Leora Givoni

‘Communication isn’t anything, it is everything’ says Leora Givoni, a Melbourne based marketing, strategy and communications expert with over 25 years in the business. ‘The quality of your life is based on how you communicate,’ she continues. ‘Everything for me comes back to words.’

Leora was encouraged by her parents from a very early age to use her words and share her voice:

I had this beautiful head start of hard working parents who brought all walks of life into our house for dinner. There were always open, exciting, and nourishing conversations that happened around the table. It was a safe space…diversity of thought was encouraged inside our home. Nothing was off the agenda, but we had to know our facts. We were encouraged to stand for something.

Professionally, Leora runs her own marketing, coaching and communication business, working with people and organisations to help them solidify their brand so they creatively pop in front of their desired audiences. In so doing, she has learned a lot about the key qualities of good leaders. ‘Authenticity and a real commitment to a values system is vital, it’s one of the most important things you can carry through your everyday life’ she says. ‘You cannot manufacture it. Leaders who survive honour their values. When women seek leadership positions and growth they need to remain true to themselves and understand their own values.’

Leora’s favourite quote to illustrate this point comes from one of the greatest Jewish women leaders of the twentieth century, essentially advising women to just be themselves. ‘Trust yourself’, said Golda Meir. ‘Create the kind of self that you will be happy to live with all your life. Make the most of yourself by fanning the tiny inner sparks of possibility into flames of achievement.’

Leora brings the skills and insights she has developed in the business world to a variety of philanthropic and community organisations, and is convinced that the skills transfer is a two way street. As well as being a Fellow of the Australian Marketing Institute and Graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors, she is on the boards of a select number of arts and community health foundations, including the 16th Street Foundation and The Centre for Community Child Health. ‘Mixing your world up with both professional and voluntary commitments is something I recommend to anyone wanting to expand their thinking,’ she says.

Mingling with people outside of your world is what brings fresh thoughts and curiosity to your world. It helps unleash the many unconscious and conscious biases we all carry. I truly believe that the more people involve themselves in diverse causes, the more their world opens up.

Family and background

I was born in Melbourne in 1967 in Kew. I have two older brothers; we are a close family. My grandparents on both sides were originally from Russia and ended up in Israel and then finally Australia.

My mother, Ziva Shavitsky was born in Israel and came out when she was 16 years old. Mum’s father was stationed with the British army in Africa. My mother hadn’t spoken a word of English before she was ten. She went on to be dux of the school and then become an Associate Professor of Hebrew language and literature at the University of Melbourne. She came out by boat, by herself, from Israel when she was 16, and lived with her brother and his wife. She worked at their perfumery shop during the day and completed her year 12 at Taylor’s College at night. She won a scholarship to Melbourne University.

My father, Max Shavitsky was born in Melbourne. He was one of the Jews of the established community in Carlton, and grew up in the back of a furniture shop in Brunswick Street. He cleaned dishes to put himself through medicine and became the honorary doctor of the Children’s Protection Society for 20 years. He was later awarded an OAM for his contribution.

My father went to synagogue most Friday nights. So while we weren’t strictly observant growing up, we were very traditional, lots of rituals in our house. Rituals combined with the moral compass Judaism provides played a significant role in our lives. Being part of a strong and connected Jewish community has always been an essential part of the diverse tapestry of our lives.

As a child growing up, there was no hierarchy in our world. We all felt so blessed. We could have the CEO of a company, the head of a university, students and patients of dad’s at our house at any one time. Between my oldest brother Danny, a history junky and youth worker and my other brother Adrian, a lawyer, we have grown to appreciate just how special and powerful this equal respect for all walks of life was. You can’t manufacture that. It’s just who my parents were. I lived in a house where children should be heard as well as being seen. Our discussions were open and varied.

The importance of Jewish community life

There are layers of observance depending on who you talk to. For us, we continue to have a Friday night dinner every week. We go to synagogue on the high festivals. We honour the tradition of the Friday night, Passover, Yom Kippur, Jewish New Year and some of the other Jewish festivals. Both my daughters attend a wonderful Jewish school, Bialik College. Judaism is in the fibre and DNA of our body and plays a very significant part in our lives. What’s beautiful is that my husband’s parents’, Don and Adele Givoni, have brought up their children with the same values and attitudes towards religion and rituals as our family. It makes the passing down of tradition so much simpler when you are all on the same page. Yet I do know that even when we are brought up with particular practices around religion, they can definitely be interpreted and acted upon differently.

I liken it to different forms of Yoga. People can interpret Judaism in different ways. You can practice Ashtunga or Hatha Yoga, it’s up to you. Either way, you enjoy the practice of Yoga. The same can be said for Judaism. You practice it your way. Everyone has their own interpretation of religion, as long as it brings you joy, meaning and purpose.

But as well as a religion, Judaism is also a way of life. It’s a connection to family. It’s an excuse to bring family together. Being Jewish is more than a religion, it is an identity. It’s a community. It is something that shouldn’t be taken for granted.

Education doesn’t only happen at school

I went to Mount Scopus College from Prep to Year 12, after going to Little Ruyton for kinder.

I loved my school experience. I have the most amazing friends from school. I also have the most diverse group of friends from outside of my school life. From work, studying and travel. An open upbringing brings an open attitude to meeting people.

I went to university, majored in communications and made new friends. I was comfortable with that - I joined many committees at uni, travelled by myself. I worked overseas, sometimes with friends and sometimes on my own. I had a sense of security from school. I had great teachers and a fabulous form convener, Michael Cohen, who played a significant role in keeping us together as a cohort. That sense of security; I think it comes from various places, from within, from home and from continuously investing in your own self growth activities.

I also went to the Zionist youth group Habonim. I loved it. I loved the dancing and the social aspect. I went to YMCA gymnastics. I did a lot of things because my mother worked full-time. Back then, kids weren’t doing a lot of after school activities. Now it is the norm. What was great was other than the Jewish Youth movement I went to, my other after school activities were not based in the community so I was exposed to various cultures from a very young age. This was something my parents fostered.

As my world has broadened, I reflect and appreciate what a precious gift a good education gives you. And how it transcends every generation. Education and opportunity gives you choices. Success through education is a very migrant story.

Contemporary Jewish Women have many choices because we are privileged to live in a world where education has been top of the agenda and has always been encouraged in our households. It can be a ticket for freedom and independence for many.

Work, gender and feminism

I grew up in a house where both my mother and father worked. My father was one of the first modern fathers. He supported my mum from her BA, MA through to going to Oxford to do part of her PhD. He’d look after us. He was very proud of mum’s achievements.

Given both my parents worked and had the utmost respect for each other’s careers and at both school and university, the girls I knew performed as well as the boys, my first interaction with chauvinism came to me in the workplace. I was about 22-23 at the time, in my first full-time job. I told a manager that eventually I want to work and have kids. His response was ‘Oh you won’t be doing that, you watch. After a few years you will be in the kitchen making dinner.’ I was ropable. I can picture him saying it. And the irony is, I don’t mind being in the kitchen making dinner, with my kids swinging their feet off the benches. That is not what defines me. But at the time, the comment infuriated me. So yes – during my corporate career I did experience sexism, but in different ways. I wasn’t as tuned into it back then.

And there was one occasion when, at one of the large companies I was working for, someone who was in an equal role in another division and I shared information about wages and I was shocked at how much less I was being paid. How could I have been so naïve? I didn’t even think to ask back then.’ This only needs to happen once before you rectify it!

Interestingly, one of my biggest supporters when I returned to work after having children was a male CEO at Visy. I had just had my first daughter, she was only three weeks old when he called me in for a meeting. He asked how quickly I could come back to work as Visy was a major sponsor of the Green Olympics and I was assisting with managing the marketing and communications. I said I wanted to breast feed and be with my daughter. His response was ‘I don’t mind how you organise your day. We will set you up with a home office and you can either come in or work from home’. This was a very progressive attitude back in 1999 and especially for a company that had predominantly male managers. And so I did. While working from home using an ADSL connection wasn’t easy, I am grateful to this day for his and the company’s trust in me. My extra years at Visy as a mother, helped carve out what has been a very successful consulting career for me. Especially when I coach new mums or managers of mums who are transitioning to maintain their careers and sanity in the world of work. I can coach with personal experience.

So, when I get involved in discussions about gender equity and relations, the main question I ask myself is ‘What do I want for my daughters?’ Is it a world where men stay home? Is it a world where fathers cook more dinners? Do more driving? Of course, it is not as simple as this.

I like to think of a future where there is equal pay. Where my girls will have independent careers and be able to support themselves and their families should the need arise. A world where they can sit on boards, not because of quotas being imposed, but rather because they are seen as a valuable asset. A world where women can remain feminine. A world where we don’t feel the need to sanitise the work place to keep it safe, but rather let comfortable banter continue. We are in a new stage of the feminist movement. And while so many people are tiring of the rhetoric, I am not, as change starts with conversations. So, it is a good starting point. Let the new conversations continue. Yet let’s make sure they continue with diverse members of the community, men and women of varying ages and nationalities.

When it comes to having more women on boards, there needs to be real change. If we want more women on boards, board meetings need to happen at times that women who have children can attend. Not 8am and 6 pm. Of course, there will be more men on boards if they are run at these times. It fascinates me. When you think of running effective boards, you also have to think of the makeup of that company’s customer base. Bloomberg studies have indicated that 85% of all purchases are made by women; and further, 95% of all purchases are influenced by women, yet so few boards are made up of women. It’s clever for business. The makeup of boards shouldn’t be a gender discussion but rather a business discussion.

Another thing I always grapple with is hours. Working mums do not have the same number of hours available to them as men. Once you have organised rosters, food, presents, forms (any mother will tell you how many forms they have to fill out for school on a weekly basis) and all the other commitments required to run a house, there just aren’t as many hours left in the day. While many fathers are doing more than they used to, my experience of coaching executive women is that many of them are still the custodians of organising the lives of their children and often their extended family. Even though they may ask their partners for help, they are still the organisers. Equally, I believe that men have a lot of stress on them too and women should be cognisant of this. Especially if they are the primary income earners.

I think the future looks bright and there are many opportunities opening up for women. To a lot of Jewish girls, I would say there is a lot more equality emerging. Firstly, because many of us have been working mothers and our children have borne witness to this, and secondly because of all the great work our predecessors have done in opening up the conversation around flexible workplaces.

Work/life balance and accessibility

I married my husband when I was 29 and had my first daughter at 32. I went back to work very quickly after I had both my girls. When my oldest daughter was five years old and my youngest two, I realised that to stay in the corporate world, even part time wasn’t aligned with how I wanted to mother. It was a hard decision to leave working for someone else. Yet once I started my own company, I realised that you can still be nourished by your work. I have such diverse clients ranging from banks and legal firms to food companies. The pressure to bring in business can sometimes be hard and the hours are long, as you end up working late through the night. But what I love is that I can take my girls to dance and eat dinner with them. It’s a juggle, but a worthwhile juggle. Children’s milestones are important turning points and I am glad I can be there for them.

I am still ambitious with regards to business. But family and accommodating my husband’s dreams has meant compromise. And while my husband has been a great support in my endeavours, sometimes you need to let go. You need to say no to certain things. Yet it is important to appreciate that being around for your family may slow down your initial business goals, yet the sum of all parts is the most important thing to celebrate. Saying no to something is saying yes to something else.

I feel one of the greatest threats to work/life balance is 24/7 accessibility. My mother has a fabulous saying - ‘It all started with the fax’. What she meant by this was that for the first time in history, we all became accessible outside the office because of the fax machine.

24 hour accessibility has had an impact on work/life balance on so many levels. We are available 24/7 on the phone. If something happens, we know about it instantly. This puts pressure on people. And while there is definitely an upside, too many people are experiencing feelings of overwhelm. We are never off. It is becoming a major health issue. We need to turn the phone off sometimes. Even when we think we can’t, we can.

Being involved

I sit on the 16th Street Foundation board. I love this as it is so different from the world in which I live. It has opened my world up to the power of the arts and its impact on society. The conversations the arts bring to society can never be underestimated. It has also opened up my eyes to the tumultuous lives of actors. It is a hard world to find employment in. That board and Kim Krejus, its Founder, are committed to the mental health and wellbeing of actors. It is her dream to find many more Australians a place where actors can practice their craft.

It is crucial for us to support the arts. It’s so hard today to be transported to another place because of this ‘always on’ culture that we live in. But the arts gives you that option. The arts is a religion unto itself. People have to believe in it to back it. It is such a gift.

I also sit on the development board for The Centre for Community Child Health headed by Professor Frank Oberklaid. This is an amazing opportunity to work with a world class centre committed to capturing a diverse range of difficulties in the early years of life. It works at the cutting edge of medical research; translating science research and findings into accessible language. I am astounded that after 21 years of running the centre, every time I speak with Frank it feels like it is the first time he has shared the story of the amazing work that comes out of this centre. A rare and contagious energy emits from the centre.

Being a leader

What are some tips for aspiring leaders? Know yourself and grow into yourself. Make choices about how you plan to live life. One of my favourite sayings is from Park Howell who says, ‘The most potent story you tell is the story you tell yourself, so you had better make it a great one’ I share this quote with everyone I coach and people always write it down. Why? Because we all know what a significant role self-talk plays in success.

Don’t overwhelm yourself with milestones. You don’t have to have done everything by a certain age. Keep yourself a little bit organic because the world is changing.

If you want to be an entrepreneur put in the hard yards before you have children. Hours go missing after you have children. Running your own business doesn’t mean you have all the flexibility you think you will have. I have run my own business for 15 years, and I’m always on. I’ve got paperwork, project deadlines, pitches to create and face to face hours with clients - it’s a lot. But there are benefits. When children and family need you, you can be there.

If you are married and have a family, this needs to be a discussion you have as a team. You need to learn how to ask for help in the organisation of family life. If you don’t ask, you won’t get it!

Remain curious. This might be a difference that Judaism brings to leadership. I think there is a lot of curiosity in Judaism. There is an inquisitiveness that begins very early in our lives. Great people are very curious throughout their lives. Great leaders have questions left in them’.

Most importantly, know your values and always check-in with them. When you seek mentorship, do your research. Always be curious… look after your health your whole life…never get lazy. If something isn’t working, refresh your systems. Stay fresh. Stay curious. Listen to Podcasts. Read lots, and most importantly, remember to have fun!

Leora Givoni was interviewed by Dr Nikki Henningham on 29 November 2017 for the She Speaks project. PHOTO: Leigh Henningham