James Phillis is Chief Executive of SJ Group's global Infrastructure and Energy Business Line and one of Australia's most respected voices on gender equity in male-dominated industries. With over 35 years leading complex engineering businesses, he brings a refreshingly direct perspective to a conversation many CEOs still sidestep.

In this episode of Culture Capital, he sits down with Mundanara Bayles and Prabha Nandagopal to talk about what actually moves men from bystanders to allies, why targets matter more than quotas, and how to bring resistant male colleagues along for the ride.

He's honest about where he's slipped up, clear about where the industry still has a long way to go, and unequivocal about one thing - this is a personal responsibility, not a HR agenda.

This is leadership accountability without the corporate spin.

EPISODE RESOURCES

Guest James Phillis - Chief Executive, Infrastructure and Energy, SJ Group (SMEC) LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/james-phillis-3174184 SMEC: smec.com

Organisations Mentioned Consult Australia Champions of Change Group - A coalition of CEOs across the design, advisory and engineering sector committed to gender equality. James was previously Chair. consultaustralia.com.au/home/policy/champions-of-change

Champions of Change Coalition - The broader coalition that the Consult Australia group sits within. Publishes annual progress reports. championsofchangecoalition.org

Programs Mentioned Cultivate Sponsorship Program - SMEC's internal program pairing senior leaders with high potential women to actively sponsor their careers. Now expanding globally. 

If this conversation resonated with you, make sure you follow or subscribe to Culture Capital on your favourite podcast platform so you never miss an episode. Share this podcast with colleagues, leaders, and anyone passionate about building stronger workplace cultures.

Co-host Prabha Nandagopal is the founder of Elevate Consulting Partners, providing expert consulting on workplace culture, positive duty compliance, and human rights. Learn more at elevateconsultingpartners.com.au

Prabha also founded SafeSpace@Elevate, Australia's first trauma informed workplace reporting platform. Learn more at safespaceelevate.com.au

This episode of Culture Capital is brought to you by BlackCard, Australia's leading Aboriginal owned cultural capability training organisation. Learn more at theblackcard.com.au

Culture Capital is produced by the BlakCast Network

James Phillis is Chief Executive of SJ Group's global Infrastructure and Energy Business Line and one of Australia's most respected voices on gender equity in male-dominated industries. With over 35 years leading complex engineering businesses, he brings a refreshingly direct perspective to a conversation many CEOs still sidestep.
In this episode of Culture Capital, he sits down with Mundanara Bayles and Prabha Nandagopal to talk about what actually moves men from bystanders to allies, why targets matter more than quotas, and how to bring resistant male colleagues along for the ride.
He's honest about where he's slipped up, clear about where the industry still has a long way to go, and unequivocal about one thing - this is a personal responsibility, not a HR agenda.
This is leadership accountability without the corporate spin.
EPISODE RESOURCES
Guest James Phillis - Chief Executive, Infrastructure and Energy, SJ Group (SMEC) LinkedIn: <a href="linkedin.com/in/james-phillis-3174184">linkedin.com/in/james-phillis-3174184</a> SMEC: <a href="smec.com">smec.com</a>
Organisations Mentioned Consult Australia Champions of Change Group - A coalition of CEOs across the design, advisory and engineering sector committed to gender equality. James was previously Chair. <a href="https://www.consultaustralia.com.au/home/policy/champions-of-change">consultaustralia.com.au/home/policy/champions-of-change</a>
Champions of Change Coalition - The broader coalition that the Consult Australia group sits within. Publishes annual progress reports. <a href="championsofchangecoalition.org">championsofchangecoalition.org</a>
Programs Mentioned Cultivate Sponsorship Program - SMEC's internal program pairing senior leaders with high potential women to actively sponsor their careers. Now expanding globally.&nbsp;
If this conversation resonated with you, make sure you follow or subscribe to Culture Capital on your favourite podcast platform so you never miss an episode. Share this podcast with colleagues, leaders, and anyone passionate about building stronger workplace cultures.
Co-host Prabha Nandagopal is the founder of Elevate Consulting Partners, providing expert consulting on workplace culture, positive duty compliance, and human rights. Learn more at <a href="elevateconsultingpartners.com.au">elevateconsultingpartners.com.au</a>
Prabha also founded SafeSpace@Elevate, Australia's first trauma informed workplace reporting platform. Learn more at <a href="safespaceelevate.com.au">safespaceelevate.com.au</a>
This episode of Culture Capital is brought to you by BlackCard, Australia's leading Aboriginal owned cultural capability training organisation. Learn more at <a href="https://theblackcard.com.au/">theblackcard.com.au</a>
Culture Capital is produced by the BlakCast Network

Where leadership meets lived experience. Prabha Nandagopal and Mundanara Bayles speak with the thinkers shaping the future - political leaders, changemakers, cultural icons and business innovators. Culture Capital explores power, influence and the people moving Australia forward with courage, nuance and deep cultural grounding.

Where leadership meets lived experience. Prabha Nandagopal and Mundanara Bayles speak with the thinkers shaping the future - political leaders, changemakers, cultural icons and business innovators. Culture Capital explores power, influence and the people moving Australia forward with courage, nuance and deep cultural grounding.

Culture Capital

He Runs a Global Engineering Empire. Here's Why Gender Equity Keeps Him Up at Night.

https://api.omny.fm/orgs/fa326977-3de5-4283-9b8b-af3500c58607/clips/b68562b9-b8d6-4cff-a752-b456001eed34/transcript

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Women get handed the top job when the company is in trouble. Men get it when things are going well. Lisa Annese knows exactly why women say yes anyway, and the answer is uncomfortable.

Annese is the CEO of Chief Executive Women. Before that she spent a decade running the Diversity Council of Australia. She has spent thirty years building the evidence on who gets to lead in this country and who never gets the call, and she is not interested in polite explanations anymore.

In this conversation with Mundanara Bayles and Prabha Nandagopal, she has some things to say about how the path to CEO was built, who it was built to exclude, and what is really going on behind the sudden corporate silence on diversity. As she puts it, the masks have come off.

This one will make a few boardrooms uncomfortable. Good.

Resources mentioned in this episode

Professor Michelle Ryan, who coined the term "glass cliff" with Alex Haslam, is the inaugural Director of the Global Institute for Women's Leadership at ANU. Her research found that women are more likely to be appointed to leadership roles that are risky or precarious.
Global Institute for Women's Leadership (ANU): https://giwl.anu.edu.au
Michelle Ryan profile: https://giwl.anu.edu.au/about/michelle-ryan

Chief Executive Women: https://cew.org.au
CEW Senior Executive Census: https://cew.org.au/censusreport
Diversity Council Australia: https://www.dca.org.au
Workplace Gender Equality Agency: https://www.wgea.gov.au



If this conversation resonated with you, make sure you follow or subscribe to Culture Capital on your favourite podcast platform so you never miss an episode. Share this podcast with colleagues, leaders, and anyone passionate about building stronger workplace cultures.

Co-host Prabha Nandagopal is the founder of Elevate Consulting Partners, providing expert consulting on workplace culture, positive duty compliance, and human rights. Learn more at elevateconsultingpartners.com.au

Prabha also founded SafeSpace@Elevate, Australia's first trauma informed workplace reporting platform. Learn more at safespaceelevate.com.au

This episode of Culture Capital is brought to you by BlackCard, Australia's leading Aboriginal owned cultural capability training organisation. Learn more at theblackcard.com.au

Culture Capital is produced by the BlakCast Network

Want this conversation before anyone else? Become a BlakCast Patreon member for early access to new episodes, ad free listening, and exclusive bonus content. Join at Patreon.com/BlakCastNetwork
Women get handed the top job when the company is in trouble. Men get it when things are going well. Lisa Annese knows exactly why women say yes anyway, and the answer is uncomfortable.
Annese is the CEO of Chief Executive Women. Before that she spent a decade running the Diversity Council of Australia. She has spent thirty years building the evidence on who gets to lead in this country and who never gets the call, and she is not interested in polite explanations anymore.
In this conversation with Mundanara Bayles and Prabha Nandagopal, she has some things to say about how the path to CEO was built, who it was built to exclude, and what is really going on behind the sudden corporate silence on diversity. As she puts it, the masks have come off.
This one will make a few boardrooms uncomfortable. Good.
Resources mentioned in this episode
Professor Michelle Ryan, who coined the term "glass cliff" with Alex Haslam, is the inaugural Director of the Global Institute for Women's Leadership at ANU. Her research found that women are more likely to be appointed to leadership roles that are risky or precarious. Global Institute for Women's Leadership (ANU): <a href="https://giwl.anu.edu.au">https://giwl.anu.edu.au</a> Michelle Ryan profile: <a href="https://giwl.anu.edu.au/about/michelle-ryan">https://giwl.anu.edu.au/about/michelle-ryan</a>
Chief Executive Women: <a href="https://cew.org.au">https://cew.org.au</a> CEW Senior Executive Census: <a href="https://cew.org.au/censusreport">https://cew.org.au/censusreport</a> Diversity Council Australia: <a href="https://www.dca.org.au">https://www.dca.org.au</a> Workplace Gender Equality Agency: <a href="https://www.wgea.gov.au">https://www.wgea.gov.au</a> 
If this conversation resonated with you, make sure you follow or subscribe to Culture Capital on your favourite podcast platform so you never miss an episode. Share this podcast with colleagues, leaders, and anyone passionate about building stronger workplace cultures.
Co-host Prabha Nandagopal is the founder of Elevate Consulting Partners, providing expert consulting on workplace culture, positive duty compliance, and human rights. Learn more at <a href="elevateconsultingpartners.com.au">elevateconsultingpartners.com.au</a>
Prabha also founded SafeSpace@Elevate, Australia's first trauma informed workplace reporting platform. Learn more at <a href="safespaceelevate.com.au">safespaceelevate.com.au</a>
This episode of Culture Capital is brought to you by BlackCard, Australia's leading Aboriginal owned cultural capability training organisation. Learn more at <a href="https://theblackcard.com.au/">theblackcard.com.au</a>
Culture Capital is produced by the BlakCast Network

It's a Grift: Why Lisa Annese Says Men Are Being Sold a Lie About Women's Empowerment

https://api.omny.fm/orgs/fa326977-3de5-4283-9b8b-af3500c58607/clips/310b8ee0-840f-488c-890c-b4870051befb/transcript

Want this conversation before anyone else? Become a BlakCast Patreon member for early access to new episodes, ad free listening, and exclusive bonus content. Join at Patreon.com/BlakCastNetwork

Fascism never lasts forever. Because there's nothing there to sustain it. Just anger.

In this episode of Culture Capital, Mundanara Bayles and Prabha Nandagopal sit down with one of the most important cultural voices of our time. Roxane Gay is a New York Times bestselling author, professor, and social commentator whose work has reshaped how the world thinks about feminism, power, and who gets to belong.

What emerges is a conversation about who actually holds power, who gets blamed for the problems power creates, and why the whole system depends on people never looking in the right direction.

Roxane doesn't offer comfort. She offers something better.


Resources and Links
Roxane Gay — roxanegay.com
Roxane Gay Books — http://roxanegay.com/books/
Bad Feminist — available at all good bookstores
Hunger — available at all good bookstores
Do The Work (with Megan Pillow) — available at all good bookstores

If this conversation resonated with you, make sure you follow or subscribe to Culture Capital on your favourite podcast platform so you never miss an episode. Share this podcast with colleagues, leaders, and anyone passionate about building stronger workplace cultures.

Co-host Prabha Nandagopal is the founder of Elevate Consulting Partners, providing expert consulting on workplace culture, positive duty compliance, and human rights. Learn more at elevateconsultingpartners.com.au

Prabha also founded SafeSpace@Elevate, Australia's first trauma informed workplace reporting platform. Learn more at safespaceelevate.com.au

This episode of Culture Capital is brought to you by BlackCard, Australia's leading Aboriginal owned cultural capability training organisation. Learn more at theblackcard.com.au

Culture Capital is produced by the BlakCast Network

Want this conversation before anyone else? Become a BlakCast Patreon member for early access to new episodes, ad free listening, and exclusive bonus content. Join at Patreon.com/BlakCastNetwork Fascism never lasts forever. Because there's nothing there to sustain it. Just anger.
In this episode of Culture Capital, Mundanara Bayles and Prabha Nandagopal sit down with one of the most important cultural voices of our time. Roxane Gay is a New York Times bestselling author, professor, and social commentator whose work has reshaped how the world thinks about feminism, power, and who gets to belong.
What emerges is a conversation about who actually holds power, who gets blamed for the problems power creates, and why the whole system depends on people never looking in the right direction.
Roxane doesn't offer comfort. She offers something better.
 Resources and Links Roxane Gay &mdash; <a href="https://roxanegay.com/">roxanegay.com</a> Roxane Gay Books &mdash; <a href="http://roxanegay.com/books/">http://roxanegay.com/books/</a> Bad Feminist &mdash; available at all good bookstores Hunger &mdash; available at all good bookstores Do The Work (with Megan Pillow) &mdash; available at all good bookstores
If this conversation resonated with you, make sure you follow or subscribe to Culture Capital on your favourite podcast platform so you never miss an episode. Share this podcast with colleagues, leaders, and anyone passionate about building stronger workplace cultures.
Co-host Prabha Nandagopal is the founder of Elevate Consulting Partners, providing expert consulting on workplace culture, positive duty compliance, and human rights. Learn more at <a href="elevateconsultingpartners.com.au">elevateconsultingpartners.com.au</a>
Prabha also founded SafeSpace@Elevate, Australia's first trauma informed workplace reporting platform. Learn more at <a href="safespaceelevate.com.au">safespaceelevate.com.au</a>
This episode of Culture Capital is brought to you by BlackCard, Australia's leading Aboriginal owned cultural capability training organisation. Learn more at <a href="https://theblackcard.com.au/">theblackcard.com.au</a>
Culture Capital is produced by the BlakCast Network

Fascism Never Lasts Forever: Why Roxane Gay Says There's Nothing There to Sustain It

https://api.omny.fm/orgs/fa326977-3de5-4283-9b8b-af3500c58607/clips/fa97433d-57e5-4756-8139-b47a002570df/transcript

Want this conversation before anyone else? Become a BlakCast Patreon member for early access to new episodes, ad free listening, and exclusive bonus content. Join at Patreon.com/BlakCastNetwork

He leads Australia's national fight against racism and he's not afraid to say the system was built to exclude people like him.

Giridharan Sivaraman became Race Discrimination Commissioner months after the Voice referendum failed. In this conversation he tells the true story of Fatima, a qualified engineer who never once heard a slur but was pushed out of the workforce by racism so structural she didn't even recognise it as racism. He explains why he opens every public appearance with an Acknowledgement of Country even though he isn't Aboriginal, why anti-Indian hate is now one of the fastest growing forms of racism in this country, and why he believes freedom from humiliation matters more than freedom of speech.

This is a conversation about power, about who gets to belong, and about what it actually takes to dismantle a system built to keep some people out.

Resources and Links
National Anti-Racism Framework — humanrights.gov.au
Racism at Universities report — Australian Human Rights Commission
Stan Grant, "The Australian Dream" speech
Racial Justice Centre — racialjusticecentre.au

If this conversation resonated with you, make sure you follow or subscribe to Culture Capital on your favourite podcast platform so you never miss an episode. Share this podcast with colleagues, leaders, and anyone passionate about building stronger workplace cultures.

Co-host Prabha Nandagopal is the founder of Elevate Consulting Partners, providing expert consulting on workplace culture, positive duty compliance, and human rights. Learn more at elevateconsultingpartners.com.au

Prabha also founded SafeSpace@Elevate, Australia's first trauma informed workplace reporting platform. Learn more at safespaceelevate.com.au

This episode of Culture Capital is brought to you by BlackCard, Australia's leading Aboriginal owned cultural capability training organisation. Learn more at theblackcard.com.au

Culture Capital is produced by the BlakCast Network

Want this conversation before anyone else? Become a BlakCast Patreon member for early access to new episodes, ad free listening, and exclusive bonus content. Join at Patreon.com/BlakCastNetwork He leads Australia's national fight against racism and he's not afraid to say the system was built to exclude people like him.
Giridharan Sivaraman became Race Discrimination Commissioner months after the Voice referendum failed. In this conversation he tells the true story of Fatima, a qualified engineer who never once heard a slur but was pushed out of the workforce by racism so structural she didn't even recognise it as racism. He explains why he opens every public appearance with an Acknowledgement of Country even though he isn't Aboriginal, why anti-Indian hate is now one of the fastest growing forms of racism in this country, and why he believes freedom from humiliation matters more than freedom of speech.
This is a conversation about power, about who gets to belong, and about what it actually takes to dismantle a system built to keep some people out.
Resources and Links National Anti-Racism Framework &mdash; <a href="humanrights.gov.au/resource-hub/by-resource-type/reports/race/anti-racism-framework">humanrights.gov.au</a> Racism at Universities report &mdash; <a href="humanrights.gov.au/resource-hub/race/respect-at-uni-study-into-antisemitism,-islamophobia,-racism-and-the-experience-of-first-nations-people">Australian Human Rights Commission</a> Stan Grant, <a href="ethics.org.au/stan-grants-speech">"The Australian Dream" speech</a> Racial Justice Centre &mdash; <a href="https://www.racialjustice.au/">racialjusticecentre.au</a>
If this conversation resonated with you, make sure you follow or subscribe to Culture Capital on your favourite podcast platform so you never miss an episode. Share this podcast with colleagues, leaders, and anyone passionate about building stronger workplace cultures.
Co-host Prabha Nandagopal is the founder of Elevate Consulting Partners, providing expert consulting on workplace culture, positive duty compliance, and human rights. Learn more at <a href="elevateconsultingpartners.com.au">elevateconsultingpartners.com.au</a>
Prabha also founded SafeSpace@Elevate, Australia's first trauma informed workplace reporting platform. Learn more at <a href="safespaceelevate.com.au">safespaceelevate.com.au</a>
This episode of Culture Capital is brought to you by BlackCard, Australia's leading Aboriginal owned cultural capability training organisation. Learn more at <a href="https://theblackcard.com.au/">theblackcard.com.au</a>
Culture Capital is produced by the BlakCast Network

237 Years of Resistance: What Australia's Race Discrimination Commissioner Wants You to Understand

https://api.omny.fm/orgs/fa326977-3de5-4283-9b8b-af3500c58607/clips/5c921bbe-cca9-4b85-b5ed-b46c0068785d/transcript

He Runs a Global Engineering Empire. Here's Why Gender Equity Keeps Him Up at Night.

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