Chief Executive Women is pleased to announce Rachael Kay, Central Adelaide Local Health Network and Liz Westcott, EnergyAustralia have won a CEW scholarship to study the art and science of leading during times of change. Rachael and Liz will attend the Leading Change in Complex Organisations program at MIT Sloan, one of the world’s leading business schools.
If ever there was a time to support women leaders who are navigating their organisations through turbulence – it is now.
Deidre Willmott
CEW Scholarships Committee Acting Chair
“Both winners are leaders in complex and changing environments. In Rachael’s case, the challenge is acute as the COVID-19 pandemic has required health services to adapt to new ways of working and service delivery. For Liz, it is about helping a major energy retailer transition to cleaner energy.
“These scholarships will help Rachael and Liz take their change leadership skills to the next level and rise to the challenges ahead.
“We know that diverse leadership delivers better decisions and more equitable outcomes for Australia, which the country needs now more than ever,” says Deidre.
The Winners
Rachael Kay is Executive Director Capital Projects and Planning at Central Adelaide Local Health Network (CALHN), an incorporated health network serving a community of more than 466,000 people.
Rachael leads a team that manages major capital projects, currently valued at more than $350 million, and service planning across the organisation of over 11,000 employees.
“On top of the current COVID-19 pandemic, CALHN is in the middle of one of the most significant reforms the country has seen in healthcare.
“The course at MIT will help me apply learnings from the best examples of change leadership from around the world.
“I want to lead hearts and minds while executing the right business decisions for our organisation in the short and long term,” says Rachael.
Liz Westcott is the Executive – Energy at EnergyAustralia, one of the country’s leading energy retailers with around 1.7 million electricity and gas customers.
Liz is responsible for the operation and development of the company’s generation portfolio, comprising around 5,000 MW of owned and contracted wind, solar, coal and gas power.
“Our opportunity is to remake the energy system so it provides not only reliable, affordable and cleaner power, but choice and control for people as well. It is an enormous and exciting change project with thousands of moving parts. I’m looking forward to applying the insights and perspectives gained from the MIT program” says Liz.
The Scholarship
The scholarships to MIT are part of the 2020 CEW Scholarships Program, which provides talented Australian women with the opportunity to take their careers to the next level by supporting executive education at internationally acclaimed business schools.
Rachael and Liz will attend the Leading Change in Complex Organisations program at MIT Sloan in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The program helps executives harness the leadership skills, political resources, and cultural understandings needed to guide successful organisational change. Participants learn advanced leadership skills through classroom conversations, exercises, group work, case studies and a software-based business simulation.
