Danielle Wood

Danielle is the Chair of the Productivity Commission. She believes in the power of public policy to make Australia a better place. We ask Danielle and talk about her experiences in diving into the role of chair of the Productivity Commission. Scroll down and see her advices to young women exploring career paths.

Q1.

Could you share an overview of your role as Chair of the Productivity Commission and what a typical day entails for you?

I like to think of the role of the commission is to act as the government’s think tank. We provide independent research and advice to government across economic, social and environmental policy. At its core, that’s about making sure that the government has high quality evidence to support policy change.

In terms of my role as chair, I cover three pillars. Firstly, I am responsible for running the commission. This includes all the bits that fit around managing a 200-person organisation such as governance, people issues, risk management and making sure that I'm communicating and motivating all of our incredible staff.

The next component of the role is around what I like to call intellectual leadership. The commissioner group includes ten commissioners, and we have the responsibility for making sure that the products are high quality. That means ensuring we've tested and are satisfied with the research that we're going to publish.

The third aspect of the role is the public facing aspect of the role. That includes things like speeches, media appearances and that fits in because the commission has a really important role in informing public debate and helping make the case for policy change. As the leader of the commission, it's really up to me to go out and lead those efforts.

So, a typical day would involve normally some kind of hybrid mix of those three. For example, it could be a management meeting, reading a report that's about to go out and giving a speech.

Q2.

What do you find to be the most fulfilling aspect of your position?

For me, it’s very clearly contributing to policy debates and hopefully pushing for better policy in the national interest. It’s been a very long-standing passion of mine. Policy debates are full of people with vested interests, and that's right and proper that they be involved in those debates that are going to affect them.

However, you don't have many groups that are able to step back and take a real national interest lens. So being able to do that and then being able to feed through into policy decisions is an incredible honour and a privilege. If you shift the dial on policy, you shift people's lives. Policy generates structural change to make people's lives better- it's an incredible thing to be to be part of.

Q3.

What advice would you offer to young women in university who are just beginning their careers?

Careers are long and you don't really have a sense of how long they are when you're just starting out, but they are very long. There’s going to be so many opportunities along the way that you don't foresee. I am a strong believer in the idea that you can't map out your career perfectly, but you should know what's important to you and use that to help drive your choices along the way.

I've got three criteria I use - as you will have various points where you're making choices between different forks in the road. Firstly, will I be working with people that I want to be around and that I can learn from? Learning is really important at every stage of your career. Secondly, will I get an intellectual challenge? That's important to me - I like to be stretched intellectually. Finally, can I make a difference? Which has always been a key driver in my career. So, I've always thought about evaluating choices based on those criteria.

Everyone will have their own criteria and their own things that matter to them. But, approaching your career with an open mind rather than a destination in mind, I think makes a lot of sense given what career paths look like these days.

Q4.

Although more women are entering the field of economics, senior leadership positions remain underrepresented. What insights can you offer to young women aspiring to advance in their careers?

I think it’s really important to remain curious. There can be a risk early on in careers to go deep in the area that you're in. However, I think it's important to continue to keep your head up. Go to interesting lectures and events, meet people in other parts of the field, listen to podcasts or whatever piques your interest. If you want to progress it, you have to be open to a broad range of opportunities - keeping an open mind has always been really important to that.

Additionally, we know that being confident in what you know can be harder for women. Economics, in particular, is quite a robust field where there's almost a kind of perverse pride in trying to destroy someone else's argument, but you don't have to play that game to advance. I've always brought my own style to things and not felt like I needed to buy into that dominant narrative. But at the same time, you have to be willing to back yourself and know that you will face people that that behave in that way.

Finally, put your hand up for opportunities where you can be visible. I certainly went through a period where I was basically being asked to be on panels as the token woman. People would try to tell me, “oh, we need a woman - we've got you”. I could have taken offence at that, but I chose to see it as a good opportunity to practice being on a panel and to reach people who might not otherwise have seen me in action. Doing that really stood me in good stead. Take those opportunities where you can to put yourself out there. I have been amazed by how that opens doors that you might not expect at the time.

Q5.

How does your experience in the public sector compare with your time at a think tank like Grattan? What advice would you give to students weighing these two career paths?

In a way, they're maybe not as different as you may think - partly because where I am here in the public sector is quite close to a think tank. In the sense that we're doing research, and we advise government and get to say what we think the right answer is.

So, in that sense, being able to take the community-wide lens and say what we think is all quite similar. Frankly, both experiences were incredible. Grattan is smaller- it's not government, so there is less bureaucracy day to day. The kind of content and quality of the work, and the ethos of the work, is quite similar.

It is different if you take a job working in a department. There you are serving the government of the day. You provide advice to them, but ultimately, you'll be implementing the policies that they choose, rather than what you may think the right answer is. The advantage of having that experience is that you are seeing how policy happens as you are there at the coalface, making and implementing policy - which is a pretty incredible experience and a different type of privilege.

Honestly, if you can have time doing both, you’ll enjoy it- if you're a policy nerd. You can work at the coalface inside government departments, and then advising - whether that's from think tanks or an organisation like the Productivity Commission. Perhaps even doing a stint as an advisor (inside a ministerial office), then you're really at the coalface! They’re all parts of the policy ecosystem and the policy chain, and they all give you a different perspective and an insight into how the sausage gets made.

12.09.2024

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