WiAD Conversations with … Rosie Wheen

Rosie Wheen is the Chief Executive of WaterAid Australia. A passionate advocate for gender equality, human rights and universal access to water, sanitation and hygiene, Rosie has dedicated her life to being an authentic leader who is always willing to push herself beyond her comfort zone for what she believes in.

Before joining WaterAid, Rosie lived and worked in Indonesia for six years. She is also the Founder and a Committee Member of ‘Not in My Workplace’, a group of executive leaders working to address workplace harassment and abuse across all industries in Victoria. She also serves on the Board of the THREE Foundation and ACFID.

After sharing her inspiring insights about women’s leadership in the aid and development sector at our International Women’s Day event last month, Rosie agreed to have a one-on-one chat with us about her career thus far and the importance of being conscious of our self-talk, especially when it comes to achieving leadership roles.

WiAD: Can you share more about your role as Chief Exec at WaterAid and what it is you do?

Rosie Wheen: So I’ve been the Chief Executive at WaterAid Australia for four years now and I … it’s an easy question to ask but a difficult one to answer (laughs). Okay, so core to my role is bringing out the best in our people and that happens in various ways, many of them indirect. So really making sure that we’re setting up the right culture of our organisation and really doing that in quite practical ways. During COVID I’ve done monthly videos where I’m sharing with my team what we’re thinking about and I co-facilitate with my regional teams, what we call a Sorumutu in Tetum so in the language of East Timor, that means “follow your people''.That’s one of the things we’ve done through COVID, is really finding ways to bring all of our people together and feel connected. So a big focus for me is bringing our people together and bringing out the best in them.

WiAD: So, obviously you’ve worked in the industry for a while now but what was your first job in the aid and development sector?

RW: I fell into it. I am a primary school teacher by training, I specialised in languages and I had a bit of a crisis when I finished my degree because I didn’t want a linear career into teaching and actually it was my dad who cut out an ad from a newspaper for teachers who wanted to teach in South-East Asia and that was with Australian Volunteers Abroad. So I was an English language teacher at a university in Kupa, West Timor, and I ended up staying in Eastern Indonesia for four years and I just fell in love with development.

I then worked at ACFID (The Australian Council for International Development) as a project officer, which was probably my first formal job as opposed to a volunteering role. Then I got a job back in Indonesia as a consultant and ended up getting fired from that role, which was a good life experience. It made me question whether or not I wanted a part of that for-profit part of development, which didn't really align with my values. It was a tough experience losing a job, I was the main breadwinner in my family at the time and had a brand new baby. But it was at that difficult time that WaterAid was just starting up and they needed an admin assistant and so for me, who wanted to stay in development but didn't want to be travelling, it was a good role. So I managed to convince the interim CEO at the time that even though I was a bit overqualified to be an admin assistant, that I would do it and do it well. And I was lucky enough to get the job and never looked back - my baby is seventeen now.

To me, women’s leadership means unlocking the power that women hold and unlocking it for the good of everyone.

WiAD: You were one of the amazing panellists for our ‘Women in Leadership’ IWD event. So, what does women’s leadership mean to you?

RW: To me, women’s leadership means unlocking the power that women hold and unlocking it for the good of everyone. And recognising that women in leadership is about the individual but it’s also about the systems and until we get different people in different leadership levels we’re not going to change so many of the structural inequalities that exist, particularly around gender equality. So to me, it’s about that structural change that we want to make but it’s also about women being able to take opportunities and removing the barriers that they’ve put there for themselves or that society puts out there.

WiAD: When we talk about women’s leadership, with regards to roles and opportunities - how would you describe that in the sector right now?

RW: I think it’s probably different for different women. I read an article by one of my colleagues, Lydia Zigomo, who has just been appointed Global Head of International Programs for Oxfam. She reflected on her experience, being a Black woman from Zimbabwe coming into the sector in the UK. It was a really different experience for her as I suspect it’s been for me as a white woman, so I guess that would be a caveat that I would put over my experience and experiences for many other women in development because it is a sector that is predominantly women, particularly at junior levels.

WiAD: You’ve touched on some important things there. How do you think we can achieve a more equitable balance with regards to leadership roles in the sector?

RW: Maybe I can reflect on some of the things that we’re doing internally within WaterAid to really be working on this ourselves. I think it really does come down to some practical things, so I am a big believer in quotas and targets and having conversations around them, not just it being the only thing you look at. For example, for our board, we have commitments to gender balance on the board and it’s really informed decisions that the board makes on recruitment and it’s something that I’m measured on as the CEO. They look at the data, look at my leadership teams and the gender balance. So I think some of those practical measures are really important, as well as really taking a feminist view of our policies and guidelines and ensuring that we’re looking at some of those structural things that might mean women, in particular, make certain choices around parental leave or different developmental opportunities.

I also continually work on how I can be more intentional about the opportunities that I have. For the WiAD International Women’s Day session, when Chris so generously asked me if I could speak, I asked if I could also have one of my colleagues - who is equally, if not a more an extraordinary leader - Jenny (WaterAid Director in Papua New Guinea) if she could be our WaterAid voice and in the end, we both got to speak. It’s some of those sorts of opportunities, and I don’t want that to sound patronising but we often default too easily to me, as the CEO in Australia, when how can I be using my power to be offering other opportunities to other leaders, and particularly for me, other women leaders.

We’re all human and we’re all doing our best

WiAD: One of the things you said during the IWD session was that women need to remember that we are not superheroes. What is your advice to women looking to get into leadership roles in the aid and development space right now?

RW: We’re all human and we’re all doing our best. We are all growing and learning and we’re stuffing up as well. So that to me has been quite profound in my personal self-talk because if I really lean into my purpose, which is about surrounding myself with people that I’m inspiring and that is inspiring me. If I’m putting on some sort of pretence that I have everything sorted or that I expect anyone else to, it’s a real disservice to them and myself.

So my advice would be to really get conscious of your self-talk and the story that you’re telling yourself and asking is that really servicing you and your leadership and your growth or is it holding you back? To really find people that you can trust and have those conversations with - whether that’s a good friend or a partner or a manager - and to have them help you to reflect on that and to grow. Because it is so often, particularly for women, those internal barriers that can hold us back. Of course, there are a lot of external structural things, but I think the more we grow into our courage of finding our voice and our message, we can remove so many of those barriers for ourselves.

This interview has been edited and condensed.