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Host Douglas Isles launches the second season of the Investing for Life podcast with Nicolette Rubinsztein, non-executive director, actuary and author. An advocate for mothers and work/life balance, Nicolette was named one of Australia’s top 10 most powerful part timers. She successfully balances motherhood with several board positions, and her passion for giving back by volunteering at home and abroad. In her former career, Nicolette was the General Manager at CBA and Colonial First State. She was president of the Actuaries Institute in 2019, holds an executive MBA, is a fellow of the AICD, an ASFA Lifetime member for her work in superannuation policy, and author of the book Not Guilty – a guide for career mums. Throughout this insightful and honest interview, Douglas and Nicolette unpack her successes using a framework modelled on Platinum’s time-tested investment principles.Listen to this conversation to: - Hear Nicolette describe the devastating setback of five miscarriages, how she navigated this enormous challenge and, importantly, how it’s strengthened her today; - Learn about the long-term view she has held to ensure she remains on the right path, including advocating for part-time roles, investing in herself and leaning into what energises her – giving back through her charitable pursuits; and - Hear how she embraces qualities that help her stand out from the crowd: her feminine strength and kindness. Follow Nicolette on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicoletterubinsztein/ or find more information on her book, Not Guilty, here: http://nicoletterubinsztein.com/not-guilty/ Investing for Life is hosted by Douglas Isles, Platinum Asset Management.Disclaimer: Issued by Platinum Investment Management Limited ABN 25 063 565 006, AFSL 221935. This information is general in nature and does not take into account your specific needs or circumstances. You should consider your own financial position, objectives and requirements and seek professional financial advice before making any financial decisions.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Becoming a mother heralds a dramatic change in the lives of Australian women. New mothers go from spending a weekly average of two hours caring for others to a staggering 51 hours. And when women become mothers, they also increase the time they spend on housework, like cooking, cleaning and washing, leaping from a weekly average of 16 hours to 25 hours in not much more than the blink of an eye. Statistics like these bring the whole issue of gender equality into a new realm. Married with three daughters, Nicolette Rubinsztein (author of 'Not Guilty') has lived this conflict and come out the other end with a well-developed plan for how to smooth the way to a happier and fairer household for the working mother. Having led strategy for Colonial First State, the wealth management arm of the Commonwealth Bank of Australia for 12 years, during the first 2 years of which she also had her first baby, Nicolette knows more than most about thinking her way out of a problem. Despite reducing her hours to become part time, she managed to retain her rank and position as one of Colonial's general managers and go on to have two more children as well. How did she do it? // Hosted by Judy Stewart // Produced by Leonie Marsh // Sound Engineers: Lana Kristensen and Jason Millhouse // Research Assistant: Claudia Cameron // Instagram: @_unpaused // Website: www.unpaused.net
— Nicolette Rubinsztein gives career moms the practical tools to approach their work and life through the lens of strategy and business decision-making rather than emotion and guilt. Learn why flexibility is nirvana for career moms, how to get a part-time position, getting on the same page as your partner, curating your “childcare jigsaw”, the importance of outsourcing and how to have a good relationship with your boss. Valeria Teles interviews Nicolette — the author of Not Guilty. Nicolette is a non-executive director in the wealth management industry, with board positions in a number of leading companies including UniSuper, Zurich Australia Limited, Class Limited, CBHS Health Fund and SuperEd. She was President of the Actuaries Institute in 2019 and was previously a director of ASFA for eight years. Prior to her board career, Nicolette held three General Manager roles at CBA/ Colonial First State spanning 14 years as well as senior positions at BT Funds Management and Towers Perrin prior to that. Nicolette is a qualified actuary, holds an executive MBA from the AGSM and is a graduate of AICD. To learn more about Nicolette Rubinsztein and her work please visit: http://nicoletterubinsztein.com/ — This podcast is a quest for well-being, a quest for a meaningful life to the exploration of fundamental truths, enlightening ideas, insights on physical, mental, and spiritual health. The inspiration is Love. The aspiration is to awaken new ways of thinking that can lead us to a new way of being, being well.
In Episode 24, Alex Proimos speaks with Nicolette Rubinsztein, director at SuperEd, UniSuper and Zurich Australia. All views expressed on this podcast are subject to change and do not necessarily reflect the views of Conexus Financial. This podcast is for educational purposes only and should not be relied upon as investment advice.
Superannuation expert, qualified actuary and mother of three, Nicolette Rubinsztein is currently a non-executive director at UniSuper, SuperEd and the Actuaries Institute, and has won multiple awards for her contributions to superannuation policy. Nicolette discusses fairness in the industry, how she blends work and motherhood without feeling guilty, and her outlook on the future of women in STEMM careers.
How to ensure a happy retirement for all Australians? How can we predict people who will age happily? This session will dispel certain myths and draw on research from the Blue Zones, a Harvard longitudinal study and the works of Ellen Langer and George Vaillant. The conversation will traverse topics spanning mental health, diet and exercise, alcoholism and the impact of community and purpose. Speakers: Nicolette Rubinsztein, director, SuperEd; UniSuper; OnePath Insurance; Zurich AustraliaFacilitator: Laurence Parker-Brown, institutional content producer, Conexus Financial Length: 26 mins
In this episode, we meet Nicolette Rubinsztein, President of the Actuaries Institute and professional board member, on removing guilt, female confidence, and overcoming busyness. Go to: www.chiefmaker.com.au/117 Career Scorecard: www.chiefmaker.com.au/score-card You can also get hold of her book, Not Guilty. All the author profits go towards her charity, Missionvale Australia. Nicolette is a qualified actuary and is currently a non-executive director at UniSuper and SuperEd. She has previously held senior positions in the corporate world at Colonial First State, BT Funds Management, and Towers Perrin. She received two awards for her contribution to superannuation policy: an inaugural FSC Industry Excellence Award and an ASFA Distinguished Service Award. But her proudest achievement is, without doubt, raising her three gorgeous girls. In this episode we talk about: The resilience learnt from losing her job twice due to overnight industry changes; How to balance work with motherhood without feeling guilty or putting your career on hold; Why lower confidence in females has led to a lower uptake of STEM careers; and Overcoming busyness as parents and the concept of “career mum staff”. Connecting with Nicolette You can reach Nicolette on LinkedIn or via her website. Thanks to Jonathan Rubinsztein for recommending Nicolette. On a story from her childhood that impacted her life I had come from England and it was an incredibly eye-opening experience to see what was going on in South Africa. It was full-on Apartheid: separate buses, separate beaches, separate schools, separate areas. I still find it almost traumatising. So, part of what we do now is that we've been supporting a charity in a township called Missionvale for about 15 years, and I've taken the kids now a couple of years volunteering there. On the guilt of raising children Our generation, we were really taught, the world is your oyster, go off and do whatever you want. And I think many of us did. And then it comes to the having children bit and you realise having a career and being a mother is actually really hard, and no one really told me about how you could do both of these things. And I think the guilt comes from a work point of view because you worry that you're not delivering 100%, and it's guilt from a mother point of view that you feel guilty that you're not being the best mum possible. I think the most important one is around the childcare and what role each of you is going to play in the childcare: what percentage of that child's time do you want that child to be with a parent as opposed to in some sort of care? Then you're able to work out how each of you can contribute to that. I think you would want more than half of your child's life to be with a parent. The ultimate model would be actually both parents working flexibly and part-time. And if you both do the equivalent of that four days a week, it means that your child will only be in three days of care a week. I have seen more and more couples doing it. On life's chapters My mom was a stay-at-home mom until her early 40s. She raised four children, and then she set up her own insurance broking business when she was about 42. She's still running it and she's 75! So she is a great example of focusing on one thing more than another at different phases of your life. That means really being clear about what your goals are, and what's important to you at each stage of your life. When my children were young they were my number one priority and work was my second priority. A strategy is all about making trade-offs. And I really think that your values become so much more apparent when you have children. It's about what values you're going to raise your children with. What do you want them to have out of life? On putting your career on hold When I look back, I think I've effectively put my career on hold probably for about 10 years while I was having children, and actually, I've been working flexibly for the last 15 years. I feel really good about that decision. It was fantastic. I talk to mums about taking a long-term perspective; what are your goals in life and what's important to you? Those old-styled goals of achievement and money and success at work are not the be-all and end-all. A lot of our happiness comes from relationships, from our family, and the search for inner peace if you like. On beating the busyness epidemic It's a weird thing that when you say to somebody, "How are you?" "Busy." Busy is a standard response. Isn't that really worrying? So, how do you counter it? There's a brilliant book called The Rushing Woman's Syndrome by Dr Libby Weaver. Credit to the author for calling it an epidemic, but it is, because she kept seeing lots and lots of people in the same mould. The only antidote is to work out what's important to you and prioritising based on that. The other thing that I think is a really good life skill is meditation and mindfulness because I think that really allows you to zoom out a bit and work out what you're doing and why, and just calm your life down a bit. Also, I'd exercise in the morning, say 5.30am, before the children woke up. On confidence in women and how to gain it Women's confidence can be lower than men's confidence because men have more testosterone than women; simply understanding this goes a long way to help. I've just read another book - Stop Fixing Women by Kathryn Fox - and her point is that a lot of this gender diversity debate focuses too much on fixing women eg. how do you improve confidence? But there's not enough on how to improve structures within organisations and management to improve diversity. Also, understand that lots of men lack confidence too; it's not something solely in women. The study that I've done - qualifying as an actuary and doing an MBA - proved to me that I can do it. Getting older has made me more confident by getting more experience. I also speak to my husband. I'm often amazed if I go to him and we have a chat about a business issue or whatever it may be, I'm often amazed at how different his approach is to mine. Some of the common skills that many women bring to the table are empathy and being customer-centric. But another key one is risk management. On outsourcing your life/career mum staff The message here about “career mum staff” is about dividing and conquering, and allocating responsibility. Also, when it comes to outsourcing, Australian career women are very slow to take on the needed domestic help that you really need to thrive. These very capable women in the workplace are hiring and firing, but when it comes to their own domestic arrangements, they don't seem proactive at setting things up. I think for many successful career moms, their partner is a very important part of the equation. Not just in terms of the tasks that they do and share, but in terms of being supportive of their partner. On perfectionism I think particularly in your early career, perfectionism is a great thing and it's often the reason why many of us are successful. But it comes with a whole load of issues and one of those is sharing the role with your partner and letting them do it their way. I think we have to drop some of those perfectionistic standards and just take a deep breath and share the workload. On females in STEM careers This issue starts very early and girls are 25% less confident in maths than boys, despite girls being biologically as good at math as boys. So why are only 33% of our fellows in the actuarial profession, female? If we look at the percentage of students at University studying actuarial, it's a third female. Then if you go right the way back to the beginning of the pipeline at school, it's also a third. Our key conclusion was that until we increase the percentage of kids doing Advanced Math, we're not going to improve gender diversity in actuaries or probably many other STEM careers. One of the reasons is confidence; I'm quite optimistic because there's some research that shows that some training around a growth mindset can actually address those confidence issues. Another is a gender stereotyping issue - we're really not encouraging our girls to do maths at school as a society and as a culture. There is a strong message for parents of daughters about encouraging them to do those STEM subjects, particularly because the research suggests that 75% of future jobs will require STEM skills. Final message of wisdom and hope I would like the next generation to redefine feminine leadership, which I think is a lot more about being yourself in the workplace and bringing some of those traditional female traits to the board tables and management tables. That's some of those traits that I was mentioning earlier around empathy, compassion, customer focus, team-based behaviour. I think we have a lot to offer and we should just have the confidence to be ourselves and bring those skills to the work. Other books mentioned in the podcast Homo Deus and Sapiens - Yuval Harari The Confidence Code - Katty Kay and Claire Shipman
Ashish Ahluwalia (Principal at Finity Consulting and member of the Diversity and Inclusion Working Group) interviews Nicolette Rubinsztein, the 2019 President of the Actuaries Institute on her life, career and experiences with gender diversity in the workplace.Nicolette is committed to increasing focus on diversity in the workplace alongside the Institute's Diversity and Inclusion Working Group (DIWG)Find out more: https://actuaries.asn.au/about-us/governance/committees/all-committees/members?ID=ZNjqeCg7c0U%3d Nicolette will be facilitating the 2019 CPD Tour in Sydney, Melbourne, Perth and Brisbanehttps://actuaries.asn.au/microsites/2019-CPD-Tour/What does the Royal Commission mean for you as an actuary and what should you do differently in future? As an actuary working in the modern business environment affected by corporate culture, media pressure and societal issues, how can you as a professional effectively deal with ethical dilemmas?The upcoming CPD Tour is not to be missed as we bring you experts on governance, regulation and your professional duties. This tour has been designed to cater for all members working in traditional/ non-traditional roles and management positions. It is our opportunity to learn from past events and strengthen our profession.We will discuss learnings and case studies from the Royal Commission and share the perspectives of Royal Commission witnesses and the regulator. Follow the Actuaries Institute across all social;↳ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Actuaries-Institute/183337668450632↳ Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/ActuariesInst↳ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ActuariesInst↳ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/792645/↳ Spreaker: https://www.spreaker.com/user/actinst↳ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=ActuariesInstitutehttps://www.actuaries.asn.auhttps://www.actuaries.digital
Ashish Ahluwalia (Principal at Finity Consulting and member of the Diversity and Inclusion Working Group) interviews Nicolette Rubinsztein, the 2019 President of the Actuaries Institute on her life, career and experiences with gender diversity in the workplace.Nicolette is committed to increasing focus on diversity in the workplace alongside the Institute's Diversity and Inclusion Working Group (DIWG)Find out more: https://actuaries.asn.au/about-us/governance/committees/all-committees/members?ID=ZNjqeCg7c0U%3d Nicolette will be facilitating the 2019 CPD Tour in Sydney, Melbourne, Perth and Brisbanehttps://actuaries.asn.au/microsites/2019-CPD-Tour/What does the Royal Commission mean for you as an actuary and what should you do differently in future? As an actuary working in the modern business environment affected by corporate culture, media pressure and societal issues, how can you as a professional effectively deal with ethical dilemmas?The upcoming CPD Tour is not to be missed as we bring you experts on governance, regulation and your professional duties. This tour has been designed to cater for all members working in traditional/ non-traditional roles and management positions. It is our opportunity to learn from past events and strengthen our profession.We will discuss learnings and case studies from the Royal Commission and share the perspectives of Royal Commission witnesses and the regulator. Follow the Actuaries Institute across all social;↳ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Actuaries-Institute/183337668450632↳ Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/ActuariesInst↳ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ActuariesInst↳ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/792645/↳ Spreaker: https://www.spreaker.com/user/actinst↳ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=ActuariesInstitutehttps://www.actuaries.asn.auhttps://www.actuaries.digital
Has there ever been in a time in your working or personal life where you've had to make a bold move? How did it feel? In this podcast, we ponder these questions and more with UniSuper board member Nicolette Rubinsztein for International Women's Day (IWD). We also hear the personal and career reflections of a number of female UniSuper members on this year’s IWD theme: ‘be bold for change’.
This is a recording of an interview with 2 experts on working parents - Emma Walsh CEO of Parents At Work and Nicolette Rubinsztein author of Not Guilty - 7 Strategies for Successful Career Mums. The topic for this interview is 'Not Guilty - Balancing A Career And Motherhood'. Over 80% of mothers feel that they are regularly hijacked by guilt, and 10% of working Mums report they are totally hijacked all the time by guilt. It's an important topic and we hope that you find it useful in helping you manage your feelings of guilt at working and being a Mum.