Fireside Chat
Fireside Chat at the Women in Finance Summit
Michelle McPhee
Assistant Governor (Business Services)
Women in Finance Summit
14 November 2025
–
Sydney
Audio
31.9MB
Watch video: Fireside Chat with Michelle McPhee, Assistant Governor (Business Services), Women in Finance Summit, Sydney
Transcript
Annie Kane
Now, as I said there, you’re a long-term, a lifer, a central banker. Most people in this
room, I think in this country particularly, will best know the RBA for its RBA cash rate decisions. And
really, I think, understanding: what does this mean for my mortgage? But there’s so much more that
goes on behind the bank, including what you do. I wonder, can you give us a snapshot of what your
division at the RBA does and how it connects with the broader financial system?
Michelle McPhee
Absolutely. Well, the area I work in is probably the area that most people here
don’t really know all that much about, but I can pretty much guarantee that you would connect with
our services almost every single day. I’ve got three areas under the space I work in. The first one
is that we provide transactional banking services to the Australian government. So essentially that means
we provide the payments for Centrelink, Medicare, child support. We do the banking for Defence, ASIC,
ATO. Often, that’s not that popular because that’s collecting tax. So if you receive a payment
from the government, often that has been processed by us. We do about 350 million outbound payments
a year, and a lot of those payments go to people who really do need that money. So it’s absolutely
essential that those payments are made when they need to be made and that we make sure that we’re
always on for those people who rely on those payments. The next area is that we provide the central
infrastructure for the payment system. So essentially, we provide a number of systems which really
underpin the settlement of interbank obligations. That all sounds very dry and quite technical, but
essentially, if you make a payment to someone and they bank with one bank and you bank with another, the
transaction that actually shifts that obligation from one bank to another goes across our rails. We also
provide the central infrastructure for the fast payments.
So you can imagine that we’ve got infrastructure that can process payments in less than a second,
which always blows my mind. I can never figure out how that quite happens, but I’m told very
reliably by our tech people that it does. Thirdly, we do the design and distribution of banknotes, and
that is a really fascinating space and a very specific central banking role. I’m sure you’re
all aware there’s been lots of discussion at the moment about the state of cash, and so we’ve
been very engaged in trying to make sure that cash is still available for those who need and want to use
it. So it’s quite a diverse set of functions, but as you can see, they’re things that you would
all connect with every day, but you might not know that we do them.
Annie Kane
Yeah, I didn’t even know it was about the design of banknotes. Cool. Do you get to have a
little say in what they’re actually designing? Like, "Put my face on it."
Michelle McPhee
Well, yes, it’s always tempting to think, "What would I look like on a banknote?"
But no, there is a process. You may know we’re actually redesigning the $5 note at the moment.
That’s a really exciting process because that note will have a design that will celebrate the
history and culture of First Nations people. That has allowed the team at the RBA to really engage with
many First Nations communities to determine what that might look like. So that has been incredibly
rewarding and a real learning experience for everyone to connect with First Nations people on that
activity.
Annie Kane
Yeah, love that. So, it sounds like there’s a huge amount that goes on in your area of
business services, but what does an actual typical day or week look like for you? What are you actually
doing?
Michelle McPhee
What do we actually do? Well, interestingly enough, we start every day with a meeting
where the policy staff collect all the things that have happened overnight. It might be overseas central
bank monetary policy decisions. It might be data that came out in Australia, anything that really impacts
the economic landscape. They collect all that and they report to - they brief the governors every
morning. We call that meeting the 8:50 meeting because, funnily enough, it’s at 8:50. So we all come
to that meeting and we get a good briefing. It’s a really good opportunity for all to just kind of
get together, set up the day with new information. We often have a good chat about what that information
might mean to the way people think about policy stance, and then we get on with the rest of our day. So,
for me, that probably means that I’ll start with team meetings. It might be one-on-ones with my
heads. It might be with some of the broader team. We have a lot of different, as you can imagine, teams.
So I like to meet with the leadership pretty often to see what’s going on. I also like to meet with
them to really - it’s important for me, I think, to get to know some of my staff. I have over
300 people in my team, so I really want to get to know what they like about their jobs, what
they’d like to change, what their pain points are, and how we might help them address those.
And then as you may be aware, the bank’s going through an enormous change agenda, and so all of that
change needs to be managed well. We have an enormous amount of different committees, mainly steering
committees, some of which I chair, some of which I sit on, to really guide that work and those
investments, which could be uplifting capability. It could be evolving our payments capability. It could
be helping implement some of the recommendations of the RBA review. And then there’s all the roles
that we do with my peers to help the Governor run the bank. There’s risk management
responsibilities. There’s investment portfolios. There’s just the usual executive-type work
that we do to run a big organisation that has a complex role in the economy. I also have some teams in
Canberra. Our client servicing team for our government agency customers is in Canberra, so I might pop
down there. We actually do our banknote printing and our R&D on banknotes in Craigieburn in Victoria,
so I might have to pop down there. I guess, in addition to all of that, I also am the executive sponsor
for the Gender Equity (ERG), so I have some responsibilities there. I have a few staff that I mentor, and
so I might meet regularly with them for coffee to see what’s going on in their world.
Annie Kane
Yeah, super quiet week. So your career began at the RBA straight out of high school, and I
think a lot of people are probably thinking, "Well, how do you even get there?" Because that is a major
responsibility. It’s a major role. So, can you share a little bit about your journey to what you
kind of did to get to where you are today?
Michelle McPhee
Absolutely. So I’m sure it does seem very strange these days to start a job straight
from school, but back when I was at school, I really didn’t want to study full-time. I was trying to
think about what’s next for me, and the RBA had a really good program where you could work and they
would support your study part-time. So I thought, "Well, that works well for me." There was an enormous
amount of staff who joined that program, and we were all straight out of school, having a good time in
the workforce, so it was a tremendously fun time, and we all had study responsibilities as well. I was
lucky enough to get a scholarship from the bank to finish my studies full-time. They paid me a salary,
and so I got to finish my honours year. When I finished, I was very fortunate to get what was my dream
job in financial markets. So, as you mentioned, the bank manages the nation’s foreign currency
reserves, which is essentially a very large fund management denominated in various currencies, buying
bonds, et cetera. So I got to work in that space, which I absolutely loved, and I spent about
10 years in financial markets, moving through the different functions: the foreign currency reserves
management, as I said, moving into FX dealing, and I also worked in our market operations, which is
mainly dealing in our domestic market.
Then I decided to take an opportunity to move into risk management, which was, again, at the time, what I
thought was just a wonderful job. Risk management is such a key business enabler, and it’s something
that all businesses need to do super well. So it was such a great opportunity to help build out that
function and really get involved in a lot of cross-functional work, which I think really adds a lot of
interest to your day-to-day when you can look into different parts of an organisation and see what value
you can add to help them do their work better. So I did that for a period of time, and then something
came completely out of left field. When Philip Lowe was made the Governor, he called me in and suggested
that I move to the head of banking. Now, I was a bit shocked, it has to be said, because I didn’t
really know anything about banking, never worked in banking, didn’t know the team, but he thought
that this was a good opportunity for my professional development. So I had a few chats to people in the
organisation that I trusted and had a think about it with my family, and then I thought, "Yes, I will. I
will take the opportunity. As you think, what’s the worst that can happen? I’m sure I’ll
learn a lot doing it," and I haven’t looked back. It was a tremendous opportunity to move into
banking and payments, which is such an incredibly interesting and evolving space, and that role led me to
where I am now.
Annie Kane
I love that, and I think it’s so great to see that people have pushed you a little bit on
your way as well and been like, "I think you can do this," and giving you opportunities. Also, just at
the beginning there, you were talking about having scholarships, and I think that’s such another
great way of ensuring people can come into finance and support their studies at the same time, or have
access to it. It’s great to see you had quite a bit of support, but I wonder, you mentioned that
about Philip Lowe saying, "You should come and head up banking," and you maybe thinking long and hard
about that.
Michelle McPhee
Absolutely.
Annie Kane
Has that been one of the challenges along the way, finding the confidence to accept or embrace
moments when you think, "Maybe I’m not sure I can do this?"
Michelle McPhee
Look, absolutely. It’s happened many times in my career. The first time was when the
opportunity came to be the head of risk management. At the time, I was working three days a week. I had
caring responsibilities. My husband had a really big job. That opportunity came along, and I thought,
"No, not really, I don’t think I’m really ready for that." A senior colleague came up to me and
said, "You really need to apply for this job. Don’t worry, you’ll just make it work. We’ll
just find a way to make it work." I thought about whether I could make it work. It’s interesting how
your thinking evolves. Then, once the possibilities open, you think, "Well, maybe I could make it work."
Then I applied for it, and then I got it. I thought, "Well, now I really do need to make it work." But I
really did, but I would not have done that at all had this colleague not said to me, "You really should
try for this opportunity." So, I do think it’s great to have people around you. And also, we should
be looking around us for people who can do roles, who might not be putting themselves forward. I think
it’s really important that we open their eyes, I guess, to the opportunity and how they can make a
job work for them on their terms. I think that’s a really good role that we can all play as leaders.
Annie Kane
That sounds like a really career-defining role as well. Are there any other moments along the
way that you’ve been like, "That was a real turning point for me in my career."
Michelle McPhee
Moving to head of banking was absolutely a turning point. As I said, it was completely
out of left field. It wasn’t an area I had any expertise in. When I went to the team, I was really a
bit nervous because they were going through an enormous transformational agenda. They were moving off the
mainframe, they were building faster payments. That business has a huge footprint both in the industry
and with clients. I’m sure you all know you want to come in and preserve those client relationships.
You don’t want to mess it up. I was very, very cognisant and a little bit apprehensive of maybe
coming in and making a little bit of a mess because I didn’t realise what I needed to do. I really
had to spend some time thinking about, "Well, actually, my value proposition, is not building systems.
That’s not what I do, but I can actually engage with customers, and I can help build strategy. I can
just use those transferable skills that I already had and move them into this banking space."
There’s no doubt I did make a few mistakes, but I tried to really keep an open mind and a learning
mindset. I just kept thinking, "Well, I’ll just keep reviewing what I’m doing, I’ll keep
reviewing my own performance, and hopefully I’ll gather the skills I need to be successful in the
role." And that took me to this role here. So, it’s not always a clear path. It’s not always a
straight line, but I think if you keep an open mind and a learning mindset and really think about your
value proposition as a leader, you can make enormous contributions for teams where you might not have
thought you could.
Annie Kane
Yeah. That’s really interesting that you said that you’re thinking about what skills
you needed and where you want to go. Do you think that’s important? Actually, writing down, "This is
what I want for my career," and finding then how you get there?
Michelle McPhee
I think it’s really helpful to do that, and I also think it’s really good to
reflect. We’re all busy, and I’ve been on more management courses and leadership courses than
I’ve had hot lunches, and they all talk about reflection, and we all commit to doing it, but
it’s hard to do. But it is really valuable to think about each day: when I’ve done something,
how did that help me move towards my goal? What did I learn when I did that particular activity? How did
I develop? How has it moved me forward? Because then, when that really big opportunity comes that you
really want, you’ll have this huge toolkit of experiences that you can demonstrate, and sometimes
you can surprise yourself. I know I had a job once, and I really wasn’t keen on it. I didn’t
really want to do it, but when I look back, it was one of the best jobs I did, because I really learnt
some important things about myself as a leader, but also subject matter that I hadn’t engaged with
before, and it really helped me years down the track. So I think it’s really about thinking: if I
have a goal, how does each day get me closer to that goal, just in terms of the experiences and the
learnings I’ll have? And, of course, every day might be a bit ambitious, but sometimes I think
it’s good to do that little stop-take. What have I learnt recently, and how has that helped me move
forward?
Annie Kane
Yeah, maybe on the weekend over a coffee or something.
Michelle McPhee
Maybe on the weekend, absolutely.
Annie Kane
I want to ask you a bit about leadership decisions as well, because a lot of people in the room
here will be running their own businesses or they’ll be managing people, and I think probably you
are one of the few people in the room that has very high-stakes decisions to make. So how do you actually
approach decision-making when the stakes are so high and the impact is so broad? What kind of things do
you think about when you’re going to take action, how you take action?
Michelle McPhee
That’s a great question. I try to have absolute clarity on what we’re trying to
achieve. In a policy space, there’s many different avenues you can go down, there’s many
different stakeholders, there’s always trade-offs when you are making policy decisions. So I think
it’s really important to be clear with your team what exactly you’re trying to achieve, and
when you have that clarity, it becomes much easier to navigate through the noise. So when you’re
actually looking to make a decision, you can actually be quite clear: how does this move me forward to
actually delivering on that policy expectation, that policy outcome that we’re looking for? The
other thing is to be really clear on the trade-offs. If I do this, I don’t do that. If I do this,
this will impact this group. Can I accept that? Do I need to change something? Is there another policy we
can change to help that group? So I think it’s really important to be clear on the trade-offs. The
other thing is seek counsel. Ask people for their opinion. It’s hard for everyone to know everything
all the time, so it’s really important to find a group or someone who is an expert in the area and
ask their counsel. Run a straw man past them. Think about how it might go, and you’ll get different
perspectives. Again, you might have to decide, "Can I live with that outcome? Or you might think, I
didn’t anticipate that that might be the result of my decision, so I might have to pivot." But I
think being clear on what your outcome is and what you’re trying to achieve. It doesn’t sound
particularly hard, but it’s interesting when you are in the space of a major policy decision, there
is a lot of different perspectives and things coming at you, and it is really good to just be clear: what
are we doing here? We want cash to be available for those who need and want to use it. That’s what
we’re doing. How does this particular issue move us closer to that point?
Annie Kane
Yeah, love that. It sounds like as well, along the way, last year, actually, at Women in
Finance Summit, we talked about building your own board, like having your own consulting group for that
kind of reason. It sounds like you had many mentors and sponsors along the way helping you take big
career steps and pushing you. Do you think that that’s an important part of succeeding in leadership
is having an external support system or even someone who can be your champion?
Michelle McPhee
Absolutely. It’s really important to have people to give you a different
perspective. We all know when we get busy and we’re in our own little space, we can catastrophise.
We can focus on things that aren’t important. It’s really great to have someone who can just
say to you, "Are you focusing on the right things? Have you thought about this perspective?" Or even just
to say, "You know what, you’re actually doing okay. This is a hard space. You’re navigating it
well. Keep going." Or, "Perhaps you should talk to these other people and get different perspectives." So
I think it’s absolutely critical to have a little network you can hook into. My mother used to say,
"A problem shared is a problem halved," and I know that sounds a bit old-fashioned, but it is really good
to talk to a group of your peers who can really support you to really work through a problem and help you
get different perspectives. I often find that if I think something’s insurmountable, I talk to my
team, we have a really good chat, and we do find a way forward. So I think that’s really important.
I think it’s good just to have someone to reflect against, someone just to run things past, to just
give you that perspective.
Annie Kane
Yeah. I love that, because my husband hates being that person for me, because he’s like,
"Now I’m annoyed about that too," and it’s like, "I need you to come up with solutions, not be
angry."
Michelle McPhee
Yeah, absolutely.
Annie Kane
So maybe finding someone who actually has a skill set to be able to deal with that, but a lot
of the things when it comes to leadership as well is about really dealing with quite stressful decisions
as well. So not just coming up with the big decisions and making sure they’re right, but dealing
with the pressure of that as well. I know that a lot of the feedback that we had last year was people
asking us, "Well, can we hear a bit more about how people in leadership actually deal with it?" So how do
you manage a high-pressure job?
Michelle McPhee
Well, I like to surround myself with people who are, I call them high-energy people, but
they don’t have to be. They give me energy; they don’t have to be high-energy people, but just
people when I talk to, they make me feel more constructive; they kind of pull me out if I’m in a bit
of a rut. It can just be sharing a joke, an experience, thinking about how we dealt with something
12 or so months ago. I find that really helps me. The other thing that I really find is helpful is
finding a tiny little part of every day to do something that you really love. Even if it’s
10 minutes where you listen to a song you really like. I really love running, so I try to go for a
run every day, listen to a podcast, read a book. It doesn’t have to be hours. It can just be a
little snippet, because then I always think to myself, Well, that was a rough day, but that doesn’t
matter because I got a run in in the morning. So, the day has been a good day if I can get a run in, and
that’s a good thing. So I think that’s just a way of actually making sure that it’s not
all stress, it’s not all drama. You take a little bit of time for yourself, just reset yourself, and
then you can get into the next day and help deal with some of the issues you’re dealing with.
Annie Kane
Yeah. I’m seeing some of the questions come through on Slido already, and if you do have a
question, remember it’s W-I-F-S 25, WIFS 25. Some of them are about payments, and I know that
obviously, payments is an area, as you already mentioned, that seems to be evolving faster than ever.
There’s lots of questions about the future of cash and making sure that things are working, and
merchant fees. What’s top of mind for the RBA right now when it comes to the future of payments in
Australia?
Michelle McPhee
Well, there’s many things about the future of payments. I guess two things that
I’m spending a lot of time on at the moment, one, is the future of cash. So, as many of you would
know, cash took a step-level down in usage for payments during COVID, naturally enough. People are
staying at home, they are shopping online, so we are not using cash quite so much. But during the same
time, we did find that cash actually rose significantly as a store of value. So people are changing the
way they see cash. They’re not buying things with cash, but they do like to have it around them,
particularly in times of stress. That’s put enormous pressure on the underlying infrastructure to
distribute cash, and it’s actually made the economics of that deteriorate quite significantly. While
many of you might think, "Well, I don’t really use cash, there are around 1.5 million
Australians who have actually told us in surveys that if they didn’t have cash, it would cause them
significant hardship. So we do feel it is something that we need to work through. In addition, when we
talk to our overseas central banking colleagues, particularly those in nations who have all but gone
cashless, a lot of the Scandinavian countries, cash is in very low single digits of usage; they’ve
actually found that it’s had some unintended consequences. They’ve found that it actually
reduced the resilience of their payment system.
I’m sure people are aware that in Spain, they had a major power outage. No ATMs were working during
that, nor was any EFTPOS working, so cash was the only thing available to buy things with. There’s
also quite a bit of geopolitical tension in Europe, and so cash is actually seen as a key tool for some
of the geopolitical issues there; people want to have it at home just in case there’s any kind of
security issues. Also, interestingly, and this was a surprise to me, there are quite some societal issues
when we don’t have cash available. We want financial services to be inclusive, and we know that some
people do struggle to use digital services, so having cash for them is actually essential for them to
connect with the financial system. We also find that in some demographics, their situations in terms of
financial abuse can be much more heightened if they don’t have the availability of cash. So we
really feel it’s an important national issue to ensure cash is available, and we’re working
with our colleagues at the major banks, in the industry, the major retailers, our fellow regulators, the
government, and organisations like Australia Post to find a solution so we can make cash available.
The other issue we’re dealing with is account-to-account services, and again, this will be a service
that many people here just take for granted. When you want to pay someone digitally for something, it
pops up in their account the next day, or even straight away if you’re using faster payments. The
rails that underpin the account-to-account service are getting a little bit old, and they don’t
necessarily have the kind of attributes that the consumer is looking for with payments, so they’re
not necessarily data-rich, and they’re not necessarily fast enough. But they are incredibly
reliable, and they are very cost-effective. So we’re really working with the industry to try and
find a way to shift that volume, which is almost the vast majority of account-to-account payment volume
in Australia, over onto faster rails. We want to make sure it’s done in a way where it’s
cost-effective, where it’s in the public interest, and where people still can get money when they
need to get it. As a transactional banker for the government, as I said, we make 350 million
payments across these rails, most of that goes across those rails. It’s really important for us to
be part of that conversation, and as we provide the central infrastructure for the payment system, all of
these decisions impact the capabilities that we need to have. So it’s a really critical, important
conversation. That doesn’t even get us onto CBDCs and stablecoins, and all those other issues as
well. So payments is a pretty happening space.
Annie Kane
I’m going to throw to a question here that somebody actually asked, and this is: does the
Reserve Bank hold crypto reserves?
Michelle McPhee
No.
Annie Kane
Well, there we go. That was a short one. Looking ahead, I guess we’ve talked about some of
the big things that you’re focused on, but what are the things that you’re most excited about?
Michelle McPhee
Well, look, I think payments, being a payment geek, is super exciting. The fact that you
can make a payment in less than a minute, that we can have – use incredible – we could build
platforms to leverage that technology, we can reduce friction between where a consumer is looking to buy
something and how the payment goes through, all of that is incredibly exciting. So we really do see that
there’s an enormous future as to how payments can enable commerce in this country. You might not
know, Australia has one of the best payment systems in the world. Our faster payment system is actually
one of the fastest in the world. So there’s incredible underlying infrastructure for entrepreneurs
all over the country to really build some really exciting use cases to help Australians with their
day-to-day. So there’s an incredible amount of opportunity in this space.
Annie Kane
Awesome. I’m going to throw to some audience questions now. And this, I’m guessing,
is from someone in the super industry. They’re saying: How do you see the payday super legislative
change impacting payment processing and infrastructure?
Michelle McPhee
Oh my goodness, that is quite the question. I have to say, that’s not something that
we really turn our mind to. That is really something that is for the industry to resolve. Again,
we’re a key part of the industry, but we don’t really see how, but what we do see is all of
these things which are actually moving to faster payments and making sure that payments can move through
quickly. This is yet another initiative where we’re trying to achieve that. So that’s just
another good initiative to build out resilience and innovation in the Australian payment system.
Annie Kane
There’s a question about monetary policy, but I might not ask that, apologies, just
because you’re not on the monetary policy board.
Michelle McPhee
I’m not on monetary policy, but I would say that Michele gives a press conference
after every monetary policy decision. There’s a lot of information on that on our website. So if
you’re interested in the policy discussion, take a look at that. We also publish the monetary policy
statement as well. So there’s a lot of good information on the website. So yeah, engage with that.
Annie Kane
A couple of questions about dealing with your own personal life and your career: so balancing,
I suppose, your energy, family needs, and work requirements throughout your career. How have you done
that? A separate question as well being: what strategies do you use to balance work and life? Have you
got any tips around that?
Michelle McPhee
Well, like most people, I kind of do my best, and I don’t always get it right. When
I was reflecting on this, over the years, it really has been a balance between how much time I spent with
my children, particularly when they were young, how much time I spend with them now. I kind of tried to
get the balance right. I know I didn’t always get it right. There were sometimes I spent too much
time at work, and there’s obviously sometimes where your family needs you and you just have to
accept that and try to manage the work consequences when they come. But I do feel that careers go through
cycles, and your work–life balance goes through cycles as well. So there may be some times where you
spend a lot of time at work, and you have to just try and work through your family commitments. There are
other times where your family commitments are more important to you, and you just have to balance the
work. And so there’s no magic formula, goodness, I wish there was. But I do think certainly the way
the workplace has evolved. I remember when I asked to work from home, I was the only person who worked
from home. When I left to work from home or I left early to pick up children, I was the only one walking
out of the office early, and that made me quite the standout in the team and also left me open to lots of
comments. We forget how much people have changed with their attitudes to balancing that work–life mix,
but now that people work from home, there’s so much more opportunity for women to balance their
careers.
So it’s such an incredibly - much more enabling environment here. So now if you’re working from
home, you’re probably working from home in a team where everybody has an opportunity to work from
home; men, women, wherever they are in their career cycle. Leaders work from home. So it’s much more
enabling in that space, but it wasn’t always like that. So I do see a lot of really positive change.
I guess it was just hard, and we just found our way through. It’s really good to have supportive
friends who are in the same situation, and, oh my goodness, over a glass of wine we would share all kinds
of stories about how we were balancing things. And the crazy things we would do, running from meeting to
pick-up, smiling very sweetly at the childcare worker because you know you’ve cut it pretty fine and
you’re really late, but you’re going to smile and maybe slip them a box of chocolates so they
still liked you after a while. We all went through those kinds of cycles, but in the end, you have to
find a mix that works for you. You have to make the trade-offs that you can live with, but it is possible
to balance it.
Annie Kane
I might ask you a couple of questions. I think you said you were involved with the DEI part of
things at the RBA, and there were a couple of questions about gender equality and recruitment. So one
being from Stacey, saying: what are some of the most effective strategies you’ve seen leaders use to
not only recruit and retain but promote women in finance, especially into senior roles?
Michelle McPhee
Absolutely, and this is work that I’ve been very privileged to work with the Gender
Equity (ERG) on, and they do some incredible work here. One thing that we really do focus on is the
pipeline, and when we think about the pipeline, we think about it quite broadly. We think about it at
high school, we think about it at university, and then we think about once we get women in the
organisation, how we can give them a good experience and make sure they get a broad range of different
skill sets so they can move to those senior roles. One thing that we find in economics is that it’s
hard to get women into economics. For some reason, women don’t find it very exciting, so just trying
to get women into the profession is something that we have a team that works really hard to do. And then
once they get into university, we try to engage with them early so they can see that the Bank is an
excellent place to work. You get to work on incredible policy issues, and you get to be exposed, I guess,
to some really highly skilled economists. So we try to pull them in in that space, and once they get in,
we really try to mentor them. As we said, we’ve got a Gender Equity (ERG), we have lots of excellent
opportunities to showcase the work of female economists. It’s really helpful that our Governor is a
woman and that we have some excellent senior economists who are women, and also some excellent board
members who are women who we can engage with as well. But it is something that requires constant work, so
you can’t assume just because you bring a woman in that that’s the job done. And then you have
a big pipeline. You have to make sure that we nurture them and make sure that they get those good
opportunities, so they’ll be ready for those leadership roles.
Annie Kane
Yeah, and someone’s saying: how can we better work to close the gap? Is it more about
actually how we recruit them, do you think? Or is it more about the support?
Michelle McPhee
It’s absolutely both. You can’t close the gap if you don’t have women in
the organisation in the first place. As I said, sometimes in economics and financial services, we
struggle to get women into roles, but once you have them in there, you really have to make sure that
you’re being very alive to the kind of opportunities they have. We spend a lot of time looking at
our data. I think data is a really enabling thing, because once you see the data and you see the gap, you
can’t close your eyes to it. As an executive team, you have to close that gap. So it’s
important to make sure that you collect the right information so you can make the right decisions.
That’s been something we’ve been working on really hard the last few years.
Annie Kane
Sorry, there’s lots of questions. I’m trying to speed through them. When you think
about over your career, you talked already about Philip Lowe offering you the opportunity. Have there
been any women that have really helped support you and uplift you on your career?
Michelle McPhee
Absolutely. And when I talked about the colleague, when I was offered the banking role,
who I went to speak to, to ask what I should do, it was actually Michele Bullock who I went and asked.
She wasn’t the Governor at the time. She was an Assistant Governor, but I absolutely trusted her
view. She was very generous in sharing her insights there. So, absolutely, it was women. In my current
role, two out of three of my heads of department are women. Deputy heads is more mixed, but we rely very
heavily on mentoring those women and bringing them through. I also feel reverse mentoring is important
too. So I actually rely quite heavily on the women in my team to help me from time to time. So yes,
absolutely, women have been critical, but I think it’s important too, when we think about mentoring,
it’s important to have women in your space as mentors as well, but it’s also important to have
men. I think the more that we talk to men about some of the challenges you may have being a woman in a
male-dominated space, the more we can educate men to actually understand what the problem statement can
be. So it’s good to have both men and women in your corner when you’re trying to move through
your career.
Annie Kane
Yeah, love that. Thank you, and thank you to Kelly for that question. I’m going to ask one
more, which I think we’ll be talking about quite a bit later today as well, which is: how have you
maintained your values in a senior role when interacting with other leaders?
Michelle McPhee
That is an excellent question. I tend to be fairly clear what is important to me
personally and clear what is important to the role that we perform as a central bank. So, being in the
central bank, we’re here for the public interest, and it’s very clear to us what that means.
And so if we actually end up having conversations where there are outcomes that are not in the public
interest, that’s pretty straightforward as far as I’m concerned and as far as my team’s
concerned. So I think, again, it’s just being clear about what you think and what you stand for.
When you’re in a senior role, yes, of course, there are compromises, and yes, of course, you have to
work things through with your colleagues. But if you’re clear on what you stand for, and you’re
confident to actually articulate that to your peers, you often find that you do win the day, because
often people can feel compelled by your vision of what your values are and what you think the
organisation’s values are. So I’ve found I’ve been able to navigate it, but it is
challenging. I think sometimes you do have to have a bit of self-reflection: is this something I can live
with? Is there a better way to do this? Is this decision aligned to the public interest? And given that
that’s such an incredibly strong part of the values of our organisation, as long as that is
something we stand for, I think that stands us in good stead.
Annie Kane
Yeah, lovely. And final question, if I may: what advice would you give to women in finance who
aspire to be in senior leadership?
Michelle McPhee
Well, I would say yes to opportunities. Say yes to opportunities. Think about what each
opportunity can give you as you move through your career. Movements in careers, it’s not a straight
line. You don’t go straight up. You zig and you zag, and sometimes you might even think you’ve
gone a little bit backwards, and then you move a great leap forward. But if you say yes to opportunities,
you will always learn something new. You’ll learn something about yourself. You’ll learn
something about the subject matter that you work with. You’ll find that when you want to move on to
that next big step, you have such a breadth of experience and a wealth of things to offer that next
company or that next opportunity that you want to take advantage of. So I would say yes. When I think
about the uncertainties I’ve had with those big career steps, I’ve looked back in the last
12 months and I’ve thought, "Well, that was a good thing I did. I was really glad I said yes. I
think I’m much better placed because I did." So that’s something to reflect on when you’re
thinking about your career.
Annie Kane
Awesome. Michelle, with two L’s. Michelle McPhee, the Assistant Governor of Business
Services. Thank you so much.
Michelle McPhee
Thank you.
Annie Kane
We appreciate your time. Thank you.