speaker 2: at the top. I think there's this presumption that you're
Speaker 2: in this stuffy boardrooms with old man and that it's
Speaker 2: amazing that it hasn't been that way and that there
Speaker 2: has been such rapid change, which is yeah, really really exciting.
Speaker 2: But if you aren't doing that in like stuff boardrooms,
Speaker 2: what are you doing? What is the day to day?
Speaker 2: I can imagine it's very high pressure being so senior.
Speaker 2: Do you get downtime? Like do you have really long hours?
Speaker 2: Are you in an office? Like what's the kind of
Speaker 2: day to day of running the AFL.
Speaker 1: We have a lot of fun, Like it helps when
Speaker 1: you've got Joel Salwood and Aaron Phillips working in our
Speaker 1: football department, So they had a footy, they'd probably be
Speaker 1: kicking it to each other in the hallway. It is
Speaker 1: a lot of fun.
Speaker 2: Do you have playing meetings?
Speaker 1: Like do you suld't? We've got enough past players that
Speaker 1: could help us. We actually had a AFL nine's competition
Speaker 1: at work, and I think the football department had an
Speaker 1: unfair advantage because we have three hundred gamers and you know,
Speaker 1: best and fairest winners and all Australians and anyway, we
Speaker 1: have a lot of fun. My week looks different every week.
Speaker 1: I try to spend as much time as I can
Speaker 1: out at the clubs. I try to meet with as
Speaker 1: many people as I can and from the clubs. We
Speaker 1: obviously have all of the usual executive meetings and all
Speaker 1: of the stuff that happens in the office, but we
Speaker 1: also go to the footy a lot. That's worked too,
Speaker 1: even though it doesn't feel like it, but I think
Speaker 1: making sure throughout the whole week we're thinking about how
Speaker 1: we can work with our clubs as best as possible,
Speaker 1: but also what do our fans want and how do
Speaker 1: we make sure the game is exciting for them. So
Speaker 1: we spend a lot of time analyzing the game, the rules,
Speaker 1: making sure we umpire the game as best as possible,
Speaker 1: and I'm really thinking about everything. Yeah, and we run AFL.
Speaker 1: We run AFLW VFL VFLW, which is you know in
Speaker 1: the VFL and East Coast Stately competition. We run the
Speaker 1: Coats League, so our team will run onenty ten games
Speaker 1: this year. So it's a big operation, oh, with a
Speaker 1: lot of people. But yeah, it is a lot of
Speaker 1: fun and we do get downtime though we're really thoughtful
Speaker 1: about making sure people are well and trying to find
Speaker 1: times in the week. So a few of us at
Speaker 1: work just of learning how to play golf. So that's
Speaker 1: fun at the driving range on a Tuesday night, so nice.
Speaker 1: It's yeah, you just have to make the most. But
Speaker 1: my friends and family for fun go to the footy,
Speaker 1: So I go with them and sit in the crowd
Speaker 1: with them and enjoy it.
Speaker 2: It's one of those things about professionalizing your hobby is
Speaker 2: I think then the only downside is that you lose
Speaker 2: that kind of unincumbent ability to just watch a game
Speaker 2: and not be constantly analyzing everything about your job towards
Speaker 2: that game. So do you replace that? Like how do
Speaker 2: you get your yay?
Speaker 1: Now?
Speaker 2: What football did for you when it was just your hobby.
Speaker 2: What are you doing outside of the game? Are you
Speaker 2: still data analyzing on dating apps? Or like what are
Speaker 2: you doing for my golf? Getting a handicapped out?
Speaker 1: Like what are you doing? Not even close to that?
Speaker 1: Four weeks?
Speaker 2: There is time.
Speaker 1: With graduation from our beginner's class last week. I still
Speaker 1: love watching footy, and I sometimes I watch it at
Speaker 1: home just so I can feel like a fan. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because I obviously won't be jumping out of my seat
Speaker 1: or cheering unless the umpires do something really well in
Speaker 1: a game. So I still try to watch the game
Speaker 1: as a fan and enjoy it and forget. I was
Speaker 1: at dinner with my friends once and the footy was
Speaker 1: on in the background and there was a really good
Speaker 1: mark and they panned to the coach's box. The coaches
Speaker 1: were smiling and my friends were saying, Oh, that's such
Speaker 1: a good such a good mark, and I looked and said, oh,
Speaker 1: they don't have their accreditation on. And I thought, that's
Speaker 1: what you're looking at, and that I've got to reset here.
Speaker 1: I have to. So when I'm there, I'm watching the
Speaker 1: way the game's being played. The umpire is what's happening.
Speaker 1: But I do try to find joy in it because
Speaker 1: I still love it. I still love going to the footy.
Speaker 1: I love watching the fans get out of their seat.
Speaker 1: And our job is to try and make it as
Speaker 1: good as possible for them and get it as right
Speaker 1: as possible, and we don't always do that, but we
Speaker 1: have to keep trying, ying and the passion that can
Speaker 1: very quickly sometimes turn into pressure and scrutinies because they
Speaker 1: love it, Yeah, they absolutely love it and it is
Speaker 1: their fun, pastime, hobby, connection with their family. And so
Speaker 1: if they've got something to say about the umpires. I mean,
Speaker 1: so they should, yeah, because it's their game.
Speaker 2: Thinking about the accreditation that that's fine.
Speaker 1: My friend said, you've got to reflect on on life.
Speaker 1: Take a cold, hard look at yourself. Laura, No, just
Speaker 1: enjoy the mark. So okay, okay, So you just got
Speaker 1: to catch.
Speaker 2: Yourself and what's your take then on work life balance,
Speaker 2: and particularly as a female. I think there's a whole
Speaker 2: different set of considerations around downtime and our cycles and
Speaker 2: family and starting families and is the off season when
Speaker 2: you go traveling?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Are you playing golf? Are you reading netflick? Do you
Speaker 2: binge TV?
Speaker 3: Like?
Speaker 2: What's your switching off your brain?
Speaker 1: I think my approach, and I know everyone's different. I
Speaker 1: know people to be you know, successful or you know,
Speaker 1: operate at a level that works for them. Everyone is different.
Speaker 1: I think for me what works is living and working
Speaker 1: at the same time and trying not to find these
Speaker 1: big moments of switching off. And I say that because
Speaker 1: if you don't get that moment or something comes up,
Speaker 1: my job is unpredictable, Like I can't control what will happen.
Speaker 1: I can't control if the lights turn off in the
Speaker 1: middle of a game.
Speaker 2: And that did happen in the shower. No, I can't
Speaker 2: control that.
Speaker 1: So if you are looking for these big blocks of
Speaker 1: time that you you know, hours or days that you're off,
Speaker 1: it's not realistic. And then I think often you spend
Speaker 1: time being hard on yourself that you didn't get that block.
Speaker 1: And so for me, it's just trying to live and
Speaker 1: work at the same time. Do it all fit it in,
Speaker 1: be available, be as calm and well as you can be,
Speaker 1: so when things do kick off, you're in a better
Speaker 1: place to deal with them. And then it's you know,
Speaker 1: our team we block out, you know, twelve to one
Speaker 1: every day, we have lunch at the same time, no
Speaker 1: meetings ever. Wow, it's really good because you just reset yourself.
Speaker 1: You know that you've got time day to day and
Speaker 1: it's cumulative and it just adds up if you don't
Speaker 1: look after yourself. So, you know, Fridays we try to
Speaker 1: take it as easy as we can do stuff like this.
Speaker 1: Be so lucky because the weekend's big and busy, and
Speaker 1: we've got the practice matches this weekend, we've got Opening
Speaker 1: Round next week, and we'll have football every single weekend
Speaker 1: until the second week of December. So wee weekends.
Speaker 2: Of course we have.
Speaker 1: To find you know, our work is when everybody else
Speaker 1: is having time off. So I just try to find
Speaker 1: the moments, try to find time for the driving range. Now,
Speaker 1: apparently I'll follow your Yeah, I think I've overstated my
Speaker 1: ability already. You need a golf and name too. I've
Speaker 1: invited myself to corporate golf days. I can't even hit No,
Speaker 1: you can't even hit off the t. So anyway, maybe.
Speaker 2: All post there's a passion project that's right.
Speaker 1: So you just have to make it work. And there
Speaker 1: are all the pressures, particularly for women and for me.
Speaker 1: I'm acutely aware, particularly of women in our department who
Speaker 1: come back from parentally eve and what does that look
Speaker 1: like when we have variables in what we do and
Speaker 1: things kick off when we can't control them. But they
Speaker 1: have things, and so do the guys in our department too.
Speaker 1: We've got primary care as different days of the week
Speaker 1: and part time staff who look after their kids on
Speaker 1: other days. But you just have to be really mindful
Speaker 1: because there is no option. You have to pick kids
Speaker 1: up from school, drop them off, care for them, and
Speaker 1: so we try to make all of that work, you know,
Speaker 1: with the lights turning off at the same thing.
Speaker 2: You're managing a lot of things all at once, but
Speaker 2: you seem to be just an extraordinary human being. And
Speaker 2: if I was to ever not work for myself, I
Speaker 2: feel like I would love to work for you. Thank
Speaker 2: you so much for your time and for everything you
Speaker 2: were doing with the game. It is just I mean,
Speaker 2: it's so hard to explain to anyone oversees what AFL
Speaker 2: means to Australians. It really it's like been part of
Speaker 2: all of our lives. It's part of so many there
Speaker 2: are so many formative moments and memories that we all
Speaker 2: have in the game, and increasingly women's involvement is just
Speaker 2: so exciting where football is going for a bigger participating
Speaker 2: nation now and you've really spearheaded so much of that.
Speaker 2: So thank you, congratulations and thank you so much.
Speaker 1: Thank you for having me. Well.
Speaker 2: I think you can all see why I am utterly
Speaker 2: obsessed with Laura Kane. What an absolute powerhouse but still
Speaker 2: so relaxed and fun and articulate and impressive all at once.
Speaker 2: Like I said, we couldn't have picked a better guest
Speaker 2: for a conversation Around International Women's Day, we should, of
Speaker 2: course celebrate what it means to be a woman every day,
Speaker 2: but it's always so lovely to have a marked occasion
Speaker 2: to have conversations like these. As always, please do share
Speaker 2: the episode if you enjoyed it. It means so much
Speaker 2: to help spread the neighborhood as far and wide as possible.
Speaker 2: In the meantime, I hope you are having an amazing
Speaker 2: week and are seizing your ya
Speaker 3: Mhm.