Newcastle woman and Operations Manager for Ingenia Communities, Kerryn Deacon is relishing in the opportunities that come from working for a company that walks the talk when it comes to gender diversity.
Ingenia Communities ranked second, for the second year running, in the 2021 Chief Executive Women Senior Executive CENSUS and is the highest ranked Real Estate Investment Trust.
The census tracks gender balance and female representation of Australia’s largest publicly listed companies. Women compromise two-thirds of the company’s leadership team.
Hunter born and bred, Kerryn has been with Ingenia for three years after an extensive career in hotel management and contract management for large shopping centres.
A people person, Kerryn was attracted to the opportunity to work for a company that creates communities and brings people together.
She manages a team of 30 to operate nine lifestyle communities that are home to more than 1,500 residents.
The company has encouraged her to become more involved in the development side of the business to bring that understanding of community and residents’ needs into master planning.
“I knew nothing about community development, but my skill sets were recognised and valued,” Kerryn said.
“I have received so much support to grow into the role.
“There are things I do now that I never dreamed that I would be doing in my career.”
Kerryn was attracted to Ingenia because of its encouragement and support of women in leadership. She said Board Chair, Jim Hazel and CEO, Simon Owen are active promoters of women and great mentors to many women in the business.
“It is great to work for a company that is top heavy with women,” she said.
“The development space is traditionally male dominated, but at Ingenia no role is pigeon-holed by gender.
“We all have an equal voice at the table and have a lot of autonomy in our roles, which is very empowering.”
She encourages other women to seek out businesses that believes in women in leadership and then throw yourself in the deep end.
Simon said Ingenia has a commitment to diversity across the entire organisation, from the boardroom down.
“A diverse leadership team contributes to better decision-making, company performance and culture, and leads to a greater focus on our residents and customers,” Simon said.
Despite the benefits of diversity and large jobseeker pool (60.4 per cent of university graduates are women), the census found women still held only 26 per cenet of positions in executive leadership teams in the ASX300, with 44 companies having no women in their executive leadership teams.
Women represent 6 per cent of Chief Executive Officer roles and just over 17 per cent of Chief Financial Officer positions.
IMAGE | Kerryn Deacon at the opening of Ingenia’s flagship, Latitude One community, in Port Stephens.
