Dawn Casey - Museum WA
Dawn Casey
CEO of Museum WA
Two-and-a-half years in the role
WABN: What is the best piece of advice you can give someone to motivate a team?
DC: “Regardless of what they do, if you are a CEO you have to have a vision for your area that is inspiring, and keep the focus on it. You must identify milestones along the way and ask people to communicate their key issues and achievements. Working in government department can be bureaucratic but even in that you can make improvements and make sure that people know they are part of a bigger team and can make a difference.”
WABN: What was the most challenging event in your career?
DC: “The most challenging time in my career was when I was director of the National Museum of Australia. My contract was up in December 2002 and two weeks before I was advised the government was going to give me a further contract for one year. My biggest concern was about the staff, I wanted to make sure they feel safe about the situation, focusing on the operations and keep it successful, and making it good for any new director coming.”
WABN: What’s best measurement of your performance; can you name a highlight in your career?
DC: “Building the National Museum of Australia and being responsible for the design and construction of it. We used a contracting method called alliancing. This method is used in the resources sector quite a bit; it brings your builder, designer, architect altogether. We finished on time and on budget, with a date that was set five years earlier. The first two years the National Museum was opened it had 1.8 million visitors and we initially estimated 400,000 visitors would be coming a year. Surveys showed that 95 per cent of the visitors where highly satisfied. That would have had to been the highlight of my career.”
WABN: What is the main quality you are looking for in your team members?
DC: “The executive management team has to be able to work as a team. In museums you have one area that develops an exhibition, one area that designs the exhibition, you have the curators, the marketing, we have to develop school programs around us…it’s important that people can work as a team, be responsive in their areas of management, and build relationships across the teams.
The executive team has an agenda in which there are areas of decisions; we make sure that people are discussing what exhibition we’re going to do, and they have to feel free they can bring a discussion forward. The more you meet the better the relationship is.
“We develop projects around almost everything, everybody is brought in right from the start.”
WABN: Who is someone you dream to work with?
DC: “Years ago I worked with international experts Patrick Dodson and High Court judge Sir Ronald Wilson on the reconciliation process; they were fantastic people to work with.”
WABN: Which personality inspired you the most throughout your career?
DC: “I was really and truly inspired by Nelson Mandela in terms of how he became president of South Africa, how he forgave everybody and wants to treat people as equal.
“Also the new woman appointed at Westpac [Gail Kelly]. I remember when she just got appointed a commentator in a newspaper was saying that she was focusing on operations rather than the big picture, but I thought that she was doing a remarkable job because this is the only way to get to the big picture.”
