Warburton pushes glass ceiling

WHEN Sharon Warburton set out to become a professional company director, she discovered that a successful 20-year career with companies such as Rio Tinto, Citibank and Multiplex was not enough.

“I tried to pivot to being a non-executive director when I came back from overseas and I was told I was too young,” Ms Warburton told Business News.

That’s when she devised and implemented a very deliberate strategy to raise her profile.

Ms Warburton entered, and won, some high-profile awards, among them being named the Telstra Business Woman of the Year for Western Australia in 2014.

Ms Warburton signed up for a couple of speakers’ bureaus, despite being uncomfortable in the spotlight.

She established an online mentoring service called Steel Heels, to build on her long-running interest in helping other people get ahead.

And she hired a social media expert to manage her presence on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram and other platforms.

“It was deliberate, it was planned, it was uncomfortable, and it worked,” Ms Warburton said.

The success of her strategy is evident from the number and quality of board roles she has accepted over the past decade.

Her first board role was with Fortescue Metals Group, and she credits company founder Andrew Forrest with giving her that break.

It was followed by board roles with Western Power and ASX companies such as Wellard, NEXTDC and Gold Road Resources.

Ms Warburton has moved on from those early positions to now have eight board roles, making her one of the country’s busiest non-executive directors.

These include some of the bluest of blue-chip companies in Australia, such as diversified conglomerate Wesfarmers, goldminer Northern Star Resources, engineering giant Worley and supplements producer Blackmores.

She is also a director of Australia’s largest mining contractor, Thiess Group Holdings, which recently gained control of Perth-based MACA.

In the not-for-profit sector, Ms Warburton is a director of Perth Children’s Hospital Foundation and Karlka Nyiyaparli Aboriginal Corporation.

Sharon Warburton had developed a specialist focus on audit and risk management. Photo: David Henry

The latest addition to her board portfolio is unlisted company Mirvac Funds Management Australia.

She was offered this role in July after Mirvac took over management of AMP Capital’s $7.7 billion wholesale office fund.

“That’s really exciting to have something in the property space,” Ms Warburton said.

Reflecting on her career to date, she believes her diverse experience proved crucial in getting the early breaks.

“There were very few females that had that experience in construction, infrastructure, mining,” she said.

“There were a lot of opportunities.”

Ms Warburton also admits that her gender may have helped, at times.

“You are not quite sure if you are there because of your underlying skills and experience or you are there because you are ticking a box,” she said.

“And I have seen quite a lot of that over the past decade or two, as both an executive and a director.”

Those doubts applied particularly during her time in the Middle East, where she worked for a major property developer.

“There was only one place where I didn’t feel respected and that was during a two-year stint in Abu Dhabi where I was the only female on the executive team,” Ms Warburton recalled.

“What I saw there was 100 times worse than anything I’ve seen in Australia.”

Board chair

Ms Warburton’s career success over the past decade has come at a time when women are playing an increasing role in company boardrooms.

Among the top 300 ASX companies, women make up about a third of board roles and there is pressure to lift that figure higher.

But there is one area where progress has been conspicuously slow.

The stark reality is that very few listed companies have female chairs, especially at the big end of town.

Of the top 50 WA companies ranked by market value, only three have a female chair, research by Business News has found.

Of those, only one is chaired by a Perth-based professional director.

The largest Perth-based company with a female chair is global miner South32, chaired by Sydney lawyer Karen Wood.

She was formerly a director of BHP, which spun-out South32 as a standalone company.

A second is APM Human Services International, led by executive chair Megan Wynne.

She is also the company founder.

The only Perth-based female professional director to chair a top-50 WA company is Jennifer Seabrook.

Ms Seabrook is a former investment banker who accumulated 25 years’ experience as a company director before taking her first chair role.

She served on the boards of Bankwest, Western Power and AlintaGas in the 1990s before joining ASX companies such as Iluka Resources, West Australian Newspapers, MMG, Amcor and IRESS.

Ms Seabrook had been a non-executive director of Iluka for 12 years when it decided to spin-out its royalties streams into a separate company.

She was selected by the Iluka board for the Deterra role without having to compete for it with external candidates.

Commenting on the general paucity of female chairs, Ms Seabrook said there was a bias toward appointing former chief executives as chair.

That’s because one of the key roles of a chair is to mentor the incumbent chief executive.

That bias tended to favour men who have chief executive experience, whereas female non-executive directors typically come from a professional services background, such as accounting, finance or law.

Ms Seabrook believes more opportunities will come for women.

That’s because most boards favour an internal candidate as chair and, as more women gain experience on boards, they will increasingly become contenders.

She also observed that women typically do not promote themselves as forcefully as men even if they have the same or more experience.

Ms Seabrook is a case in point.

On two occasions she was shortlisted to be chair of a listed company but in both decided the role was better suited to candidates with greater CEO experience and profile – and both happened to be men.

“I’ve had opportunities, but I thought it was in the best interests of the company for other people with a higher profile to take the role,” Ms Seabrook told Business News.

Ms Warburton also had opportunities but felt it was not the best choice at this stage of her career.

“I’ve had numerous opportunities to be considered for chair of smaller boards,” she said.

“I choose to be a non-executive director on bigger boards because I’m still learning from my chairmen and my peers.”

Ms Warburton pursued a similar approach in her executive career, preferring to work for large companies.

“That’s the space I enjoy more.”

In keeping with her positive outlook, Ms Warburton believes the number of female chairs will increase.

“The fact I’m getting those opportunities says the numbers will start to turn,” she said.

“I think there are early shoots to show my point.”

Ms Warburton refers to the likes of Diane Smith-Gander and Cheryl Edwardes to support her argument.

Ms Smith-Gander served on numerous boards over the past decade, including blue-chip companies such as Wesfarmers and AGL, and was chair of Sydney-based contractor Broadspectrum before it was taken over.

She has repositioned her portfolio over the past two years, becoming chair of two mid-cap ASX companies in Zip Co and DDH1 and not-for-profit health fund HBF (see page 10).

Mrs Edwardes is also a highly experienced company director.

She is currently chair of four ASX companies but all at the junior or mid-cap end of the market.

There is a handful of other exceptions, but that is all.

Bronwyn Barnes is chair of four ASX companies, all of which are junior explorers, while Eva Skira is chair of mid-cap mining contractor Macmahon Holdings.

The WA trailblazer in this space was Tracey Horton, who became chair of education services company Navitas in 2016.

Ms Horton brought extensive experience to the role, including as chair of family company D’Orsogna, chair of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of WA and director of several ASX companies.

Her time at Navitas came to a messy end after a private equity consortium backed by company founder Rod Jones privatised the company.

After the controversy surrounding Navitas, Ms Horton has kept a much lower profile, serving as a director at east coast companies GPT, IDP Education and, until recently, Nearmap.

State government businesses arguably have a slightly higher success rate for women.

Samantha Tough is chair of Horizon Power, Jo Gaines is chair of super fund GESB, while Denise Goldsworthy was recently appointed chair of state-owned Western Power.

Ms Goldsworthy has also recently become chancellor of Edith Cowan University, succeeding former WA governor Kerry Sanderson.

Ms Sanderson’s continuing roles include chairing not-for-profit hospital operator St John of God Health Care.

Ms Warburton highlights the importance of gaining experience before taking on a chair role.

“Diane and Cheryl and others are leading the way, it will happen,” she said.

“They were non-executive directors for a long time

“I think you want to be a non-executive director for some time before you think about being a chair.”

Getting started

While Ms Warburton is now well placed to give career advice, her own business career almost stalled at the very beginning.

She grew up in Exmouth, where her father worked as a panel beater and crane driver at the US military communications base.

Her parents gave up their love of the warm sun to help their children, moving to Mandurah while their three daughters completed high school.

Ms Warburton was the first member of her extended family to attend university and she credits this move to her first mentor: her supervisor at the supermarket where she worked after school.

“She was very supportive and encouraged me to explore commercial finance roles, and she is still a friend today,” Ms Warburton said.

“It was her encouragement that inspired me to have a crack.

“I was lucky that I tried something that ultimately I enjoyed.”

After graduating in 1990, getting her first job proved unexpectedly difficult, despite having excellent grades and being coached by the head of human resources at Alcoa, who was a family friend.

She attended interviews at 10 accounting firms but only one, KPMG, offered her a job.

Ms Warburton clearly recalls KPMG managing partner Tony Taylor was the only interviewer focused on her.

“I genuinely didn’t understand because I had really good marks,” Ms Warburton said.

“It was just the bias that was in existence then.

“In almost every one of those interviews, I was asked what my dad did and where he worked.

“Tony was the only person who didn’t.”

The first pivot point in her career was applying for a job at Hamersley Iron (now Rio Tinto).

“It was a no-brainer to apply because I grew up in Exmouth; I’d been to the mines and the mining towns,” she said.

“I had an attraction to that part of the world and that industry.”

That led to a move to London, where Rio Tinto had its group finance function.

Ms Warburton has very positive memories of the professional development Rio provided.

“They were really good in providing leadership education to young people,” she said.

“I remember it being very powerful and influential and left a deep impression on how to lead and grow teams and build culture.

“I hope they still do that today because there are principles that I still think about and use.

“And I worked with people who were open minded and prepared to give us opportunities.”

A self-confessed workaholic, Ms Warburton said she often worked well into the night.

If she got home by midnight, she felt she was managing okay.

“The work I was doing was fun but also I felt I had to do that to have my seat at the table, to keep up and be accepted,” she said.

Ms Warburton had to rethink her long hours at work after becoming a single mother.

“I experienced and struggled for many months with the ‘walk of shame’ when leaving the office when most of my colleagues were still there,” she said.

The time pressures became particularly acute after her daughter was diagnosed with leukemia.

That led to a long period of chemotherapy treatment, with the leukemia now in remission.

Being a professional director has given Ms Warburton some flexibility, though with eight board roles, she considers it very much a full-time pursuit.

Instead, she shifted her approach, saying she became motivated to get through her work efficiently so she could get home.

Like many high achievers in business, Ms Warburton ensures that she finds time to maintain her physical health.

Her current passion is long-distance swimming, and she was excited to share the news that she was recently accepted into the Lake Argyle 10-kilometre solo swim.

“It’s a massive bucket-list event for me, that will be a huge personal achievement,” Ms Warburton said.

While she is clearly a driven individual, Ms Warburton laments the attitude she has encountered among younger millennials.

“That was a reflection from my work with Steel Heels,” she said.

“I had discussions with a lot of bright young people in their twenties who thought they could do my job.

“They had a sense of entitlement, a lack of awareness of doing the hard yards.”

Steel Heels lapsed after her daughter was diagnosed with cancer, but Ms Warburton continues to be an active mentor.

“I continue to regularly meet with aspiring directors, female leaders in male-dominated industries and ex-colleagues wanting a sounding board.”

She also presents at seminars on how to build a career as a non-executive director.

Sharon Warburton. Photo: David Henry

Ms Warburton believes a couple of traits in her personality have helped her career.

She admits to being “a sucker for always wanting to try new things and (having) no fear about being the first” and has a curiosity to travel and experience new cultures.

Importantly, she has the capacity to focus on the positives, citing her time in Abu Dhabi as a prime example.

“It was a very tough environment, but I took away lots of lessons from that,” Ms Warburton said.

It was also a period when she tapped into lots of informal mentors to help her cope with the challenges.

As well as dealing with her daughter’s illness, Ms Warburton has had to cope with one of her sisters committing suicide.

“That was back in the days when you didn’t really talk about that kind of stuff,” she said.

She has become increasingly active trying to raise awareness of mental health issues.

“It’s only in the last few years I’ve spoken about it a little bit publicly, but I’ve been very active in the boardroom for a long time,” Ms Warburton told Business News.

“Organisations need to focus on it and talk about it a lot more, way before COVID elevated it as an issue.”

With her partner currently in training for the Hawaiian Ride for Youth to raise money for counselling service Youth Focus, mental health is very topical in Ms Warburton’s household.

On most of her boards, Ms Warburton is either chair or a member of the audit and risk committee.

In that capacity, issues like work health and safety, cyber security, sexual harassment and bullying have become much more prominent.

“The risk-management side of governance has just exploded,” she said.

“All those things have had a massive impact on the role of a non-executive director, especially when you are the chair of the risk committee.”

One of the benefits of being on multiple boards is that Ms Warburton is able to identify best practice and share those lessons with other organisations.

In this regard, Ms Warburton admits she doesn’t always get it right.

When she was active as a public speaker, she repeatedly promoted mining and construction as a safe place for women.

“It is a myth that construction or mining are not safe places for women and that women can’t have great careers or succeed in construction or mining environments,” Ms Warburton said on one occasion.

In doing so, she was drawing on her own positive experiences working with Rio Tinto and Multiplex.

She acknowledges that her comments were clearly not right, given what recent events in the remote mining sector have highlighted.

“Everyone, including me, regardless of gender, needs to do more to make the workplace a safer place for women,” Ms Warburton said.