Meet the judges

Has Ita Buttrose ever been mansplained to? What does Julie Bishop wish she could tell her younger self? This year’s Women of the Future judges share some wisdom they’ve picked up on the way to the top of their illustrious careers.

- GENEVIEVE GANNON

NARELDA JACOBS

NET WORK 10 JOURNALIST AND PRESENTER

What do you admire most in the young women you meet these days?

I admire how articulate they are – how they articulate emotions, how they interact with other people. They can put the words together to describe something so beautifully. In younger women I also admire how they work smarter. They can walk into a situation, read the room and identify how things can be done better, and it ends up saving time and the outcome is the same or better for a fraction of the effort.

What advice would you give to a younger you?

The younger Narelda was really lacking in confidence. I could get up in front of a group of people because my parents were pastors in a church – I always saw them standing up in front of people and speaking, so it wasn’t a fear of that. It was a fear of being able to communicate my own ideas and opinions. At first, I didn’t think I had opinions. Now I know that I do have opinions that I want to share, and I realise that people are interested in them. So, my advice to younger me would be, “Back yourself. People want to know what you think.”

What is the one thing we need to stop saying as women?

As women, I would like us to stop saying that we’ve got impostor syndrome. The first time I heard ‘imposter syndrome’ I completely related to it, and I recognise that I have had it many times throughout my life. But we all deserve to be where we are, and we deserve to be, as women, in every setting in the world. So, that is not being an imposter, that is being needed.