Annie Gibbins

What sort of incredible organisational skills, not to mention huge amounts of resilience and a titanic work ethic, would you need to raise four children all under twenty-six months of age?

CEO Super Mum! Be careful using that title around Annie Gibbins because she’s likely to pull you up faster than a speeding bullet.

It’s understandable, though, why Annie is often labelled that way. She fell in love at seventeen, and married a week after her twentieth birthday, “because my parents didn’t want me to be a teenage bride.”

She had twins at twenty-three and another set of twins at twenty-five, a fifth child at thirty-two, and still managed to become one of the most influential people in corporate Australia.

“I’ve been extremely fortunate that I married exactly the right partner for me,” Annie says. “He’s been absolutely fantastic, so supportive of who I am and who I’ve wanted to become.”

Annie and James have been married for thirty-one years. They both built successful careers while still raising a large family and remaining totally devoted to each other; “we’re still total sweethearts,” adds Annie.

Annie splits her time between her full-time job as CEO of Glaucoma Australia and running her own business, Lipstick Consulting.

Working at Glaucoma Australia is “my day job and it allows me to manage a charity where I can actively make a difference in reducing preventable but irreversible blindness for three hundred thousand Australians.”

That’s something she’s been true to throughout her career. In previous roles as the CEO of the Australian Institute of Ultrasound, CEO Australasian Society of Ultrasound in Medicine, National Education Manager Australian Orthopaedic Surgeons and Head Teacher Nursing, Annie had to change manage organisations in times of significant growth, opportunity and flux.

“My passion is preventative health care, my qualifications are in health, education and business and in my varied roles I was able to ensure best practice outcomes were achieved for patients, health professionals and staff.

“I experienced a suite of new challenges because I was questioning the way things were previously done. We had to evolve and respond to technological change, we had to be more flexible, innovative, collaborative and supportive.

“I don’t believe success is a destination. There’s a lot of comfort in doing what you’ve always done, but to maintain success you need to reflect and be prepared to change.”

Annie has come a long way from the twenty-five-year old mother with four children under two-and-a-half. She hasn’t followed what is deemed the traditional path of the successful corporate person, whether that be a woman or man. “I look at my father who studied pharmacy, and worked at the same business for his entire career,” Annie comments.

“For me, it was nothing like that. I started out as a nurse, almost by default. From the age of thirteen I was being groomed to take over the family business. My father owned a pharmacy in Mosman, Sydney, and I worked there on weekends until I finished school.

“But in my HSC year my father had a couple of armed robberies at the pharmacy. During my childhood, my brother was abducted from our family home for a drug-related ransom so I was increasingly spooked by this pending career option. So even though with hindsight I should have pursued a role in business, I actually just wrote down nursing, thinking it was medical and I wouldn’t get in trouble.”

While nursing was a great start to her working life, it wasn’t Annie’s passion. She greatly admires her two pioneering grandmothers who defied the odds in their respective careers. One was an aristocrat raised in Russia until her mother and sister died of typhus and her father sent her to Germany to be raised by his sister.

As a consequence of the Russian Revolution and World War II, her wealth and title were lost and she became a nurse in France before emigrating to Australia in the nineteen-fifties with her young family and few assets.

Annie’s other grandmother grew up in a poor family in Sydney and when her mother left her at the age of two to follow a man to New Zealand, she became a handmaid to her grandmother and life as a child was extremely tough.

Both Annie’s grandmothers went on to independently raise their families. One became a registered nurse and the other a chartered accountant in a time when women rarely forged careers independently.

Annie has tremendous respect for the nursing profession, but for her it wasn’t her calling. “So, as well as being a nurse, a wife and mother of two sets of twins, over time I got my teaching diploma, and then my Masters in adult education – Lean Six Sigma and Australian Institute of Company Directors qualifications.”

Of course, this had its challenges, and “yes, it was hard”, Annie adds. “Most of my peers would have said why do extra study, why make your life harder? But I’ve never done it for anyone else; I don’t have that ‘I have to prove myself’ thing. I’ve enjoyed the study, and honestly I could only do so much “baby” stuff. I loved those early motherhood days, but I just needed the stimulation and the contact I had through university and extending myself.”

It was a slow, long haul of grinding away late in the evenings before the education goals were achieved. Then the opportunity arose to combine her love of medicine and education.

“I managed a nursing school at TAFE and there was a view that I was set for life. Most of my colleagues thought that was the best I was ever going to achieve, but I’ve always thought ‘well what’s next?’”

Next came Annie’s first step into the corporate world, working with orthopaedic surgeons, a role that, in hindsight, set her up perfectly for the challenges that would follow later in her career.

There was “a regionally-run apprenticeship type programme which had a different process in each state to move into being a surgeon. So my role was to nationalise their curriculum and to standardise the selection process with the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons.

“I worked with teams of really amazing doctors; I was so inspired by them. At the end of my four years there we had a nationalised curriculum which was internationally benchmarked and the selection process was standardised for the country. It was really exciting, I learnt a tremendous amount and I loved every minute of it.”

The learning process for Annie hasn’t just been in the classroom: the school of hard knocks has played its part as well. A lot of what Annie has learned with regard to relationships has come through being a parent – in particular a parent with four children under three, then five children under eight.

Annie wryly admits, “it could have been seven children under eight. The odds of having twins is one in eighty. It then goes to one in eight to have a second set of twins and then pretty much fifty/fifty for a third set. All my friends thought I’d have triplet boys just to be hilarious, but no, my last bub was one gorgeous girl, so God was smiling on me.”

Working full-time with that many young children was very challenging for Annie. Her father was diagnosed with a brain tumour when she was twenty-seven and her mother became his full-time carer which limited the opportunity for help and support. “I realised early on I needed to accept help whenever offered, but I also wanted to spend my time with people who affirmed and built me up, rather than those who zapped my energy and dragged me down.

“I quickly became the queen of multi-tasking and very comfortable with being authentic in my circumstance. I didn’t strive for perfection as it was always unachievable and unnecessarily stressful. Rather I embraced personal growth and a positive mindset which allowed my life journey to be created without limited thinking restricting my potential. After the craziness of juggling those early parenting years I then wanted to help other women, knowing how much I appreciated the value of community and the collective.”

“As I’ve gone through my career I’ve understood that I’m a very capable person. But at the same time I’ve allowed myself to admit ‘well maybe there are different views’. I’ve found it’s great to be in groups which have challenging views; some of my views are great and are accepted and some of them get shot down, and that’s a good thing. If you’re the smartest person in the room, then you’re in the wrong room.”

Since becoming a CEO and having her children grow into young adults, Annie turned her passion for helping others – especially women – into making a more constructive difference by establishing Lipstick Consulting.

Annie had been reflecting on what she wanted to do with her consulting business.

“I realised it wasn’t just about consulting on business for me, it was more about ‘what is my story, who am I, what do I really want to contribute and what is my skill set?’”

Annie’s ‘light bulb’ moment was on a trip to Nepal when she was hot, sweaty and smelly. “We were trekking to Everest Base Camp and the three high passes, it was the second week into a three week trip and I was exhausted, raw and out of my comfort zone.”

Annie recalls that “we were heading down to the mess tent for dinner after a day’s trekking and I said to James, ‘hold on, I just want to put on my lippy.’ He gave me this weird look as if to say ‘are you suffering altitude sickness?’ and said, ‘you don’t need it, why even bother, no-one cares’. I said, ‘I care!’

Strangely in that instance, Annie comments, “I’m not a lipstick person really, but I put it on and it did make me feel better. I wondered ‘why did it make me feel better?’ and I realised it wasn’t actually about putting on lipstick. It made me really question what I draw on in life and business to give me that extra bit of confidence to power up.

“It became a metaphor that hung with me for the rest of the trip. It was all about ‘what do I need to apply to my life context at this time which is my lipstick?”

As Annie climbed another mountain, crossed another snowdrift and sucked in air at high altitude, that simple act of applying lipstick forced her to reflect on her next career move and question her purpose and passion.

Annie now uses that metaphor in everything, “in all my keynote speaking, mentoring, workshops and presentations, I’ve become known as the Lipstick Power Woman.

“I ask everyone, ‘what is your lipstick?’ For some it might be an empowering phrase they say to themselves; something they refer to that fires them up. It could be as simple as phoning a friend who offers the encouragement you need and they’re your lipstick. I think it’s something every woman can relate to.”

When Annie developed Lipstick Consulting, she split it into five areas she believed were important for personal growth and covered her skillset. She calls them the five arms of Lipstick: Fitness, Adventure, Mentoring, Life Coaching and Business Coaching.

“Now, mentoring has become the strongest part of Lipstick: it’s about eighty percent of the business. I tailor a programme according to my client’s needs. I have an introductory session to find out what they need and then I explain if they want me to work with them I would like them to commit for at least a year and I’d like to have a minimum of six sessions.”

The process generally starts “with my online programme, a six-week programme called ‘Transform Your Life’ which allows them to get to know me, feel connected and unpack parts of their history, so when we actually meet we’ve got a lot to discuss.”

Most of Lipstick’s mentoring clients are business people or mums needing professional mentoring – however, there’s also a client base who’ve tapped into the mentoring programme via the fitness and adventure arms of Lipstick.

Annie is passionate about “the benefits of fitness and adventure, and the programme for those clients is a little more low-key and it tends to be more group based. Physical activity, especially in nature, is insanely beneficial for the mind, body and soul. Choosing to push yourself out of your comfort zone allows resilience, persistence and courage to build deep within. Learning to understand and embrace our strengths, weaknesses and vulnerabilities to key to becoming the best version of ourselves.”

Annie’s journey has evolved to the point where she believes feeling you’re indispensable is overrated. “We can all benefit from being less tough on ourselves, by accepting you can’t do it all and that’s okay.

“Just remember to carry your lipstick!” she quickly adds.

ADVICE

Much of Annie’s success throughout her career has come from her ability to pull people together, to build teams and ensure there’s synergy within those teams.

“Synergy!” Annie exclaims. “That’s probably my favourite word ever. I strive for it. Synergy is when your outcome is way more than the sum of the parts. My whole mantra is to build momentum which then creates synergy.

“I believe in surrounding myself with people who are uniquely different. They complement and extend my knowledge and skills. It also allows opportunity for me to mentor some women and with that has come amazing results.”

Importantly, “you need to allow a period of time for people to come on that journey. You have to appreciate that you have setbacks, that people adjust to change in a variety of ways and you don’t need to take it personally; you’ve got to back yourself.”

Annie reveals she’s often found it interesting that, “after a few years people who didn’t like an idea suddenly love it, even champion it, and sometimes even say they always did. You’ve got to have a thick skin but believe in what you’re doing.”