International Women's Day-Panel Q&A Discussion "Choose to Challenge"

We have a great Q & A session lined up for you to hear how our panelists have climbed the corporate ladder and what tips they would recommend and support or possibly shy away from. Knowing when to challenge and the best approach?

Bella Bain, Sales & Creative Associate Director, IBM, Co-Founder, Ambien.

Bella was awarded the top 4 for NSW young Australian of the Year for 2021. Working as a Sales & Creative Associate Director who creates award-winning work with commercial clients, public institutions, and international festivals. Her background in design and computing enables her to push both creative and technical boundaries resulting in beautiful, innovative solutions that work. Constantly driven by a desire to seek new and exciting opportunities she is passionate to be apart of designing a world that works with the people who live in it rather than against them.

Bella co-founded design start-up Ambient & Co, which creates interactive outdoor light sculptures for festivals such as VIVID Sydney and 'I Light Marina Bay' in Singapore. 1000 Cranes was awarded the second best installation following the opera house for VIVID 2018 and the MailboX was awarded top 5 in 2017.

Bella was selected to represent Australia in Dragon Boating at the World Championships in Canada in 2015 and Hungary in 2013, coming away with 5 gold medals over these two campaigns.

As one of Sydney University's 2018 International Women's Day "Women to Watch" and as a NSW young achiever semi finalist in both leadership and innovation in 2019 and 2020. Bella continues to seek out international opportunities that embrace diverse design challenges and drive the future of user experience.

Lyn McGrath, Non Executive Director, Australian Digital Health Agency.

Lyn is a recently retired and highly experienced C-suite executive with a career spanning 25 years in financial services. Lyn's most recent role at the Bank of Queensland was as Group Executive Retail Banking – this covered the divisions of Distribution, Risk, Products, Brand, Marketing, also Customer Segmentation, Customer Experience, Strategy and Virgin Money Australia (digital bank) whilst also managing Executive Sponsorship of major transformational technology projects. Previously, Lyn led Australia's largest retail financial services distribution business inside CBA, and spent some time at St George Bank.

Lyn's extensive senior management experience spans both strategic and operational roles and she is highly regarded for her transformational leadership, financial services expertise, execution delivery, experience and interactions at ASX 100 Board level both as a Group Executive and Non Executive Director. Lyn holds an MBA and BA from Macquarie University as well as a Dip PR (Hons), a Graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors (AICD), a Senior Fellow with FINSIA; a Fellow with the Australian Institute of Managers and Leaders; and a Vincent Fairfax Fellow in Ethical Leadership.

Lyn is also a member of the Chief Executive Women's Network (CEW) and was announced as one of AFR's 100 Most Influential Women in Australia in 2012. She is a strong advocate for developing and mentoring women who have moved into senior management roles and truly believes "what matters is the people - they make or break an organization's performance. As a leader, developing and nurturing your people should be your number one focus-the rest follows".