E17: Kerry Skellern OAM: Engineering a Board Career and Making a Difference

You're a good student, and you went on to study science and mathematics at University of Sydney before taking first class honors in chemical engineering and then moving into roles at multinational industrial organizations, organizations such as ICI, James Hardie, CSR, and GE.

What were your, some of your best experiences working in these companies, and how well did they set you up to move into board roles?

I think, um, you can probably get a hint from the names of the organizations that they were, as I say, big, dirty industrial companies.

Um, not surprising, I guess, for an engineer straight out of uni.

But, uh, that did mean they were heavily male-dominated, so, uh, I guess I was always used to having to speak up, um, to be heard and maybe having to speak up again and again and again.

Certainly, yeah, I think that probably put me in good stead for then moving on into a, a board career some years later.

Uh, my time at James Hardie, um, I often say I was there in the years before they lost their way rather spectacularly.

Um, but I did have some wonderful, uh, development opportunities there, and a, a key, uh, turning point for me, I think, was, uh, I had the opportunity to move into a sales and marketing management role, uh, essentially with almost no background other than a bit of study.

And that was mainly because my manager at the time happened to be another chemical engineer, and he'd done the same thing, so, you know, he's prepared to give me a go.

So I think, uh, you never quite know when those opportunities will come out of left field, and you just gotta grab them when they come by.

[laughs] Tell me, what do you think your engineering brain, uh, lets you see in a boardroom that others might miss?

I think engineers and maybe particularly chemical engineers, which I am, um, we tend to look at most things as a process, and those skills, which I, I guess my career's demonstrated and many other engineers have as well, is those skills are quite transportable.

So going into a wide range of different sectors, perhaps what we do is approach, um, business as a process, and we look for, you know, what's the strategy, what's the execution, who are the key stakeholders, what's happening with people? Um, the themes are the same across vastly different sectors.

So I think that's something that we bring, uh, to the board table, is that, that lens, if you like.

Mm.

You're good conceptual thinkers, I think, as well.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And problem solvers.

I mean, that's what we're trained to do, right? Is solve problems.

[laughs]