READY TO ENGAGE

As chief engagement and growth officer, Joshua Parisotto is determined to improve outcomes for HESTA members and employers and brings all he learns outside the business back to it for the better.

- Matthew Wai

Leading member engagement at a superannuation fund is not an easy task, but HESTA chief engagement and growth officer Joshua Parisotto says it's all a matter of being willing to ask the right questions.

Despite already having made it to the C-suite, Parisotto says knowing when to ask for clarity or help is a "critical" skill to have.

Great leadership comes down to active listening and hearing what people are trying to say, because at times "you get distracted by other noises."

It's a characteristic he developed growing up in an Italian migrant family on a tobacco farm in northeast Victoria, which required him to continuously think on his feet and solve problems quickly; much like today, it paid to know who the right person was at the right time to help navigate unforeseen situations.

"I would advise asking lots of questions, listening intently, and following through on execution... growing up on the farm, it taught me the value of quick problem-solving. If something goes wrong, you've got to be able to think on your feet and find a solution," he says.

"You can't just say, 'I'll get to it next week'. It doesn't work like that. You need to get to the root of the problem and finish it the day it begins and start thinking about what needs to be done next."

Now with some 120 people under his guidance at the super fund, Parisotto applies a similar approach, emphasising the importance of connecting with his team in a bottom-up way to engage with close to 19,000 members each year.

"[You need to] absorb the information and ask pertinent questions when necessary... a leader's role is not to criticise or undermine anyone's approach. Instead, it should be to empower and support positive outcomes," he says.