Maureen Frank, author of You Go Girlfriend, which deals with gender diversity, left behind her large pay packet at a US multinational and founded emberin, an organisation assisting companies in attracting and retaining female staff.
“Being one of the most senior women in the company, it became apparent to me that perhaps some of the younger girls weren’t treated as well as they should be. That became something that concerned me greatly for a number of years,” says Maureen Frank, founder of emberin.
DB: How do you differentiate yourself from competitors?
MF: We don’t really have many competitors in the Australian marketplace We’re really very different to anyone else who does anything in the gender diversity space. Probably the uniqueness is around the approach. We’ve developed a mentoring tool kit in the form of a CD/DVD based program, to help women step up. This format allows for a self-paced program with 10 modules and enables companies to spread it to a very large group of women as it is also reasonably priced.
DB: Any lessons learned along the way?
MF: Originally, I was working with someone who I had very different views to. I think that had I have been brave or courageous enough, I would have realised that I needed to do something on my own a lot sooner. That’s ultimately what I ended up doing, but it took me a bit of time to get there.
DB: What do you think gives Australian entrepreneurs an edge?
MF: I think that Australians have a very strong entrepreneurial spirit. Having done business all over the world I think we bring a strong level of creativity and flexibility to the table.