How and Why Business Leaders Are Changing Direction

What are the risks and rewards of leaders jumping from one industry to something completely different? Three people who were courageous enough to make the change share their learnings with Jane Nicholls.

Executive education is overflowing with courses to upskill leaders as they navigate the challenges of transitioning to management roles. There’s precious little guidance, however, about moving from one industry to another.

“Australian corporates tend to play the safe game and appointments from outside the sector are not common,” says Gregory Robinson, managing partner at executive search firm Blenheim Partners. But an outside appointment can signal a mandate for change, he adds.

Robinson acknowledges there are significant challenges for people who lack company- and industry-specific knowledge. “Going into the new environment, they will have to build relationships and further develop their understanding of the business and its customers. There will naturally be detractors so inspiring confidence with the workforce is another challenge.”

Nevertheless, he still sees potential for upsides. “The senior manager who has only seen one sector or company may stick to the tried and tested. Complacency is a killer.” Here, three leaders who have made a significant sector skip reveal how it happened – and how it’s going.

Penny Ferguson

Now: Managing director, Jaguar Land Rover Australia
Previous: Market director (ANZ), Tiffany & Co.; head of retail, Paspaley

“I was good at maths at school so I fell into accounting,” says Penny Ferguson of her early career as a chartered accountant. “But I really like people and being part of a business.”

In 2008, she joined Tiffany & Co. as finance manager. “I love working on one business in a team, rather than me saying, ‘Here’s your tax return’.”

During her almost 14 years at Tiffany, Ferguson had three children and became market director, before joining luxury Australian pearl company Paspaley in 2021 as head of retail. But her feet were itchy for “a change of industry, outside of luxury retail”, she says.

So in 2022, Ferguson “put the feelers out” with recruiters for a range of different industries and Jaguar Land Rover came knocking. “I could see a lot of change was happening in auto, particularly with electrification, and I thought I could apply my skill set. That’s how I ended up leaping from pure-play retail into automotive.” There were nerves, she concedes, but she went into it with “an open mind and willingness to learn”.

After more than a decade building up a network in luxury retail, she had to start “from ground zero and build credibility and trust with key players”. The automotive industry, she says, “looked so huge from the outside, I wondered how I would get to understand how it operates – all the products, so many acronyms. It’s like another language.”

But although Ferguson says she found the move “overwhelming, particularly in the first few months”, she discovered that the industry was smaller than she imagined and she was “blown away” by the generosity of their retailers and investors, as well as managing directors from other brands.

Could it be that automotive is less cutthroat than luxury retail? “At Tiffany, you wouldn’t get caught talking to anyone from Cartier. But this is really different – we meet all the time, share things we’re struggling with, things that are working. It’s much more collaborative.”

Ferguson was able to apply her financial brain to a very different P&L and balance sheet, courtesy of essential retail investors “who would sit me down and show me key things about the industry – there are a lot more zeroes”.

Learning new things has been a thrilling part of the ride. “It’s been hugely rewarding to learn and grow and have my eyes opened to new things.” And that definitely flows two ways. “A fresh perspective gives you a different angle and my focus always comes back to putting our clients at the heart of everything we do.”

Arriving at a time of transition is perhaps more comfortable for an outsider, too, and Jaguar Land Rover’s sustainability push – including the rise of EVs – aligns with her personal values and calls for different thinking. Ferguson wants to “engage with change and be at the forefront of it”. She’s certainly happy with how her change of gears has worked out.

“We should be doing it more; you can get pigeonholed,” Ferguson points out. “You can apply so many skills across different industries and the reward of continual learning in another industry is amazing. It really is refreshing personally and for the business that you move across to. But you need to have an open mind, be humble and understand that you don’t know everything. It’s okay to sit in a meeting and say, ‘Sorry, can you go through that again?’ If you sit there and pretend, it’s going to be a lot harder.”

Dr Guy Boggs

Now: CEO of CRC TiME (Cooperative Research Centre for Transformations in Mining Economies)
Previous: Academia, biodiversity and agriculture program management

The career trajectory of Dr Guy Boggs could appear to be well-planned but his decisions to move on – and try new things – have all been based on personal values and interests. In 1995, Boggs began a Bachelor of Science at The University of Western Australia (UWA), wanting to “work with different communities to improve how we manage the environment”. He moved to the Northern Territory when he applied for a job and a PhD scholarship there. “The scholarship was based in Kakadu National Park and I took it not because of a career objective but because it sounded like the most fantastic experience.”

Despite the PhD, he hadn’t thought about academia until his former supervisor suggested he return to UWA, where he became a lecturer in the School of Earth and Geographical Sciences. “I loved the freedom of the research environment and teaching,” he says. “Universities are an interesting environment for open thinking – and also the energy that comes from students exploring their own way in the world – and working with other academics.”

He returned to the NT as a senior lecturer at Charles Darwin University but after about eight years, “I thought, ‘Hang on, I’m teaching information systems for business and government and I’ve never worked in industry or government myself.’ I felt I lacked a bit of credibility so I got a job in natural resource management in sustainable agriculture.”

Everything shifted. “I went from valuing how many publications you wrote and how much grant funding and how many PhD students you attracted, to being funded to deliver on-the-ground outcomes and completely different measures for success. It was a shock but one of the best learning experiences I’ve had.”

While academic colleagues told him that time in another industry “won’t be valued” and even had the potential to hold him back, he held fast to the change. “I thought that stepping out of academia would bring value for the next part of my career – and it did.”

The first year was a steep learning curve, which he climbed by being open about what he didn’t know while also being confident in the worth of his scientific knowledge. “I sought out mentors and people with shared values.” As the newcomer, Boggs says it’s important to “constructively manage” the strengths you’re bringing and to understand the success measures for the industry and how your work can contribute to them “to build credibility and trust”.

His journey into agriculture also revealed broader opportunities. “There’s a sweet spot to optimise industry and academia,” says Boggs, who joined The Western Australian Biodiversity Science Institute (WABSI) in 2016. “It’s government-funded and is there to get universities working with industry more collaboratively,” he explains. When he left academia, “I didn’t think it was necessarily aligned with my career but I was looking for a new challenge and it set me up for where I am now.\

“Through my role at WABSI, I got involved in the development of the CRC and I could sit down and talk with industry and government. Establishing the CRC was like a startup, seeking funding from business partners and the government.”

CRC TiME – a coalition of dozens of mining and mine-servicing companies, governments, regional development organisations and research partners – is now a world-leading centre finding positive and innovative ways to address global challenges of mine closure, for the benefit of people and the environment.

“Agriculture and mining are two very different industries but there’s so much that’s transferable,” says Boggs. He believes that applies to individuals crossing to fresh sectors, too. “It is a risk to move between industries and sectors but there’s so much value that you can bring. As employers, we need to recognise that, too. Sometimes we might think, ‘Oh, hang on, they haven’t been working in the mining industry for the past 30 years’, when actually they can bring in new thinking.”

Boggs says following his gut instincts has meant that his career moves have lined up perfectly. “Stay true to your own values and what you’re trying to get out of life and then find the jobs that help deliver on that. If it means moving between sectors then go for it.”

George Kenley

Now: COO and co-founder, Seer Medical
Previous: Senior project engineer, Lendlease

George Kenley pursued her natural aptitude for STEM subjects at The University of Melbourne, where in 2001 she started a double degree in engineering science. “I did internships at architecture firms and I liked that industry,” she says. “I swapped to engineering, property and construction, which was better suited to where I was going.” A graduate role at Lendlease “was the best foundation”, she says. “My first graduate role was working on the new Royal Children's Hospital in Parkville, Melbourne, and I got to be involved in the project from breaking ground to the clinical move.”

During almost a decade spent at Lendlease, Kenley says she “lent into” similar specialised projects, including Bendigo Hospital and the Green Chemical Futures building at Monash University, before an unexpected switch to medtech came while she was on maternity leave with her daughter.

Neural engineer Dean Freestone – an old friend of the family – approached the Kenleys to invest in his startup. “He said, ‘I’ve got this great idea to use technology to break epilepsy monitoring free from the shackles of hospitals and improve accessibility.’”

The Kenley family – business partners and friends with Freestone’s family in regional Victoria going back decades – became “cornerstone shareholders” in Seer Medical and agreed to bring the business strategy.

With her brothers busy in the wider family business, George stepped up. “I filled that void while I was on maternity leave and it interested me so much that I didn’t return to Lendlease. I was sad to go but this was such an opportunity that I had to take the plunge.”

Kenley’s modus operandi was simple: trust in the experts to do their jobs. “There’s no point in me stepping outside my skills to micromanage – we’ve built the team to complement our skill sets.”

Since January 2017 – and the first Australian patient that May – Seer Medical has grown to more than 220 employees, with the device now approved or cleared for use in America, the United Kingdom and Europe.

Coming from an established business meant that Kenley had to find her startup groove. “It took me a while to become comfortable, going from the discipline of rigorous procedures, processes and frameworks to the fast-paced nature of a startup. I’ve learnt that process for the sake of process slows things down but I’m now more confident about when you need it and when you don’t.”

Now that Seer Medical is past the startup stage, she’s drawn on some of those established ways of working. “We’re a more mature business and with so many people working across different geographies, we need to implement some of those disciplines. I’ve learnt to be more comfortable bridging the gap between areas where it needs to be flexible and those where we have to revert to the slower, more process-driven frameworks.”

Kenley didn’t go looking to shift jobs, let alone industries, but offers her counsel. “You can’t partially make the leap – you have to go all-in. Obviously that depends on your life situation but if you really give it a go then even if you find it’s not for you, what you take away from having tried will be so much more.”