Leadership Journey & Lessons | Paula Rogers

I was honoured to be asked to speak to the wonderful group at the end of year event for WA Leaders.  After some of the past speakers including West Coast Eagles coach Adam Simpson and The West Australian editor Anthony De Ceglia – I was thrilled to be invited to speak.

I will give you my career back story and the 7 things I have learned along the way that might help you.

I was born and educated in Dublin, Ireland and graduated from University College Dublin with a Social Science degree into a deep dark recession.  Over 50,000 of my peers and friends left Ireland at that time to work in Europe, US and rest of world and I went to London.  I had no career plan other than there was NO work in Dublin for me.  I did a complete career u-turn and got into media sales working for a number of UK publishers which enabled me to travel the globe.  The last publication I worked on before arriving in Perth was Institutional Investor.  During my career, I travelled to North and South America, Africa, Asia and even New Zealand, I attended IMF meetings in Washington, Asian Development Bank Meetings, and many others in between. 

In 2002, I landed in Perth with 2 boys under 5 with my now ex husband who was from Perth and wanted his boys to experience their childhood in Perth.  I was going to be a stay-at-home Mum but missed working and soon was lucky enough to get an amazing role at The West Australian where I became General Manager of book and magazine publishing.  I loved books but had no idea how to print and publish publications – a huge baptism of fire!  Before my current role as CEO Committee for Perth CEO, I was an event CEO, BD & Comms manager for Aged Care and Global law firm and State Director of an economic member based national organisation. Enough of all that, here are my 7 career lessons can I share with you:

• Notice your career DNA and how it defines you – graduating into a recession caused me to never believe I could get work – I have spent much of my career running from that worry! Is it good to be conscious of the past that can define you.
• The importance of sales and customer centric training can never be underestimated – who in your teams can provide?  Every team needs that skill.
• Expectations – Understand yours and what you expect of others – be transparent.
• Capability – surround yourselves with people that have skills to support and enhance you and your skill set – your teams and your boards and even advisory boards can all build your capacity to do your role – take advantage of all you have.
• Connections: Make them, take care of them and celebrate them…and USE LinkedIn or don’t – but don’t be half hearted with Linked In. Connect with me 😊
• Strengths - Do your Gallup strengths and celebrate them – own them – they can be your superpower
• And finally – Gratitude – think about it each and every day.

Paula Rogers Committee for Perth
CEO
Paula.rogers@committeeforperth.com.au