Financially Digital - Blog - “I Think Women Have Choices”: Westpac Institutional Bank CFO Gillian Larkins Offers Career Advice for Banking Jobs

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“I Think Women Have Choices”: Westpac Institutional Bank CFO Gillian Larkins Offers Career Advice for Banking Jobs

Monday, October 31, 2011 at 4:01PM

As part of the ongoing Robert Half CFO Masters Series, Gillian Larkins speaks about her unorthodox path to banking recruitment

“I feel very fortunate,” Gillian Larkins proclaims in her edition of the Robert Half CFO Masters Series, as she reflects upon her distinctive rise in a banking career.

Hers is a luck born of hard work and determination. Larkins studied Economics, Accounting and Finance at the University of Otago, earning an MBA from the Graduate School of Business at Macquarie University.

She trained at Ernst & Young in New Zealand before signing on with Morgan & Stanley’s London Office. Resurfacing as Corporate Planning Manager at Woolworths—“I love retail,” she says unapologetically—Larkins segued to the CFO role at Citi in Australia and New Zealand and, since March 2008, the same role at Westpac, Australia’s first bank and first company.

Despite being one of an elite few women in senior positions in the financial profession, Larkins rejects any perception of her as a gender pioneer. “Absolutely not, absolutely not,” she says, quietly but firmly. “I think women have choices and I think all through their lives they make these choices. There are some very capable women out there who just choose for a certain time and period in their life to take time out and care for their personal life and family.”

During her rise through the ranks, she didn’t want for inspiration. “A little bit of history around me is I’ve always had female role models in every company that I worked for. In my prior role, where I was CFO for Citi, there was a female CFO in New York who was very young when she was appointed into that role. She was thirty-seven, and for me to have her in the first instance, that, to me, just showed that anyone could do it.”

Yet, as her academic record illustrates, she is quick to point out the importance of diplomas. “What tertiary education gives you,” she says, , “is a, a door to get into places; and two, you never have to worry having got the tertiary education. No one is ever going to question why you were in that role, and that’s what my education has given me.”

“That’s the thing that I stress to young people,” she emphasizes. “If you get through the hard years of tertiary education, it’s worth its weight in gold. You can never look back and you never have to go back, reverse the clock and re-educate yourself in your mid-forties. So I think education is very important for that alone.”

How does Woolworths fit in to her career arc? “I love retail,” she says, breaking out in a grin. “The reason that I moved was because I was offered the CFO role at Citi, so obviously it was a kick up, but I love Woolworths and I loved retailing and I do miss that.”

The importance of education, the benefits of role models and a love of what you do are vital to a successful career path, at least, it’s working a treat for Gillian Larkins.

Nunzio Bruno |

4 Comments |

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Reader Comments (4)

Congrats to Gillian bursting the glass ceiling. I definitely agree that women have choices. Many perceived limits are self-imposed. However, hard work and dedication trumps all.

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November 14, 2011 |

Jackie

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