blogDiane Smith-Gander

Ruby Connection Blog - 26 July 2010

 I’ve known Anne for about 15 years now and always found her inspiring.  She has seen off multiple tussles with cancer over 15 years , raised two beautiful and accomplished daughters and lives a sustainable lifestyle with chooks, acquaculture and homegrown tomatoes in suburban Melbourne.  All that and she has managed to move from a successful corporate career to owning a small business with her husband.  The business is poised to grow by acquisition on top of the organic growth they’ve delivered in the last few years.

So when Ernst & Young were kind enough to find me tickets to the wonderful Stadel Museum exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria (definitely worth a look) and I was headed into Melbourne with a few spare hours before a meeting I immediately thought to catch up with Anne.

As a small business owner she had flexibility to see an exhibition on a week day afternoon.  In fact she insisted on heading out to the airport to pick me up.  We spent time chatting over lunch at the gallery and took in the wonderful art.  (Our favourite was the blue rider dog.)  But then it struck me – somehow Anne had always been available for just about anything you’d suggest on a work or personal front.   I remember asking for her help at short notice one day.  That meeting, accepted instantly, turned into a walk around Westpac branches in Melbourne to explore how to solve a problem in a project we were working on.  We managed to get exercise, catch up on many fronts, show our faces with people in the branches and get direct input into solving our problem.

So it’s clear Anne worked out the secret that I am just coming to.  Anne’s never worried about work life balance because she’s been focusing on living.  And because of that she made a life worth living.

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