“I saw a gap in the market and went for it with a clear intention to market the business, create a strong brand and influence the building industry.” – Sasha de Bretton.

Sasha de Bretton was a millionaire by the time she was 30, working as a sales and marketing executive and renovating and selling properties on the side. When the Perth property market slumped during the recent global financial crisis, Sasha saw an opportunity to channel her renovation and organisational skills into a business, offering fast, high-quality makeovers for home owners and property investors. Million Dollar Makeovers transforms tired and dated properties in four weeks or less, allowing clients to rapidly access equity in their homes, profit from the renovations or increase rental yields. As CEO, Sasha works with a team of 10 employees and up to 200 tradespeople and suppliers to offer an end-to-end service, from design to project management to full scope interior design selection and home styling. Her business now transforms four to six homes a month and has tripled turnover in its second year. Sasha now has her sights set on franchising Million Dollar Makeovers in other parts of Australia.

“You must reward effort and success if you wish for it to continue and advance.” – Pauline Francis.

When the global financial crisis gripped the Perth property market in 2008 and 2009, Pauline Francis’s LJ Hooker real estate business in Leeming was battered on all fronts. Managing both a property management and sales office, Pauline saw landlords make emergency sales, tenants default on rent and sales staff struggle to move properties, all of which impacted morale and threatened her business’s bottom line. Despite these challenges, Pauline ranked in the top one per cent of the National LJ Hooker network. She then became the first Western Australian woman to be admitted to the LJ Hooker’s Board of Admirals international network, a select group of high achievers chosen to support the growth of LJ Hooker in its national markets. Pauline says compassion and staff training in negotiation and mediation skills helped her and her team of 20 staff exceed expectations. Pauline is consistently highly ranked within the LJ Hooker network for her managerial skills and team success.

“A major lesson I have learned during the course of my career is to seek help when it's needed, because it is simply impossible to be an expert in everything.” – Fiona Hook.

Fiona Hook knew when she graduated in Archaeology from Sydney University in 1993 that she wanted to run her own business. Three years later that dream was fulfilled, supported by the resources boom in Western Australia. Fiona is founder and Managing Director of Archae-Aus, one of the largest cultural heritage management firms in Australia, working with companies and Aboriginal groups on impact assessments ahead of mining and infrastructure projects. The South Fremantle business employs 30 full-time archaeologists to conduct heritage surveys, excavations, audits and training on cultural heritage management. Fiona says she and her team are “trusted” by traditional owners because of long-term relationships, high ethics and work standards. This rapport has equally gained the respect of commercial clients, including Alcoa, Rio Tinto, BHP Billiton, Fortescue Metals Group and Hancock Prospecting. Chair of the state branch of the Australian Association of Consulting Archaeologists, Fiona is now working with her team to establish their own lab to analyse plant and animal remains.

“We have forged an enviable niche within the agency market for our ability to understand our clients’ individual challenges and opportunities, something larger competitors struggle to deliver.” – Nicolle Jenkins.

Nicolle Jenkins became the first female Deputy President for Surf Life Saving Western Australia at the same time she was starting her Perth marketing and communications business from home. She fulfilled her Surf Life Saving duties for the next four years while juggling the growth of her business. Today, as Managing Director of The Hub Marketing & Communications, she employs a team of seven and provides marketing, communications, graphic design, market research and training services to 40 clients, 60 per cent of which are regional. Working with regional and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander clients, Nicolle last year identified a gap for quality, culturally-appropriate communications for this sector. She has recently established a new division, which works with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities and business leaders to improve marketing standards and offer traineeships for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander youth. The Hub recently landed a multi-million dollar tender for the sector, its largest ever, cementing its national credentials in this sector.

“Early in my career a mentor challenged me to always look beyond current boundaries and expectations and never forget that my job is to make my team’s jobs easier.” – Sinead Kauffman.

One of the few females running mining operations in Australia, Sinead Kaufman oversees Rio Tinto Iron Ore’s Paraburdoo Operations in the remote Pilbara region. Starting with the company as a rock mechanics engineer in South Africa 13 years ago, Sinead proved herself in management at Queensland’s Weipa Mine. In 2008, she was moved to Rio Tinto Iron Ore and in 2010 was appointed to head up the Paraburdoo operations, where she is responsible for three mining sites and a central processing facility that produces 22 million tonnes of iron ore each year. Last year, Sinead led the operations to a 38-year production record coupled with a significant improvement in safety performance as well as complete major maintenance shutdown. In addition to overseeing safety, production and performance across the sites, she has also championed improvements in the township for the venture’s 740 employees and associated contractors and is now spearheading the construction of a new childcare centre for 2012.

“The company relies heavily on the contact centre to perform, because if we are not performing, the company is not performing.” – Jane Mahon.

A corporate restructure at motoring organisation RAC in 2009 gave Jane Mahon the opportunity to apply for a new job in the company running a call centre. As Senior Manager, Jane manages 150 employees across two sites at Joondalup and West Perth, taking sales and service calls for all RAC’s businesses, including club membership and insurance. In the past two years, Jane has led the Contact Centre to exceed sales and cost targets for the first time and achieve best-practice engagement scores. This was achieved despite significant changes including the introduction of a new insurance system and last March’s devastating Perth hail storm, which impacted thousands of customers and many employees. After the storm, Jane quickly deployed 30 team members to support the over-loaded claims operation. She also trained 30 new staff while managing unprecedented call volumes from distressed customers and maintaining motivation and engagement among stressed employees.

“Some would say being a woman in my industry can be difficult, but I see the attributes that others see as soft, as being beneficial.” – Juliette Sperber.

At 21, Juliette Sperber was at the helm of a 270-metre-long cargo ship. One of few women at sea in commercial shipping, she overcame many gender battles with “salty seafarers” to be accepted as a highly-capable officer. Juliette came ashore at 24 to work for Patrick Stevedores in Brisbane, where she managed the tumultuous relationship between company and employees and led a major site relocation. Juliette moved to Perth in 2008 with stevedoring and port management firm POAGS, and now oversees 140 workers across three ports – Geraldton, Fremantle and Bunbury – as the organisation’s Southern Regional Manager in Western Australia and first female operational senior manager. In recent years, Juliette has restructured the Fremantle operation, resulting in increased revenue, reduced labour requirements and faster truck turn-around times. She has also improved industrial relations in the heavily unionised workforce, by drawing on her early career and involving employees in decision-making to help build engagement and find mutual ground.

“More and more, my practice consists of off-shore clients investing in Australia. As a Perth corporate lawyer with energy and resources experience, I’m well-placed to take advantage of these opportunities.” – Amber Stanton

Amber Stanton’s interest in law extends back to when she was a child and reading competition terms and conditions on the back of cereal boxes. At 31, last year, she became one of the youngest females to be made a partner at law firm Squire Sanders, where she has worked her entire career. One of 19 partners in the Perth office, Amber co-heads the corporate advisory team, providing support to public and private entities in relation to capital raisings, mergers and acquisitions and other strategic transactions. She often finds herself adopting a national and global project management role for clients, co-ordinating other advisors, including accountants, investment banks and geologists, to ensure the right outcomes. Named by Lawyers Weekly as one of 2010's Top Movers & Shakers, Amber’s career has seen her successfully defend a $1.4 billion hostile takeover bid and take the legal lead on the $140 million public float for Northern Iron Ltd, named IPO of the Year at the 2008 CFO Awards.

“My approach is to take the focus off what’s not working and shift it to how it can work. There must be a way.” – Gerlinde Watson.

A sharp downturn in the wine industry in 2006 saw Gerlinde Watson promoted from Administration Manager to General Manager for wine-bottler Portavin’s Western Australia division. Identifying a lack of clarity and structure to deal with the slump, consultants recommended Gerlinde take charge. She spent the next five years making significant, and often difficult, changes to culture, systems and processes to create a more external outlook and improve productivity and profitability. Gerlinde is proud that despite cutting employee numbers on shifts, only one redundancy was made, thanks to redeployment and shift restructuring. Gerlinde was recently appointed to the newly created role of Group CFO, responsible for the financial management of 150 employees and five sites in Australia and New Zealand, plus new expansion opportunities. The only executive without an ownership stake in the group, Gerlinde is now steering the company’s diversification into new products and markets to combat the bottling of wine offshore.

“I’m proud to work in community services, where the impact we make today can make a difference as to whether a client has a tomorrow.” – Emma Basc.

When Emma Basc joined Gosnells Women’s Health Services (GWHS) eight years ago, she had never heard of the organisation, even though she lived just 10 minutes away. This was not unique, with a community survey showing 97 per cent of locals had never heard of the support service for women and families in Perth’s south east. Over the past six years as Health Promotion Officer, and more recently as Manager, Emma has worked to not only raise awareness of the service, but has more than doubled funding and increased services. Offering health, multicultural and family programs, GWHS has grown from seven staff to 30, plus 10 volunteers, with most services operating at capacity. Emma says one of her proudest achievements has been the delivery of a weekly self-development and mentoring program for disengaged Year 9 girls, which has seen improvements in school participation and behaviour. Emma is also delighted a recent survey revealed nearly 75 per cent of the local community knew of GWHS.

“I believe Aboriginal women are leaders in their community and the key to making the change that is needed.” – Lisa Cunningham.

Lisa Cunningham was working with a high percentage of Aboriginal trainees as the State Manager of AFL SportsReady when West Coast Eagles CEO Trevor Nisbett approached her in 2007 to run the David Wirrpanda Foundation. Established just two years prior to promote strong role models and healthy life choices for Aboriginal youth, the Foundation had ceased temporarily and was struggling for funding. Lisa accepted the role and wasted no time in working with David to rebuild the organisation’s reputation and, through leveraging Western Australia’s resources boom, attract more corporate donors. Lisa also built a team of role models within the Aboriginal community to develop and deliver programs that encourage school attendance, improve health, identify training and employment opportunities and inspire girls to grow into leaders in their communities. With the help of 39 employees and more than 100 volunteers, the Foundation now runs these programs in Perth and six regional centres in Western Australia, plus in parts of New South Wales, Victoria and the ACT.

“My penultimate goal is to lead the largest service provider of evidence-based services to young children with autism in Australia.” – Mandy Mason.

Mandy Mason was a corporate taxation advisor when her second daughter was diagnosed with autism in 2006. Finding little information on the disorder, she sought the expertise of a clinical psychologist, enrolled to study Applied Behaviour Analysis in the United States and sought the opinion of international experts. As other parents of children with autism turned to Mandy for help, she saw a need for the establishment of a service that offered world-class, evidence-based, early intervention. In 2008, Mandy launched The LEARN Foundation for Autism, providing a program of Applied Behaviour Analysis (ABA) through qualified therapists with the involvement of children’s families. Since funding the centre’s set-up herself, Mandy has driven significant community awareness to attract the world-class expertise and sufficient finance to grow the foundation’s client base from 20 to 80 families, with a waiting list. She is currently undertaking supervision to be a Board Certified Behaviour Analyst, one of only a handful in Australia, and is establishing Australia’s first Association for Applied Behaviour Analysis.

“No matter how tired, I aim to lead with enthusiasm and inspiration. Someone with no food, who is suffering the effects of violence and homelessness, need not know about the challenges I’ve faced to keep the doors open.” – Lee-Anne Smith.

Founder and CEO of The Halo Leadership Development Agency for Aboriginal youth, Lee-Anne Smith, knows opportunity and hard work can transform lives because that is how she turned her own around. With an eight-week-old son, Lee-Anne undertook a Social Science degree with a view to helping Aboriginal youth overcome complex challenges. In 2005, she sold her home to fund Halo and within the first year reported a financial loss of $32,000. Unswayed, Lee-Anne worked two jobs and applied for grants, while supporting Aboriginal youths get their lives on track. The agency today employs 13 full-time staff, 11 of whom are Aboriginal and seven of whom have completed the Halo program themselves. Through Halo, young people determined to beat the odds participate in peer mentoring programs, receive counselling and are involved in cultural and reconciliation programs. Lee-Anne, who is also now a councillor for the City of Cockburn, is proud that 80 per cent of Halo participants gain employment or further their education rather than re-enter the prison system.

“Western Australia will be the place that all nurses and midwives will want to be to achieve their career goals”. – Catherine Stoddart.

As Western Australia’s Chief Nurse and Midwifery Officer (CNMO), Catherine Stoddart is passionate about ensuring everyone who wants to pursue a career in nursing is given an opportunity to do so. Responsible for professional leadership of the State’s 12,000 public nurses and providing professional support to some 35,000 in WA, Catherine sets policy direction and strategies to ensure the highest quality training, patient care and career opportunities. She is currently leading strategies to build stronger nursing career paths, attract more Aboriginal people to the profession, create nurse practitioners in rural areas and provide volunteers for under-serviced remote and international locations, as part of the National Health Workforce Agenda. Catherine recently developed a sustainable model for Assistant in Nursing traineeships, providing an alternative pathway for those who do not achieve tertiary level requirements, while also supporting the heavy workload of existing nurses. So far, 50 to 70 per cent of trainees in that program are going on to enrol in nursing, with the program expanding into Indigenous communities.

“We collect clients from the airport and surprise them with their new dream home, ready to move in straight off the plane.” – Sasha de Bretton.

When the global financial crisis began to squeeze Perth’s property market in 2008, Sasha De Bretton seized a radical opportunity to give homeowners much-needed financial liquidity. Having renovated and sold many properties herself as an aside to her marketing career, Sasha launched Million Dollar Makeovers, a high-quality, rapid-renovation service that transforms homes in just two to four weeks, often while clients are on holidays. Working with up to 200 trades and services, Sasha has developed a unique operating model that allows her business to juggle multiple renovations and shave months off the average full-home transformation. The rapid turnarounds – from design, to project management through to full decor – allow clients to access extra capital in their homes, sell at a premium price or increase rental returns. Million Dollar Makeovers typically works on four to six properties each month and can start with just two weeks notice due to the multiple resources in its network. Sasha is now planning to franchise the model in other parts of Australia.

“Research from around the world shows the social cost of supporting an individual with autism over their life can be up to $10 million, versus the cost of a Functional Behaviour Analysis, which is less than $20,000.” – Mandy Mason.

Having launched The LEARN Foundation for Autism in East Fremantle in 2008, Mandy Mason was approached by a couple whose eight-year-old son with autism was self-harming and putting his life in jeopardy. Mandy, herself a parent of a child with autism, offered to help with the expertise of The LEARN Centre’s Clinical Director, Dr Charna Mintz, a US-trained specialist in Functional Behaviour Analysis (FBA). A series of evidence-based procedures to determine the cause of harmful behaviours in people with cognitive disabilities, FBA was not previously available in Australia, despite widespread use and legislation requiring the use of FBA in the United States and the United Kingdom. After being treated at LEARN using FBA, the boy’s self-harm, significantly reduced prompting Mandy to advocate for government support of the science in Australia. Working with the boy’s family and Dr Mintz, Mandy has mounted a campaign to gain funding for FBA training in a bid to help other desperate families with children with autism who are self-harming.

“We never exclude anyone from our service. When there is a community-identified need, we are able to offer programs to meet that need.” – Emma Basc.

Emma Basc learned the value of community service at just age 12 when she volunteered with St John Ambulance. Now, at 29, she heads up Gosnells Women’s Health Services, providing a variety of support services and programs in Perth’s south-east suburbs. Despite often being frustrated that community services must always demonstrate success in dollar terms, Emma has spent eight years at the centre – two as Manager – developing and implementing strategies to increase funding and expand services. As a result of her efforts, GWHS has more than doubled its funding, allowing it to grow from seven part-time staff to 30, attract 10 volunteers and, most importantly, run a wider range of much-needed services. Today, GWHS services include help for post-natal depression, programs against domestic violence, education for migrants, relationship counselling services and a mentoring program for high-school students. The service has also outgrown two buildings and, thanks to Emma’s ability to demonstrate community value, is now invited to apply for funding for various programs.

“I believe in practising what I preach so I still attend Pilates and BoxFit each week for my own fitness and to lead by example.” – Pippa Hutchinson.

Fitness expert Pippa Hutchinson was just 23 when she was rocked by a stroke that caused loss of feeling in her left side and forced her to take time out of her budding Pilates business. At that time, she was running classes in five halls throughout Perth with the help of four casual staff. Refusing to give up on growing her business, LIVe Pilates, Pippa used Pilates to regain physical strength and hired a business consultant to help develop a new business plan. By the end of the 2009 financial year, LIVe Pilates was operating in eight sites, with a head office in South Perth and 21 employees. Now 26, Pippa has spent the past two years following her business plan and expanding LIVe Pilates into a multi-faceted fitness service with nearly 200 Pilates classes, two physiotherapy studios, a training division and an outdoor BoxFit program. Pippa still squeezes in 15 to 20 hours of Pilates instruction to help train staff and stay in touch with clients.

“Nobody is successful on their own – to achieve success, it takes team work to make the dream work.” – Lisa Rodi.

Having completed a Commerce degree with a double major in Marketing and Management and a minor in Business Law, Lisa Rodi used her time as a marketing assistant to spot a business opportunity. At 27, she established Quality Printer Cartridges in 2008 with her partner, Jason Spark. The Wangara business collects empty printer, fax and photocopier cartridges and remanufactures them with new components, reducing landfill and saving clients money on their office essentials. Lisa has driven sales by educating clients on the benefits of using a local company that offers fast delivery without long-term contracts, plus repairs, parts and servicing. Lisa oversees the strategic direction of the company, identifying opportunities to build market share and create competitive advantages. She introduced an automated cartridge ordering system, which sends an alert when a customer’s toner is low, and is now negotiating for Quality Printer Cartridges to be the only Australian distributor of environmentally-friendly toner made from soybeans, rather than petroleum.

“I tell all my new managers to take people as you find them, listen to the workforce and respect all viewpoints, no matter how different from yours.” – Juliette Sperber.

In addition to being the only female in a senior operational role at stevedoring and port management company POAGs, she is also one of the youngest managers in the organisation. As Southern Regional Manager in Western Australia, the 35-year-old is responsible for the company’s Geraldton, Fremantle and Bunbury operations. Leading a predominantly male workforce of 140, Juliette is accustomed to gender imbalance in the workplace, having joined the maritime industry as a deck officer trainee at 17 and working her way up the ranks to become a deck officer for BHP Transport. She spent seven years as the only woman on cargo ships, a unique experience that has equipped her to deal with highly charged situations during industrial unrest, restructure and relocate port operations and now, transform the culture at one of the most unionised ports in Australia. Juliette says she has learned not to take conflict personally and to engage employees about change rather than adopt the maritime industry’s traditional “big stick” approach.

"From early on, I have taken responsibility for my career and have sought out opportunities and experiences that have contributed to – and continue to contribute to – my progression." – Amber Stanton.

Thirty-two-year-old Amber Stanton is one of the youngest women among international law firm Squire Sanders 290 partners. Her rapid rise through the ranks began with a vacation clerkship at the firm in 2001, followed by articles of clerkship the following year. By mid 2005, Amber was operating at Associate level and at just 28 was made Senior Associate, taking the legal lead on major mergers and acquisitions and capital-raisings for global corporations. Dedication and success saw her selected for the firm’s prestigious Senior Lawyer Development Program in 2008, which helped open the door for her to be appointed Partner last year. One of 19 partners in Squire Sanders' Perth office, Amber co-leads the corporate advisory team, often managing national and international teams of up to 20 lawyers, across various areas of expertise, on strategic corporate transactions. She continues to capitalise on Western Australia’s wealth of resources and proximity to Asia by sourcing a growing number of off-shore clients who are investing in Australia.