Katrina Leslie: “I wish I could stop imagining businesses”
After three decades and four businesses, the Swipejobs founder and Women in Leadership Dinner keynote speaker says the best lessons rarely come from success. She spoke to Melbourne Business School about solving problems and why it’s worth giving things a go.
Katrina Leslie grew up on a cattle farm in central Queensland and nods to her country upbringing for being direct and honest. She is direct, but has a natural charisma that makes her warm and easy to talk with.
By 27, Leslie was Westpac's head of HR. It was an early chapter in her career, which has been shaped by helping people find the right work. Over the next three decades, she built four recruitment businesses, three of which she has since sold. She also raised five children along the way. You get the impression that slowing down isn’t her strong suit.
“I wish I could stop imagining businesses,” she said. “It’s a bit of a pastime, but I’m not going to do another one.”
When it comes to taking a business from idea to impact, Leslie starts with a clear purpose.
“All of my business ideas have been around solving a problem in a market,” she said. “Because if you solve a problem, you're unlocking value.”
After selling her third business, HRX, in 2013, Leslie had another problem to solve. She wanted to fix the job-searching algorithm and give employers and job seekers a clearer way to find the right match. The answer was Swipejobs, which aims to be a better fit for both sides. It's an AI-powered platform that matches people with roles based on skills, availability and location. Last year, Swipejobs reported $1.4 billion in revenue and had more than three million users a day.
When asked how she keeps going through the demands of building businesses, Leslie points to her resilience.
A private founder steps into view
Swipejobs has been reported to be road-testing a pitch for a potential $2 billion ASX listing, bringing the company and Leslie into greater public view. It’s certainly a shift for Leslie, who prefers to keep a low profile. But the response to her recent Forbes Australia cover story gave her a new perspective.
She received around 500 LinkedIn messages, many from women who saw something of their own experience in hers. Reading every one of those messages helped her see that being visible might be useful to others, particularly women looking for examples of what’s possible.
Learning by trying
It’s a message she'll bring to her keynote at Melbourne Business School’s Women in Leadership Dinner. For Leslie, setbacks are part of how you build resilience.
“You learn when things don’t work out and you rarely learn when things go well,” she said.
Today she deals with high-pressure issues every day and handles them with the capability and resilience she's built from years of having a go.
“I couldn’t handle the magnitude of the issues I deal with on a daily basis now and I sleep like a baby,” she said. “I couldn’t have done that 20 years ago.”
Often, she says, things aren’t as bad as they seem beforehand. And even when an attempt doesn’t work, the experience can help you take on the next challenge.
At the Women in Leadership Dinner, Leslie promises to share that honest perspective with an audience of more than 500 leaders. Her message is simple: Try, learn as you go, and ask yourself, what’s the worst thing that can happen?
Katrina Leslie is the keynote speaker at this year’s Women in Leadership Dinner on Thursday, 26 November. Tickets are available here with registrations closing on November 10.
