Putting Buzz Into Business

Many thousands of Australian women seeking to give their careers a boost are attracted to Emma Isaacs’s can-do style.

- Alan Deans

From office juniors to university graduates, mid-tier executives and company owners, networking events are an increasingly popular solution to provide job and business aspirations with a bit of zip. This style of girl power shines a beacon to those who want to succeed in what is still a male-dominated world.

A lack of meaningful careers for women in business and public service persists, despite positive government discrimination and the imposition of gender quotas on big company boards. More is needed to shatter the glass ceiling. A recent KPMG report on workplace discrimination found women earn on average $26,000 less each year than men and their superannuation payout is 50% lower. Halving the gap would boost our economy by $60 billion over the next 20 years. One solution is for women to take matters into their own hands and learn from each other.

Business Chicks, Emma’s networking community, stages 100 live events each year for members in 11 cities in Australia and in 2016 was launched into the US. Plans are afoot for Asia too.

She says the organisation today cannot easily be compared with what it was when she bought it 14 years ago, saving it from closure. “We used to get a couple of hundred people coming to our events. Our latest had 1800 people. We used to be in just three cities. We are lucky now to have the support of some really big corporate sponsors. There were none of those at the start.”

Speakers have included Julia Gillard, Gloria Steinem, Jamie Oliver, Arianna Huffington, Richard Branson, Nicole Kidman, Nigella Lawson and Bob Geldof.