Developing the skills for leadership

As CEO of not for profit Social Ventures Australia, Suzie Riddell has led strategic change in all corners of the for-purpose sector. She is this week’s Changemaker.

Suzie Riddell always wanted to create social impact early in her career, and for over decade working at Social Ventures Australia (SVA) – the past four as CEO – she has, driving systems change right across the sector.

Armed with two degrees – a Bachelor of Accounting from UTS and Master of Philosophy (International Relations) from Cambridge – Riddell contributed widely to the for-purpose landscape. She led diverse projects and initiatives for a range of not for profit, corporate, social enterprise and government clients, including spearheading start-ups Evidence for Learning and the Industry Employment Initiative.

Joining the SVA team in 2011, Riddell worked her way through senior consultant, education executive director and chief strategy officer roles, before becoming CEO in 2018, where she now sets the strategic direction of the not for profit.

“I feel I can make a real contribution at SVA,” says Riddell. “I love the Japanese concept of ikigai, which is the intersection of four things – what you love, what you are good at, what you can be paid for, and what the world needs. I found my ikigai at SVA.”

Riddell’s purposeful and innovative leadership has not gone unnoticed by the sector. In 2017, she was named an Australian Financial Review’s Young Executive of the Year and last year, she was selected by the Centre for Social Impact to participate in its inaugural Social Impact Leadership Australia program.

Riddell also sits on the board of Community Council for Australia and The Observership Program.

In this week’s Changemaker, Riddell unpacks her work on a project creating better education, why clarity of focus was key to overcoming COVID, and how a community choir helps her unwind.

How did you get to your position and what does it mean to you?

After my undergraduate accounting degree, I went travelling and spent a few months volunteering as an English teacher in a girls’ primary school in Guatemala. It was a formative experience for me. I had wanted to make a difference but found that I wasn’t having a positive impact on the ground. I lacked the right skills, I was working in isolation and there was no evidence that what I was doing would help change the trajectory of the girls’ lives.

I began my career at Bain & Company as a strategy consultant. I loved the people, the problem solving and the variety of the work. After a few years I felt myself longing to try to find something with more social impact. This time I did my diligence. I joined SVA because they were evidence-informed, had a track record of creating meaningful impact, they worked in collaboration across sectors, and they kept people at the centre of the work.

I’ve been at SVA for the last 12 years and have worked in several roles across our consulting, education, ventures, and strategy and advocacy teams. I’ve been CEO since 2018. I absolutely love SVA’s vision of an Australia where all people and communities thrive. That’s the future I’m trying to help create.

What does a typical work day look like for you?

In the morning I often do some yoga or go for a run. My husband and I get the kids ready and walk them to school and preschool, and I walk to work listening to podcasts or chatting to a friend on the phone.

My role at SVA includes setting the strategic direction, forging partnerships that are central to how we create change and ensuring our teams have what they need to create impact. I’m either in the office or I’m out and about meeting with partners in Sydney or interstate. 

It’s a varied mix of connecting with funders, steering SVA together with the leadership team, supporting my colleagues who lead SVA teams and initiatives, participating in governance meetings, and reading up on the latest news and social sector literature.

What do you value as a leader?

I love SVA’s values and they’re values that I admire in leaders as well – people at the centre; difference gives us strength; open and ready to learn; and real change takes time.

That’s why I admire SVA’s founding CEO, Michael Traill AM, who is a visionary and a masterful storyteller. Michael’s ability to put the spotlight on real people and the changes in their lives helps bring the work of the social purpose sector into sharp focus.  

What is your proudest achievement so far?

I’m incredibly proud of Evidence for Learning, a demonstration project that tested a new approach to improving education outcomes in Australia.

In education, it typically takes 20 years for research about best practice to make its way from academia into the classroom. That’s compared to just seven years in healthcare. With Evidence for Learning, we demonstrated the role that a national evidence broker could play in speeding up research translation, making it accessible and actionable for teachers, and getting best practice into the classroom as fast as possible.

The project contributed to the government’s creation of the Australian Education Research Organisation which is helping children throughout Australia, regardless of background, have the best possible education.

Identify a hurdle you’ve faced in your career and how you overcame it.

The initial months of COVID were highly challenging and I was scared, stressed and exhausted. Like many other organisations, SVA faced uncertainty in cash flow, inability to run programs, and concerns for staff wellbeing.

We got through by focusing on our values and making sure people were our first priority. We set up a COVID response team to support staff wellbeing, asked staff to volunteer to reduce their hours or salary, and moved our program delivery to virtual spaces. 

We shifted to weekly board meetings to keep a close eye on our finances and stay across the changing environment. We also advocated to governments for supports that would help charities become partners in recovery rather than casualties of COVID.

I’m proud of the way that our board, our leadership team and our staff came together during this time. When you’re clear on what matters, it makes it much easier to tackle challenging situations.

What are some of the challenges facing the for-purpose and impact investment space?

As our Partners in Recovery research projects revealed, for-purpose organisations have different operating conditions to commercial businesses.

When a commercial operation has rising demand, their rise in income helps to service the increasing demand. With for-purpose organisations, rising demand often happens without the accompanying rise in funding. In many not-for-profit organisations, the people who value or use your services aren’t the same people who have the means to pay for them.

Add to this, the rising operating costs and workforce challenges affecting the whole economy, and you can see that it’s a tough situation. And yet, for-purpose organisations can be the key to helping Australia ‘build back better’ if provided with the correct supports. That’s why SVA continues to advocate for strengthening the sustainability of not for profits.

What drives you?

I love the work that I do because it’s focused on people and it’s about pushing the frontiers of what’s possible. 

SVA was built to find creative solutions to entrenched social problems and speed up innovation to deliver better outcomes in our communities. That clicks with me because I’m an optimist. I truly believe that by working together, we can create a brighter future.

How do you relax after work?

I’m part of a community choir, Bondi Sings. We rehearse once a week and occasionally perform. I love the flow of learning new songs together and doing something just for fun.

We have family dinner together most evenings and my husband and I take turns doing kids’ bath time and stories before bed. I love to read before I go to sleep, mainly fiction. I go to bed early because I’m at my best when I get lots of sleep.

On the weekends, my happy place is going bushwalking or bike riding as a family.

What do you want your legacy to look like?

I want to look back and see that I contributed to changes in systems that really helped transform people’s lives. That we improved policies, funding and services to make them more responsive and better able to set everyone in Australia up for success.

I want to look back and see my contribution through a strong network of people able to continue with this work. I hope that people in my team will learn valuable skills and knowledge during their time at SVA and then go on to create tremendous positive change in different fields and in different ways.