Boardroom Conversations with Kate Jenkins

S2E12 Kate Jenkins: Becoming the Chair of the Australian Sports Commission, gender targets at sports boards, and progress since the Respect@Work report

Kate Jenkins AO GAICD is the Chair of the Australian Sports Commission and the Creative Workplaces Council. She’s also a former Sex Discrimination Commissioner and led the landmark Respect@Work report. We talk with Kate about: her chair role at the ASC, gender targets for sports boards and progress since the release of the Respect@Work report.

Episode Show notes:

• Click here for the AICD guide: “Positive duty to prevent workplace sexual harassment”
• Click here for research from the AICD and ACSI: “Positive duty: preventing and responding to workplace sexual harassment – Insights from Australian directors”
• Click here to read about the ASC’s Sport Governance Principles

Transcript

BENNETT MASON

Hello and welcome to Boardroom Conversations, a podcast from the Australian Institute of Company Directors. I'm Bennett Mason and thanks very much for listening to us. In each episode we’ll have candid conversations with some of Australia's top directors, leaders and experts. We’ll delve into their backgrounds and discuss many of the key issues that boards are grappling with. I'm delighted to say that this time our guest is Kate Jenkins, she’s the chair of the Australian Sports Commission. Kate is also a former Sex Discrimination Commissioner at the Australian Human Rights Commission. In that role, she led the landmark Respect@Work report. Kate, thanks so much for joining us on the podcast.

KATE JENKINS

Thank you. Great to be here.

BENNETT MASON

Now, you were around six months into that new-ish job as chair of the Australian Sports Commission. What have you learned since taking on that role?

KATE JENKINS

Look, I thought I knew a bit, but I have learnt an incredible amount in the first six months. Partly what I've learnt is what I already knew, which is there are so many amazing people across the Australian sports sector. And as a country we should be super proud of how, what a leader we are in sport, how amazing our athletes are, but also in a lot of innovation, our Paralympic system is really developing but also amazing. So, great people. Really, all committed to making change. Whether I learnt - or I knew - that sport touches everyone. So, it doesn't matter whether you're an athlete or a volunteer or a parent or a fan. I don't think I've found anyone who said: “Gosh, why are you doing that?” They've all been really recognising the importance of sport. And I guess, probably the other thing that I've really been pleased to see on the inside now is to really realise the Sports Commission is in what I would say a really healthy place. There's some good strategies, good leadership and staff. Good connections across the system with government and with sport. Of course we can always do better, but I haven't arrived to an organisation that’s really in crisis. I've arrived to one that's really absolutely striving to do better the whole time. So yeah, it's been a great start.

BENNETT MASON

Kate, you've got a lot of board experience. You've been a director plenty of times. You've been a chair. But what's it like being a new-ish chair at the Sports Commission? How do you get to know the organisation, the CEO and all the senior leaders? How do you get to know your fellow board members there for the first time?

KATE JENKINS

Yeah, so when I started, I really started in a hurry because I was appointed in May, and I knew I had a family holiday in June. So, I knew that those first four weeks, I wanted to get across as much as possible because I knew I was then going to be doing online activity. So, the things that I started with were one: the Sports Commission was ready for us, three of us were appointed at the same time. I was appointed at the same time as Nick Green and Dr Bridie Kean. And so, we went to the AIS in Canberra and did the standard induction process. I also really quickly set up a meeting with every individual board member. I had some standard, I actually had 5 or 6 standard questions I asked them all about how the board had been, how they felt they contributed, how they felt the processes were working. Just so I could get a really fast sense of the impression both of the board and the organisation. And that were really forthcoming with that. The best induction, which most people can't access, is that then, very quickly in July, the Olympics were held and the Paralympics. So, I would highly recommend to everyone if you want total immersion, have within your first two months the chance to go to the Olympics and to meet all those people, to see Australians actually competing on the world stage. I got to see behind the broadcast, I got to see in the athletes village. But I also got to meet every kind of player in the sport sector, including people who are the chairs and the board members, the CEOs, but also the staff, high performance stuff and athletes. So that is not the typical, you normally can't do a full submersion. Although having said that, I would say every time I've been involved with an organisation, reading documents and getting the formal briefings are not nearly as enlightening as being able to go out and see the operation in real time, just talking to people on production lines. So, I guess that was the sport equivalent to getting into the factory. And I've visited lots of different places. So, I did that. And interestingly, that was also a great way to get to know the CEO more than in the formal way. So, Kieren Perkins was in Paris for the Olympics and the Paralympics. So, think Emily in Paris - there was Kieren in Paris. But I got to go to lots of different events with him. But those conversations in the margins really helped me understand how he operates as a leader, as a person, which actually is so valuable for me to know how I can help bring the best out of him in his role as CEO. So, both in what he told me, but also how I observed what he did really well and how he operated. So, all of those things. And then when I came back at some point, I thought, I still don't feel like I know exactly enough of what everyone does. So, I just had a meeting with all the executive and just said, tell me what your division does because the Sports Commission does so many things. And it was just a great way for me to have them just really describe what the school's program was. Or how the high-performance system works. So, lots of different data points, but really crammed into really a three-month window.

BENNETT MASON

I have to ask you one question about working with your CEO Kieran Perkins. I've been at an AICD event with Kieren, and he gets mobbed. What is it like walking through Paris or walking through a room? Walking through an Olympic Games with Kieran Perkins?

KATE JENKINS

Yep. He is a magnet to Australians, no question. He is really admired. It's interesting to be there because he is courteous and respectful and grateful every time someone comes up to him. So, it's really a mark of him that he says: “It is this support. And I've had great opportunities through sport and I'm happy to welcome people.” So, he will smile for the selfies if required. He's a pretty quiet person, actually. No one would know that because people come up to him. In Paris, it wasn’t mobbing. But if there was an Australian nearby, he was recognised. Which is pretty fantastic because if you think, it was 92, 96, 2000. And it just shows how much sport is part of our DNA and our history and our story that it doesn't matter today, parents introducing him to their children and saying: “This is someone who did something really special.” We are so lucky because he's not in this role because he's a good athlete. He's in this role because he knows sport really well, but he also understands how to run the system or get the best out of the sporting system and how to work with government. So, we’ve sort of got a really unique combination. And I think we're very lucky. I feel very pleased that he's the CEO. So, I can do my job because I know he's doing his job really well.

BENNETT MASON

Let's talk a bit about your job. You're in the first year of a five-year term. What do you want to accomplish as chair, and what do you want the Sports Commission to achieve over those five years?

KATE JENKINS

There's lots of sort of actions I'd like to do. But I guess when I came to the role, one of the things I'm really clear on is, in this role and in any other role, you look at what the actual purpose of the organisation is. And the Australian Sports Commission may or may not be well known by the community as to what it does, but it is basically the federal government entity that funds and invests in sport across the system. And I'm going to tell you the functions, but this is really what I'm planning to achieve, is really to support grassroots, to get people participating in sport. So, I guess my first comment would be it is my top priority to make sure that sport is fair, safe and inclusive for and accessible for everyone. I don't think it is that yet. We would want it to be. So that's probably my first priority. And the second function we have is really to support the high-performance system. And that's my second priority, is to make sure every athlete can perform to their highest, their full potential. And that's athletes and para-athletes. And because we've got Brisbane 2032 on the horizon, which as everyone in the sport system will tell you, is only eight years away. We know the work we're doing right now is really important for investing in and preparing those athletes and the system to support us to do really well then. So, we are working right now on the redevelopment of the AIS site that government has invested a lot of money towards developing new facilities there, which is absolutely needed because the facilities aren't modern day facilities now. And we are doing those now. So, I guess making sport safe, fair and inclusive and accessible for everyone and getting as many people participating in sport would be my first priority. And my second would be just making sure we can have our high-performance athletes, get the best athletes and help them do their best across the system. And with Brisbane in our sights.

BENNETT MASON

You've had a very long association with sports. You were a board member at the mighty Carlton Blues, and you've worked with a number of Australian sporting organisations. I've asked this to a few other guests, but do you think the governance issues are different at sporting organisations compared to some other sectors or industries?

KATE JENKINS

Firstly, thank you for calling them the Mighty Blues. I really appreciate you saying that because, when I was on that board, I used to be introduced as the Victorian Human Rights Commissioner, and on the board of Carlton. And in Melbourne that got a combination of cheers and boos. And as a Human Rights Commissioner, you don't often get booed. But so, I appreciate the respect there. I'd say differences, yes and no. And I suspect other people will have answered in the same way. Obviously, lots of the similar challenges in governance, and particularly for a lot of boards in sport. There's the challenges of being sort of a not for profit, basically with volunteer boards and really complex issues. I often say you really want to be passionate about your volunteer board because it'll probably take up more time and energy and more of your stress than your actual paid job. I think in the sport sector, there's a huge diversity in size and function. It includes, you've got the AFL and the commission and major serious corporate entities, right down to local community clubs and how governance works. So, I'd say in sport, you've got everything from that really top end of town to really the grassroots and the real not-for-profits, where in fact the organisation itself is largely voluntary as well. I think also in sport, there's a complexity on the intersection of different governance bodies. So, when we did the review of gymnastics, when I was at the Human Rights Commission, we were engaged by the Gymnastics Australia, which is the national sporting organisation, or NSO, as they say. Then there is the state sporting organisation. So, they have a different part of the gymnastics system. Then there were local clubs, then there were other recreational centres and there's also the all-abilities gymnastics programs. And then you also had the International Federation of Gymnastics. And in all of those entities, there's lines that go in all direction and responsibilities and interconnections. And what I observed in that is, while the average person thinks gymnastics, if you're in the governance system in gymnastics, we would say: “You need to do this.” And they would say: “Well, that's someone else. They've got to deal with this, and we deal with that.” So, I think there's something in the interconnection of the federated and the global system that adds complexity. And in that is also complexity about how people get appointed. So, I know it's really hard to get people onto boards, but in sport to some degree, there's also places where people are just busting to get onto boards because they love the sport so much. I make no comment about it, but we look at cricket, we look at a lot of the different sports where they have some elected and appointed and it's kind of quite complex on how people get onto the boards, which mightn’t be what -- a corporate board would just say have a skills matrix and determine who they'll have. That's not how the appointments work. And then I guess the other thing, but it's not unique to sport. But I'm really conscious that sport involve, issues that usually you've got such high risk with children and child safety and different premises and locations and doing things at night. And so, there's a lot of integrity and safety issues, that are on top of all the other surviving and managing issues. Having said that, I know there's a lot of organisations. I'm also chair of something called Creative Workplaces. And in the arts sector, there's lots of issues, not just about child safety, but about pay and conditions. And so, I don't think sports are alone in complexity of the issues. But I do think that that gives a fair amount of anxiety to people on sport boards. Now, I don't want to settle that and then make people think I wouldn't want to be on a sport board. Because I absolutely think that done well, with a good group of people, the most amazing things can be achieved. And people are passionate and do put in over and above on sports boards.

BENNETT MASON

Let's talk a little bit more about appointments. Earlier this year, the federal government announced its National Gender Equity in Sports Governance Policy. So that includes gender targets for sporting organisations. And you called this policy an “important step forward.” Why is this policy so meaningful? And also importantly, do think it’s going to be difficult for some organisations to meet these targets?

KATE JENKINS

Yes, the reason I feel like it's an important step forward, and the policy in the narrative talks about this, is that the evidence is really clear that organisations operate better with better diversity at the board level. And gender diversity is only one type of diversity. But I think in 2024 we've known that at least gender diversity is important. We also know that there are plenty of equally qualified men and women that could go on to boards. So, the policy came about partly because everyone agreed we should do this, but it hasn't happened in some places. And so it is that idea of introducing targets and attaching it to consequences. And the consequences potentially is the funding, government funding. So, governments, as in the US, governments say: “Well, we fund but we can't just fund organisations that only look after half of the community.” So, governments can ask for things from sporting bodies. So, the ones that would face those consequences are really only the ones that have funding attached to them. But it is a policy that actually gives a message to everyone on the importance of gender diversity. The other thing that about the policy that I think is really important is the Sports Commission and the federal government work together with all the states and territories, sport and rec organisations. So, some states have been doing this already. So, Victoria in particular was very leading on requiring 40%, at least 40% women on boards, a few years ago and it was achieved pretty quickly. And so, it's kind of not Robinson Crusoe, this policy. It's been tried in a few different places. But having all the states and territories come together with the federal government, the Sports Commission, really makes it much more important. And it really just doesn't cause any confusion. It is agreed this is best practice, and we can do it. The timing is that it's implemented and to be in place by 1st July 2027. And that recognises that board cycles move around. So, there'll be terms and three- and four-year terms. So that gives time to have some change over. But I think it should be achievable. Actually, there's plenty of good people. We’re not in the old days where there's no good women. We know that there are really talented, capable women. So, I'm really optimistic that it will just be introduced. And there's plenty of lead time and organisations can start working towards that.

BENNETT MASON

As you said, gender is of course just one type of diversity. Do you think these sorts of quotes or target measures could be an effective mechanism for introducing greater diversity more broadly at sports boards?

KATE JENKINS

Well, yes. Yes, but I hope that this policy will start boards thinking more broadly about their diversity and just change the practice. I have been asked a lot about do I support quotas and why? And I've explained many times because I think I started out like everyone else. “Well, no. You know, we should just have a system where the best people and there'll be women who are the best people for the job.” But over time, what we've realised is the systems are creating barriers. It's not a completely open playing field, so to speak. And so, if you set these targets or quotas, you are not simply saying: “Grab the next woman who walks past.” You are saying: “You need to think about what are the systems to make sure you get really good, capable men and good, capable women. In terms of diversity then, I hope that because there's diverse men and diverse women, that there will be more of a focus on skills and diversity. And to be quite honest, I'm not sure even the skills has been really well searched for in the past, actually. If I go to the bad old days, just men who'd been on it, getting their mates to come on it, whether that has given us the best diversity, even from the men, is important. I think we talk about quotas and gender. But in some sports, there is definitely quotas about location. Same in politics - we're going to have this many from the eastern states, this many from the western states. There's quotas on things like athlete experience. So, we will have one or two members of our board will have been former athlete of this sport. And also, there's been a trend towards a target or an ambition for indigenous board members. So, I think board by board there's been different embrace of different targets. And it's really about for this organisation, what is the sort of skill set and diversity that we need on this organisation. So, I'm not saying that you need quotas and targets on everything. It's really just upskilling the board to be able to look at skills and diversity overlay each other. And then in the planning go-forward to be able to shift to a point where you've got both and I think that's achievable.

BENNETT MASON

Moving to a different topic, the Sports Commission is an Australian government board. Members are appointed by the government of the day. That's obviously different to private companies or NFPs. Do you have any insights for directors who are serving on government boards or directors who are about to join their first government board? What do they need to know? And how is it different maybe to some other board roles?

KATE JENKINS

Well firstly, I'd say that government appointments, I'd say if you're interested, keep your eye out. Because generally government board roles do get advertised. And I know often, even for mine, people will say, how did you get that role? And I'm like, I applied. And I think in some sectors it is taps on the shoulders, but generally for my experience for government boards has been apply and be prepared. I think I would say there's definitely some differences. And I love all the not-for-profit government and private, I think they're all really interesting. But there's two things I'd recommend anyway. One is, for government boards, you will usually, well certainly the statutory roles I've had, there's been a clear purpose in legislation or in some sort of government edict. And so, the first thing I'd say is just really clear on what that purpose or function is, and that's what you're working to do. So as a functional board member, just at some point, you sometimes have to say, how does this fit with actually what our mission is? And I know, for example, at the Sports Commission, lots of people are really passionate about sport. People ask me to do a lot of things all the time. But I don't necessarily say to them, but I'm really clear. My function is about Sports Commission, funding sports, helping sports work in a particular way. So, I'm not doing passion projects. I'm specifically doing the functions that I'm there for. The other thing I would recommend is, if you're joining a government board, you may or may not come from government, but learning about how government works. And that is how departments operate and how the political class operates and the cycle of elections. And it might sound a bit sort of obvious. But I came from the corporate world. For 20 years I was in a law firm. I did work for government. I thought I understood it. But in terms of actual operations and how decisions are made and how money flows and how departments work and how politics work is very different to how the corporate world works. So, a lot of times corporate people will just be going, what? What just happened? And I was like, that's because either an election’s coming up or the budget’s at this time and you have to get in. This is how it all works. So that would be my second recommendation, would be just do what you can to just learn and understand a bit better how and why they operate. And it's not right or wrong, it's just how it is. And then it really helps you be effective in what you're doing.

BENNETT MASON

You mentioned your previous roles in the corporate world, but perhaps you came to, I suppose, national attention as the Sex Discrimination Commissioner. The parliament passed laws in 2022 in response to your, as I said, landmark Respect@Work report. A key part of the legislation was a positive duty on employers, and the AICD has produced many resources in this area. But from your point of view, what does that positive duty mean for boards and how can directors best meet their obligations?

KATE JENKINS

Yes, the AICD, I will say, has been such a positive and engaged educator on the new laws and partly I know, and I get pay credit to a lot of your colleagues as well for that. But partly in the 55 recommendations we made in Respect@Work, one of them was that board directors needed better education on this topic, and that we specifically said the AICD could deliver that. So, even before the government had responded to the report, the AICD had started what I have found to be really leading in education for board directors. So, in terms of the specific positive duty, because that education actually was more broadly across understanding your obligations in relation to sexual harassment. So, to super simplify it for people tuning in, the positive duty means that for the first time under the Sex Discrimination Act, there's a positive obligation on employers to take steps - reasonable and proportionate steps - to prevent and respond or eliminate sexual harassment. In some states, like Queensland now, there is a positive duty across all grounds of discrimination. Similarly in Victoria. And the reality is you don't want to be taking positive steps to stop one type of misconduct and not on others. So, there it creates a good opportunity for a board to think more broadly about what are the positive steps you're taking to make a safe and respectful workplace. What we did in the Human Rights Commission is we then came up with seven standards because we realised that whilst historically, organisations have been doing some different things, it was confusing as to what the best practice was. And I think most board directors would find it a bit confusing as to why is this different. We've always had policies and complaints procedures, haven't we been doing things? But what Respect@Work found was organisations had been taking action. It just wasn't effective. And so, the seven standards is what we found would be effective. And one of the key things we found is boards were not regarding themselves as responsible for oversight of this area. So, my starting 2 or 3 things I'd say for boards. First thing is, look at the AICD resources because they're fantastic. The second I'd say is: you are responsible for oversight of the positive duty, which does not mean you have to know every sexual harassment case that happens. Your oversight responsibility is really to make sure that steps are being taken to prevent sexual harassment happening. And they and the way you’ll do that is to look at how the organisation is performing, what it's doing to meet the seven standards. So, the seven standards are on leadership, culture, knowledge, risk management, support, reporting and response, and monitoring, evaluation and transparency. At the top level for board members, the standard on leadership, if I super simplified down, just says three things. One is senior leaders should be educated on what they're meant to be doing. So that's boards as well. Second is senior leadership and boards have an oversight role. You need to make sure there's governance in place. And third is, I call it the “walk the talk.” Senior leaders, including boards, need to themselves be behaving respectfully and to hold others to account. So, in combination, it's as a board, you are responsible. You need to make sure the seven standards are being considered in your organisation, no matter what size. So obviously a smaller organisation would be doing less. And then, you need to really take the leadership in that sense.

BENNETT MASON

You talked about directors walking the talk. The other expression we hear a lot is about directors “setting the tone from the top.” But how can boards cultivate a culture of respect and accountability for preventing sexual harassment? What can they actually do in practice? What do the steps look like?

KATE JENKINS

So, when I think of boards, and I do think it's easy on this topic, when a scandalous issue happens boards can really descend into the details of who should do what. And we know that that's actually still the responsibility of management. You shouldn't be making individual decisions unless it's at the very top end. I think there's probably two or three things that are really important for boards to do. One is that they at every opportunity make clear that to both the CEO and the executive, but also to the organisation, that the organisation being safe, fair and respectful is one of the most prioritised things from the board's perspective. What I heard when I did some work with ACSI, and I know AICD has done some too, looking at the ASX 200 and ASX 300 on this, is that the boards of those large organisations said that even having the board asking a question about the topic of sexual harassment changed how the organisation saw it. Change it, moved it up the priority rankings. And so, the practical things, you can say it's important, you can include it as a regular agenda item. And as I've said, because of the seven standards, you should be asking for reporting back on what the organisation is doing, including ways of finding out what you might not know. So, the biggest thing I feel like as a board member, and that people feel is: “How do we know? We're not there every day. We're not down, on the ground.” It can be hidden. I mean, the way abuses of power work is to be concealed. So, some of it is to really be thinking about how can we learn what we don't know, including the executive. So, what are the different mechanisms we can have to get de-identified information, report it up, anonymous reporting lines, staff surveys always. And then from my practical point of view, even though you can't do it all the time. I do, I mean it’s the thing I love. I do love going out to sites. I do love seeing businesses in action. I've been a lawyer. My favourite thing was going to see Pilkington glass factory, seeing actually how the work is done. If you can work out ways that you can do that, not to get the proper formal presentation, because you're always going to get the cleared version on that presentation. But if you can just get out, you can sometimes get a sense of what's going on. But this is the challenge. You can’t actually see is the culture wrong? But you can make clear what you expect. Who you appoint as the CEO, that's the most important thing. And how you hold that CEO accountable is the best mechanism for you to set the tone.

BENNETT MASON

How do you keep that CEO accountable or other senior managers?

KATE JENKINS

So, one of the things that I would say is in appointing the CEO, you should look at this as a criteria these days. You mightn’t have in the past. We've ended up with people being promoted through the ranks because they're technically good at whatever the role is. What we now know is that actually, they also need leadership capability. That's not unreasonable to expect. But it's not that long ago that we weren't even putting that as a selection criteria. So, I did a lot of work with Defence. And one of the things I really admired about Defence, and Defence is a particular organisation that has a particular sort of promotion ranking. But when I worked with the Chief of Defence, Angus Campbell, at some point I said: “Okay, when you’ve finished, I'm concerned who the next leader will be.” Because in the corporate world it's like: “And then what's their thing? We've got to work out whether they care about this.” And he said: “Kate, no matter who the next person will be fully committed to cultural reform at Defence, because that is one of the criteria that we require to be promoted through the organisation.” So, the first thing I'd say is when you're selecting the CEO, just include that. It's not the only criteria but include that as a criteria. And then you're the ones who assess the performance. So, make an assessment of how the CEO is going and don't turn a blind eye to their lacking and any concerns about people leadership or concerns about their integrity. You need to raise that. So that that'd be the best I could do. It doesn't mean it's easy and it doesn't mean you can always see it. I guess the other thing that is increasingly happening is making sure you've got some sort of anonymous reporting or a system where complaints about the senior leaders and even the boards can be forwarded to somewhere that's trusted. Because obviously that's the layer that people who are concerned about their jobs, are less likely to raise concerns about.

BENNETT MASON

Kate, I’ll ask you one final question. It's now been four years since the Respect@Work report was launched. How much progress have you seen since that time from boards and from their organisations more broadly?

KATE JENKINS

Look, I would say I'm so heartened by the progress. I would say it's been a revolution. And I'm glad that Respect@Work has contributed towards it with evidence on what could be done well. I think we're in a society where staff, investors, customers have different expectations of organisations. And so, it's not really an option to sweep things to one side. But the best statistic that I often use, and I hope I get this right, people will be able to check against this. But in 2020, when the Australian Council of Superannuation Investors had questioned AMP and then started questioning some of the other organisations that they invested in, they came to us and they said: “Look, we would really like to know what we should be asking of boards.” Because if you ask for numbers of complaints, that might be a false information. Because lots of complaints actually might mean it's safe to report and few complaints might mean people are fearful. So, it's not really a good indication. So, we did some work for them involving a survey of the ASX 200. And we did some interviews as well. But one of the questions we asked is: “Who do you think is ultimately responsible for preventing sexual harassment?” And only 19% of those ASX 200 boards said them. So, most of them thought it was HR’s responsibility or just someone, but not the boards. The AICD and ACSI redid that survey two years later, and the results for the ASX 300 was approximately 83 to 85. I forgot to check the number before I came on here, but felt they were responsible for this. So, it jumped from 19 to 85%. Tells you in two years boards really accepted this is ours. I'm confident that we're not quite well placed on the positive duty yet, but at least recognising the responsibility lies there. That's a radical change. And I do think over the next three to five years we will see safer and better workplaces. And that will be largely because boards have really made this something that they expect from the organisations that they are the governance body for.

BENNETT MASON

Kate, that might be a good spot to end the conversation. I know you've got a lot on, so I'll let you go. Thank you very much for joining us on the podcast.

KATE JENKINS

Thank you very much. It was a pleasure.