Avril Henry AM - Levelling the playing field - Women of Honour Series

Women on Boards: Leader, directors & subject matter experts in conversation with Claire Braund

Avril Henry in her own words, is a perfect example of what you can do when you’re willing to work hard and have someone who believes in you. Growing up in social housing in a low income family in a mining town in South Africa, at the height of apartheid, Avril was an “English speaking girl who was not expected to amount to anything”. In 2024 Avril - a recognised and awarded expert on leadership, diversity in the workplace, change management, and employee performance - was made a Member of the Order of Australia AM for significant service to business consultancy, project management and to women.

“Where I came from was grounded in a background of inequity, which is why my life's work has always been about levelling the playing field - whether you’re old or young, female, a migrant or an indigenous person,” Avril tells Claire in this podcast.

Avril arrived in Australia in 1980 with a degree in accounting and economics from the University of Cape Town, with “two suitcases, $500 and a dream” - to live freely in a democratic society.

Since arriving in Australia Avril has had a long and varied and interesting career in finance and HR in South Africa, the UK, USA and Australia before setting up her own consultancy in 2003. An internationally-acclaimed keynote speaker and provocateur who is passionate about transforming leadership models, building diversity capabilities and reforming outdated workplace practices.

In this podcast Avril talks about what motivated her to leave the corporate world and strike out on her own, her quest for fairness and equity and the challenges organisations face around diversity and inclusion.

An early entrant into the school of diversity, Avril has since forged a big reputation around linking diversity and inclusivity to leadership capability and financial outcomes, and says one of her proudest achievements was being part of the history-making Westpac team in 1995 who introduced paid maternity leave.

In this podcast Avril discusses the need to up the ante on gender pay equity and “antiquated” recruitment techniques. “We are making progress, but it needs to be much quicker.”

“When diversity and inclusion first made it onto the executive and board agenda people talked about diversity and inclusion being for minority groups. I was the first person to come along and say, hold on, if women make up 52% of the population and people from multicultural backgrounds make up 53% of the population, and people with disabilities make up 20% of the population, you're actually not talking about minority groups, you're actually talking about major parts of society and the workforce.”

Podcast host: Claire Braund

Women on Boards (WOB) is an independent and action-oriented organisation founded in 2006 by Claire Braund and Ruth Medd, with a proud history of supporting women to leverage their professional skills and experience into leadership and non-executive-director roles.

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