Davine: chasing the challenge

Growing up and seeing my mum undaunted by challenges taught me a great deal about how I would approach life and build a career.

“The common link between all my roles is that I have always been chasing the challenge. And frankly, the tougher the challenge, the better”.

My mum’s family immigrated from the north of Italy, arriving in Australia in 1951 when she was two. The family settled in Gippsland, regional Victoria as dairy and beef farmers and she was enrolled in the local school despite not speaking English. She could not understand her classmates – let alone her teacher. Within a couple of years she would go on to top her class.

Mum’s experiences seem pretty far from a banking career in places like Singapore and Hong Kong. But her approach to always seek out challenges and always focus on being herself made a strong impression on me, even as a young girl. I was brought up with the belief that I could do anything I wanted to.

When I was a teenager, my mum decided to go to university and study history despite having no experience with tertiary education.

Through perseverance she became a published historian, with seven titles to date, and I could see how she channelled her passions, curiosity and experience into her work – documenting everything from the immigrant experience to working with Italian Vietnam war veterans. Needless to say, I am proud of her and try to live up to her example.

She has a great life and has never been afraid to further enrich it by striving to be and do more. I think such early examples set make an indelible mark on our lives.

Changes roles

My family loves gatherings: my father's side is Irish, and my mum's Italian. We all enjoy my Italian grandmother's recipes, especially her gnocchi with beef ragu. Conversations often involve me explaining my latest role from my two-decade banking career.

To say my banking career has been varied is an understatement.

I started as an Accountant, joined ANZ as a Finance Manager in the early naughties before becoming Chief of Staff to former ANZ Chief Executive Officer Mike Smith by the end of that decade.

I’ve worked in Singapore and Hong Kong, and visited more than sixty countries on my travels so far. I’ve headed ANZ Institutional’ s Public Sector and Government businesses too.

Bank roles can sometimes sound arcane, so often I get nods and polite smiles around the family dinner table.

When I was made the new General Manager, Strategic Planning and Execution for Institutional recently I was pretty proud. My family said it was the first job of mine they understand.

The role brings together Institutional’s strategy, transformation, execution, capability, marketing, data, governance and controls teams. 

My job is to join the dots and unite as the engine that drives the Institutional bank at this pivotal time for the business and the bank.  

This role will draw on all my experiences to date.

Just like my grandmother’s beloved recipe, it’s not the individual gnocco that make the dish, it’s the secret sauce that brings it all together.  

I think my career can begin a good conversation around “what exactly does a banking career look like?”.

The common link between all my roles is that I have always been chasing the challenge. And frankly, the tougher the challenge, the better.

Embrace the tough and grow

When I took roles in Singapore and then Hong Kong I had no customer experience or credit experience. Yet I wanted to learn and so I went overseas. This is how I broadened my skills and perspective.

My role leading the Wholesale Credit platform – which I started in 2022 - felt like the biggest challenge.

Before this my experience was fairly “low tech” and suddenly I was in charge of a large digital transformation. At the same time, I only had experience running small teams, suddenly I was leading more than 100 people.

When I got the job, I remember having a conversation with a mentor and I simply asked “do I need to be somebody else? I'm managing a big team. Do I need to change my style?”.

We talked a lot about that and what I learned is that if I'm going to be a really credible leader, I need to be myself. Be honest, approachable and transparent.

I think it is also important to recognise we all experience self-doubt.

In the past there's probably been roles that people would say “you should apply for that”. And I would say “oh no, I don't have that experience or that would never work”.

But I think if a role gives me something in terms of that experience and the adventure and the challenge, I will have a go and I will back myself.

Deep topics

This new role will obviously bring new challenges, which is why it is so exciting.

There's some very deep topics I need to get my head around. This includes a greater focus on culture and non-financial risk and how we create change there.

Central to all this will be overseeing the strategy across the division and how we invest to support those goals.

A ribbon of sorts

Fifteen years ago, I was made Chief of Staff to former ANZ CEO Mike Smith and the role taught me a lot.

I think there's some elements of that role that will make this role easier. In particular, seeing the bank in its entirety and at the same time, dealing with individuals taught me to effectively prioritise across a large swathe of issues.

But there's also differences in that this role is a lot bigger in many ways, I’m much more involved in operations but also get much closer to the strategy and the non-financial risk.

I think loosely this new role ties together my wide experience in a ribbon, but I don't know if it's a tight knot to be honest!

If you are driven by learning and gaining self-awareness, it is crucial to embrace those challenges. Even if that adventure can seem bumpy in the moment, I reflect on my mum’s journey and things seem far less difficult.

Emma Davine is General Manager, Strategic Planning and Execution at ANZ Institutional