2011 Women and Management Dinner
Jun, 2011
Catriona Noble points to a photo of a family on what looks like the road trip from hell.
“Who’s the most dangerous person in this car?” she asks the 600 guests at the 2011 MBS Women and Management Dinner.
The kids have pester power written all over their faces, and maybe the Dad’s driving is a bit erratic. But the answer, actually, is the woman in the passenger seat.
“The mother has the power of veto,” Noble declares. And a dialogue with that mythical mother has been a big part of Noble’s tenure at McDonald’s.
A McDonald’s “lifer”, Catriona Noble’s journey from flipping burgers at age 14 to her appointment as CEO of the fast food giant’s Australian operations last year is the stuff of business legend. Noble is the female figurehead of a company that is exceptional in Australia for having around 50% female representation at every level, including senior management and the board.
Professor Bob Wood, from MBS’s Centre for Ethical Leadership (which is conducting a major project on gender equality with a range of corporate partners), has got to know Noble well, having worked with her to develop leadership programs for McDonald’s franchisees.
Noble, he says, extracts as much learning from a situation, and moves on quickly. “One of the things I like about Catriona is she doesn’t resile from the critics of McDonalds,” Wood told WAM. “She always respects people’s rights to have different views.”
Over 20 years, WAM has become a signature event for Melbourne Business School, bringing female students and graduates together to hear inspirational speakers. It’s also a forum to discuss issues faced by women in management, and to educate the wider business community.
At this year’s dinner, Katie Lahey - former Business Council of Australia CEO, and MBS 2010 distinguished alumnus – presented Catriona Noble with a scholarship to the Mt Eliza Executive Education Intensive Management Program, to be awarded to the recipient of her choice.
DIY opportunities
“Being a female leader and being a mother and wife aren’t mutually exclusive,” says Noble. “But I don’t think things are easy for anyone these days. Everyone is working hard.”
Noble famously dropped out of law-commerce studies when she realised that McDonald’s could be much more than just an after-school job that financed purchases of jeans and blue eye shadow (this was the 1980s).
She credits former McDonald’s bosses like Charlie Bell and Guy Russo with creating a culture of gender equality, which meant the company could retain talented women in management roles. While she spruiks the importance of mentors, she says ultimately, it’s crucial for women to develop their own management style, and to create the conditions for their own growth as leaders.
“One of my philosophies is really to grab opportunities with both hands. I’m never embarrassed to say that I’ve taken on jobs where I haven’t been the first choice. Instead of getting upset about that, I’ve thought sure it’s an opportunity to learn.
“You have to very intentionally go out and create opportunities for those experiences.”
Reinventing the Arches
In 2000, obesity was in the headlines, and McDonald’s was being attacked for its salt, fat and sugar content. Then along came Morgan Spurlock’s documentary, Supersize Me. Noble realised the restaurant had lost its relevance for consumers, who were drifting away over real and perceived health issues. She had to engage the critics.
She introduced wraps, smoothies and salads. She halved the sugar content in burger buns and switched to canola oil. “That decision alone took hundreds of tonnes of saturated fat out of Australian consumers’ diets.”
Partnering up with the Heart Foundation to create tick-approved meals generated both praise and cynicism. But Noble points to McDonald’s near-unparalleled ability to influence on a large scale as an opportunity.
“Healthier options may be only 10-20% of our menu. But we serve more than 1 million customers a day. [That 10-20%] is more than most other businesses would serve in a week or a month”.
Would you like a long jump with that?
McDonald’s also received its share of criticism over its TV promotion of Little Athletics, from parents who felt a fast food company should stay out of children’s activities. But it was, says Noble, another instance of McDonald’s market leadership having an enormous beneficial impact.
“We had to take the ad off the air temporarily because Little Athletics was so inundated with people trying to register”.
Urban myths
For a while, there were urban myths circulating about ingredients including claims that:
- McDonald’s had trademarked the phrase ‘100% pure Australian beef’ so it could pass off an inferior product as the real thing
- Soft serve ice creams contained animal fat
- The apple pies contained chokos, not apples (“That’s crazy! Chokos are more expensive than apples.”)
- Fillet-O-Fish contained shark meat
- Powdered egg was used
“People thought our silence on those things meant guilt. We thought the claims didn’t dignify a response. We were wrong”.
Our mum in the car
It turns out the mum in the car is not a figment of Noble’s imagination.
“How often do your kids eat at McDonald’s?” was the question put by MBS’s new marketing manager, Cynthia Burgin, who revealed her daughter’s first meal was a french fry during a car journey. “…Which I’m not proud of”, she added, to peals of laughter among the audience.
As it turns out, Noble’s kids – aged 10 and 12 - go once or twice a week. “We’ve talked a lot about nutrition,” Noble says. “I don’t talk about good and bad foods. I say, ‘you’ve already eaten McDonald’s twice this week. I’m trying to get them to the point of self regulating.”
She’s a fan of Masterchef and maintains its hallmark slow-food is compatible with also enjoying McDonald’s as a treat. “I think it’s fantastic. My kids are getting into it. I don’t think the two are mutually exclusive. My kids love to cook and I’m lucky to have a husband who cooks.”
The premier sponsor of the Melbourne Business School Women & Management Dinner 2011 was National Australia Bank. Major dinner sponsors were Directioneering, Egon Zehnder International, Freehills and KPMG. Print sponsor: Newlitho.
