How Fonterra is empowering its senior women leaders
Sharing an immersive experience at Melbourne Business School has helped Jorja Cleeland and Angela Pendleton feel more confident than ever to bring about positive change.
Fonterra is a dairy co-operative owned by around 10,000 farmers, making it New Zealand's largest company with offices throughout the world, including Australia.
The organisation is 'grass to glass', overseeing manufacturing, consumer products, food service and large ingredients businesses.
Fonterra, which is dedicated to diversity and inclusion, recently gave three of its senior leaders the opportunity to participate in the Women in Senior Leadership Program at Melbourne Business School.
With a shared language developed on the program, the participants are now sharing their experience with colleagues across the organisation and building momentum for positive change.
Meet Angela and Jorja
"There's always a new challenge in dairy, particularly here in Australia. I love it," says Angela Pendleton, Head of Commercial for Ingredients and Farm Sales.
In 2020, Angela transitioned from an accounting specialist to a broader commercial role within the organisation. When the opportunity to participate in the Women in Senior Leadership Program emerged in 2023, she eagerly accepted.
"I hope to one day be a CFO. I've always had the technical expertise, so learning more leadership and strategic skills was important to me."
Jorja Cleeland commenced her career as a private practice lawyer, then made the switch to in-house in 2014 when she joined the Fonterra team.
As Corporate Functions and Integration Director, Oceania, she is now leading hundreds of business professionals across a wide range of disciplines.
"My leadership style used to be purely relationship-based but you can never manage hundreds of people through relationships alone," Jorja says.
"When you're in a time of transition and contemplating taking the next step, you analyse yourself and ask: 'Do I have what it takes? What's needed? What will it be like when I get there?'
"The Women in Senior Leadership Program filled in a lot of those gaps for me."
Leader-led change
Now that three Fonterra colleagues have undergone the same short course experience, their collective efforts have gained momentum.
"We all now have a common language in terms of what we learned. We're now implementing some of those lessons across the business together," says Jorja.
"It's really developed a sense of trust and kinship between us."
Angela agrees, and she too has been seeding new knowledge throughout the organisation.
"I have shared what I've learned with other staff members, not just senior leaders, but other women too and managers underneath me. And many of them have shown interest in doing the course themselves."
Leadership capabilities
For Jorja, the best part of the program was discovering new skills while also honing old ones.
"I'd been told I had the capabilities, and I knew that, but I wanted a set of practical tools that I could use day to day to help me bring those capabilities to life," she says.
The program covers many leadership topics. The Power and Influence session, in particular, helped Jorja approach how she thinks about her career opportunities in a different way.
"I'd never really sat down and considered the impacts of building those relationships, having a champion at work," she says.
"As you become more senior, you also become more visible."
Another session, on Leadership Presence and Strategic Narratives, also helped to improve her confidence by revealing the common experience between participants.
"I know a lot of women who struggle with confidence when they really shouldn't," Jorja says.
"Sometimes you need to hear that in an independent setting with other people that you respect."
For Angela, the biggest benefit of the course was that it revitalised the way she thinks about her leadership approach.
"It gave me the confidence to develop a leadership style that was my own, because I used to think I had to fit a certain mould.
"You see leaders that you admire and you think you have to emulate them, but this course kind of gave me permission to develop my own style."
Inspiring facilitators
Angela says taking part in the Women in Senior Leadership Program was about more than just learning, thanks to the personal involvement of Program Director and Associate Professor of Marketing Jody Evans.
"Jody stayed with us the entire time and was a great storyteller, and she made us feel really comfortable and made it feel like a really safe space right from the start," she says.
Jorja also appreciated the expert facilitators who not only took the cohort through research-backed insights, but brought their own personal experiences to the program.
"Even though they were the ones giving a lesson, it almost felt like that they were one of the cohort as well, in terms of what they shared and the personal lessons that they incorporated."
Meaningful connections
Jorja and Angela's experience on the course provided a natural way to connect with fellow senior leaders who came from a range of fields and industries, allowing them to extend their network in an authentic, meaningful way.
"The participants were really at the top of their game. It can be isolating in our positions but we all got to a comfort level quickly. The level of candour in the room was very empowering," says Jorja.
"I remember just sitting at one stage going 'wow, these women are all so impressive' and 'do I belong in here?'
"But the answer is yes. Everyone was probably thinking a similar thing in that room."
The cohort has also continued onto bigger and better things since the program.
"Many of the participants in my cohort have gone on to more senior positions. The program not only gave them the tools to achieve that, but also the confidence to be able to take that next step and to put their hand up," says Angela.
Immersive experience
Staying in the residential accommodation at Melbourne Business School for the duration of the Women in Senior Leadership Program gave the Fonterra leaders time and space to reflect on what they were learning – and deepened its impact.
"I got the opportunity to take myself out of the day to day and really immerse myself," says Angela.
"We're all at similar stages in our life where there are a lot of things pulling on us," adds Jorja.
"So to have that time out and to be focusing on something that is going to make a difference professionally is pretty powerful."
It also meant an opportunity to enjoy and appreciate the experience.
"It's a really fun program," says Jorja.
"The dinners, the conversations, the connections you make, and every module is something that you're looking forward to."
Thanks to the generous support of donors, we have partial scholarships available via the Women in Leadership Fund for our Women in Leadership Program in November as well as our Women in Senior Leadership Program in October. Find out more.
To find out more about studying at Melbourne Business School, visit our Degree Programs and Short Courses pages, or learn about our range of custom services For Organisations.
