March 2, 2011: Despite the Federal Government's moves to strengthen maternity leave and benefits, Australian families remain worried about the affordability of childcare, saying they will vote for the party who offer tax breaks, the latest poll shows. Read More

This is the question we’ve been posing in our sphinxx survey called Childcare and Careers – Do they mix?  We’re keen to understand the impact of the affordability and availability on the career advancement of women – and so far the results have been amazing!

We will be releasing the results next week in a media campaign.  In the meantime if you haven’t completed the survey I really encourage you to do that – click here to access the survey before 28^th February. Read More

Here are two dates that every Australian leader must mark IN INK in your diaries: 17 May in Melbourne and 19 May in Sydney.  These are the dates that sphinxx is bringing Avivah Wittenberg-Cox to Australia, together with The Growth Faculty, and we want you to be part of this ground breaking educational event.  Read More

Where are you drawing your inspiration from right now?  I had the great privilige to sit between two inspiring women today at lunch – Imelda Roche AO was on one side and my friend Michelle Hartman of Deloitte was on the other.  Michelle inspires me because she’s a person who’s not afraid to take on a challenge, which is surely what it was to secure Imelda Roche as guest speaker at the client lunch she organized today!  Imelda Roche is pure inspiration – her personal story of creating the Nutri-Metics empire from an initial investment of $6,000 was nothing short of breathtaking.  Needless to say I’m thinking big today… and if you’re looking for some inspiration of your own, how about this for a story… Read More

At a networking event recently a businessman mentioned that his wife – a highly educated, highly experienced professional – had left her role in an accounting firm after their children were born because “after the cost of childcare it was hardly worth her while to continue to work”.  Their children are now in school and with that, a new challenge: how to deal with the months of combined school holidays throughout the year, when the average worker in Australia gets four weeks leave a year.  So she continues to manage the household, and having been out of the workforce for several years now is uncertain when or if she will return. Read More

By now you’ve probably seen the Sheryl Sandberg video from TEDwomen, and her 3 tips for making it to the C-suite.  As COO of Facebook, Sandberg has achieved dizzying heights of career success.  Her advice to other women seeking to do the same is as personal as it is practical, yet also acknowledges the social, biological and self-imposed obstacles that women face in defining their own career paths.  In a nutshell, she suggests that women increase their likelihood of success when they: Read More

Like most Australians I’ve been glued to my TV (and twitter and internet) this week watching the human tragedy and devastation of the Queensland floods unfold.  I never imagined in my wildest dreams seeing so much water where dry land should be.  And I never imagined I’d become such an ardent admirer of Queensland Premier Anna Bligh. Before the floods hit, Bligh’s career was considered… well… washed out.  She became Australia’s first elected female Premier in 2009 and since then her Government’s policies and performance made her re-election virtually unthinkable.  But like many Australians, I’ve watched Bligh become the face of authority in the current crisis.  Read More

Earlier this week I wrote about the fact that everyone loses when women leave their careers.  The same is true when women attack women: everyone loses.  I’ve seen first hand the vengeance of stay at home mums who attack women for using childcare.  Then there’s the Ladder Kickers who get to the top and refuse to support the women behind them (“they got there the hard way so why shouldn’t others?”)  And now there’s a ridiculous new report by British Academic Catherine Hakim who slams executive women for having “nominal families with a single child” and “subcontracting out the work of caring for them to other women.”   Read More

This year's Global Summit of Women will be held in Istanbul, Turkey on May 5-7, 2011.  Described as the "Davos for Women", this year's summit features another stellar line up of international leaders, including Government and Business leaders from PepsiCo. , HSBC, Credit Suisse, Alcan, Vodafone, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, PwC and more... 1,000 women leaders are expected to gather at the summit from every corner of the world to share winning strategies to advance women's economic lives and to ensure global prosperity. Read More

Back in 2005, just a couple of years after completing my MBA, my classmate Bianca sent a copy of Off-Ramps and On-Ramps (a Harvard Business Review article by Sylvia Ann Hewlett and Carolyn Buck Luce) to all the women in our cohort.  The article which highlights the large numbers of highly qualified women dropping out of mainstream careers was one of the catalysts for me starting sphinxx... or at least shocked me into some form of acknowledgement that the lack of women in senior ranks was a global and profound issue for business. Read More