Grit in the Boardroom - Executive Interviews on Corporate Governance and Risk Management
Mar 25, 2026 · 36 min · 10 segments
Are you presenting yourself strategically to the people who will let you sit in the boardroom? Networking, communication, and continuous self-reinvention during company culture change is critical to…
Erika Eliasson-NorrisHostSo to start with, Emma, you've had a truly global career and you now sit on boards.
Was there a particular moment that made you realise just how few women still make it into these spaces?
So much of my sort of last part of my career... notwithstanding the beginning in the Australian government, I was working in the investment bank and I was often in meetings as the only woman.
More recently, I've been, obviously I set up my own company and I continue to watch what's happening in the industry.
looking at the surveys that take place around gender balance, pay gaps, and whilst there is some improvement, there is still a long way to go in terms of achieving parity, equity, and creating diversity at the most senior levels of firms, but also throughout the organisation so that there's actually... a succession plan of women and diversity moving up through the ranks as well.
And is that something that you say you've kind of noticed, but was that through the whole of your career when you were far more early in your career? Did you see that that was the path that you were treading or is it only when you've kind of got to the kind of boardroom and then you've looked back and then thought, actually, there's not that many women around? Yeah.
And to give you an example of how I found my place on the board is actually I was approached by somebody who was already on a board and they recognized they had a diversity problem.
And so they were, I'm not gonna say desperate, but kind of desperate to get more diversity, diversity of thought, diversity of representation at the board level.
And that's actually how I became a non-exec is, This is a longer story, but that's the short answer to your question is it become more apparent as I've become more senior, I suppose.
how did you feel when you were approached to take on that role? Because you say that you felt to a certain extent that they wanted a woman.
I think you and I would probably both agree that it's not great to be the token person and be the person that's just put on that board just because you're a particular gender or just because you have a certain ethnicity or background or... whatever that might be.
And this is the challenge, right? Because you have that, there is a, in some quarters, a sense of box ticking.
We need to have a woman, we need to have, you know, Afro-Caribbean, whatever the box that needs to be ticked.
So I met with the CEO and had a discussion about the company, where they're at, and also to understand what gaps they had in in terms of the capabilities at a senior level and at the board.
So to start with, Emma, you've had a truly global career and you now sit on boards.
Was there a particular moment that made you realise just how few women still make it into these spaces?
So much of my sort of last part of my career... notwithstanding the beginning in the Australian government, I was working in the investment bank and I was often in meetings as the only woman.
More recently, I've been, obviously I set up my own company and I continue to watch what's happening in the industry.
looking at the surveys that take place around gender balance, pay gaps, and whilst there is some improvement, there is still a long way to go in terms of achieving parity, equity, and creating diversity at the most senior levels of firms, but also throughout the organisation so that there's actually... a succession plan of women and diversity moving up through the ranks as well.
And is that something that you say you've kind of noticed, but was that through the whole of your career when you were far more early in your career? Did you see that that was the path that you were treading or is it only when you've kind of got to the kind of boardroom and then you've looked back and then thought, actually, there's not that many women around? Yeah.
And to give you an example of how I found my place on the board is actually I was approached by somebody who was already on a board and they recognized they had a diversity problem.
And so they were, I'm not gonna say desperate, but kind of desperate to get more diversity, diversity of thought, diversity of representation at the board level.
And that's actually how I became a non-exec is, This is a longer story, but that's the short answer to your question is it become more apparent as I've become more senior, I suppose.
how did you feel when you were approached to take on that role? Because you say that you felt to a certain extent that they wanted a woman.
I think you and I would probably both agree that it's not great to be the token person and be the person that's just put on that board just because you're a particular gender or just because you have a certain ethnicity or background or... whatever that might be.
And this is the challenge, right? Because you have that, there is a, in some quarters, a sense of box ticking.
We need to have a woman, we need to have, you know, Afro-Caribbean, whatever the box that needs to be ticked.
So I met with the CEO and had a discussion about the company, where they're at, and also to understand what gaps they had in in terms of the capabilities at a senior level and at the board.
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