Community
15 April, 2024
Board roles buck trend
FOUR women are defying the norm on a board of directors in Cairns.
As the Far North celebrates diversity with five female mayors after the March elections – in Cairns, Douglas shire, Cassowary Coast, Mareeba and Cook shire – so too is Terrain NRM. Of its seven-member board, four are women, including three who took part in their ‘emerging leader’ program.
Almost 70 per cent of directors on Australian boards are males and their average age is 60.
When the Terrain NRM board came up with the emerging leader program in 2018, the youngest board member was in his 50s and six out of seven directors were male.
Five years later, four directors are in their 30s and the board is made up of four women and three men.
Former chairman Keith Noble said directors could see there was “untapped leadership talent in the region”.
“While we recognised that youth were our region’s future, the board had very little engagement with the younger generation at the time,” he said.
Since 2018, three of the board’s six emerging leaders program have become Terrain NRM directors. Lucy Friend is an environmental scientist and North Queensland Airport’s environmental manager, and this year she became a deputy chairwoman on the board.
“Young people have a lot to contribute and they want to be involved in decision-making, but we don’t often get the opportunity to sit at the boardroom table as colleagues,” she said.
“This program gave me the growth I needed to become an effective director, and it has also given me a strong foundation for further growth. I will be more effective in my profession as an environmental scientist too, because I have a better understanding of how organisational structures work and how decisions are made.”
Daniela Matheus-Holland is the board’s latest ‘emerging leader’, and an ecologist with the Australian Wildlife Conservancy.
She said the role was “a unique opportunity to contribute to the industry in a different way”. “It’s also an incredible opportunity for professional development and growth. Board positions don’t usually open up at this stage in careers.”
The other two are research manager Zsuzsa Banhalmi-Zakarand and digital ag consultant Kara-Glen Worth.
