 Julia Gillard, the former Prime Minister of Australia and Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iwala, Board Chair of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, WHO and African Union Special and Voyant COVID-19 and former Minister of Finance of Nigeria. Thank you both for being here. I'm so honored to moderate what I hope to be an intergenerational conversation. We stand on your shoulders because I believe women like you are the ones who opened the doors for young women like myself to be in leadership and see what is possible because you made it and you are still leading globally, which really shows progress from decades ago, but also we still have some striking numbers today. Only 21 governments have female heads of states, only 14 have at least 50% women in national cabinet and in the global health field, women account for 70% of the workforce, yet they hold 25% of leadership positions. So clearly gender influences access to positions of leadership and continues to play a significant role when women reach the top. I myself thought to overcome stereotypes and perceptions of who people think I am and should be in international development and diplomacy space, but I've worked to find and claim my power as a young woman and I have to say my father, even though he would never admit it, he's a feminist, he imbueded me as self-worth and the innermost conviction that I deserve same equal chances as everyone else in life. That's why I really believe today's conversation is extremely important to inspire women and girls and to set the context for why we are having this conversation, the women leaders in global health conference comes at a unique moment in time more than ever before. The words eyes are on global health during COVID-19 pandemic and it's clear just how much leadership matters in these times. So to kick us off, I want to ask you, both of you actually, why is it so important to have women in leadership roles in global health and beyond? And let's start with you, Julia. Well, thank you very much for that generous introduction. In my view, women in leadership and the reason we need women in leadership roles comes down to a very simple thing, which is that I believe that merit is equally distributed between the sexes. And so if you're looking at the leadership of any institution, whether it's in health or in any other walk of life and we're not seeing around half men, half women, then that must mean that there were women of merit who hit artificial barriers and had their progress stopped. And given how challenging the issues are in today's world, of course we want the best people to come through. In health, in fact, given the workforce is so feminized, really we should see more women in leadership than men. So that just goes to show how far we've got to go to make progress and to get true equality. Dr. Ingosi, we see a lot of women who are doing effective response to COVID-19 in New Zealand and Germany and Taiwan that happen to be females and really doing well. So why do you think women in leadership is extremely important? Well, thank you so much. This phenomenon of the women in leadership doing well in managing COVID-19 in their countries has excited a lot of comment. But Julia and I are always hesitant to ascribe this success in leadership to the fact that these are women or they have particular qualities like empathy and so on that men do not have. But we have to admit that we've got women leaders who have managed the situation in their countries well. And I think that perhaps in their countries they've managed to create a degree of trust of their population in their leadership so that when they come with solutions, people really listen and people take action and people trust what they say to be true. So I think there's some element of that. I also want to say that those women took very early action in their countries and very brave action. They shut everything down and manage this situation in quite a I think an appropriate way for the time. And so they were able to catch and cut off the spread of the disease early. So I just want to say that, yes, I very much second what Julia said about women in leadership. I think you would be missing a considerable amount of innovation, creativity and input when you leave women out. They bring solutions just as men do. They, as Julia said, they have, they are people of merit. So why would you want to leave out half of what humanity has to bring on the table to help lead? Absolutely. And both of you recently published a book actually called Women in Leadership talking all about that. So I'm curious to know Julia, what pushed you to take on this project and what do you hope to achieve from the book? Well, when I finished being Prime Minister, I actually left with some questions whirring around in my head. I looked back at my time as Prime Minister, as a leader and I was left wondering, you know, how much of my experience is about the politics of Australia in those particular times? How much of the experience is because I'm me and me as an individual, but how much of it is because I'm a woman and I found it quite hard to disaggregate and work that out. And I tried to do that initially when I wrote my book about my time in office, my story, but I was left not satisfied that I'd done enough on this question of understanding my own journey as a leader, the reactions to me as a woman and certainly hadn't done enough in passing on advice and insight for women who are going to come through for leadership themselves. And then Ngozi and I found ourselves increasingly at international meetings together, chatting on the sidelines. And it was clear that she too was wrestling with a set of questions about women and leadership and what more could be done. And so that I think crystallised into a joint passion to write this book, to look at the global research, to interview some of the most important women leaders of our time and to put it all together so that it can be there for everyone, but particularly for women who are aspiring themselves to lead. I want to come back to your reflection on your time when you were Prime Minister, but I want to ask Dr. Ngozi, one of the key takeaways in your book is to encourage women and girls to support other women through mentoring. And I've been advocating for a concept I call intergenerational co-leadership that we need to collaborate as generation to move the agenda forward together. So in your experience, how have women supported you and where are some of the tangible action women in the health field particularly can take to support female peers in their lives, but especially younger women? Well, thank you. I think during my career, there have been one or two moments when women were particularly supportive. Let me take one, earlier on in my career, when I was at the World Bank. And it was a time when I became pregnant and I was expecting my second child. And at that time, it was very unusual at the World Bank to have women who were pregnant working. Of course, I joined the bank. I didn't know this was unusual. So I was being myself, if you will. So I was expecting my second child. But then I needed to find a manager who would be understanding of the fact that I was pregnant, that it didn't mean I couldn't perform because you have two types of reactions. Either people treat you so gingerly, meaning you can't do certain tasks or they give up on you completely. And it's as if you've now dropped out of sight. So I wanted to be with women or with someone who would understand and who would treat me as normal. And a woman manager, Catherine Marshall came to the rescue and took me into her division and under her wing. And that was extremely helpful. She treated me normally. She gave me my work program I performed. So that's a time when a woman particularly helped and gave me a leg up, if you will. So women looking out for other women, particularly at these times when they're having families, treating them normally, giving them their normal work is very important. But I want to add one thing, Aya. I also think that men should and can mentor women. So I also often advise that, yes, we look to each other for mentorship, intergenerational, as you said. But men can also do the same. And I've had many in my life who mentored me and also helped me get a leg up in my career. So don't leave out men. Absolutely. Julia, did you have any mentors you want to share with us? Yes, I did. I mean, I grew up in an ordinary family in Australia. We migrated to Australia. Both of my parents left school before they finished high school. My father went on to a further course of study and became a psychiatric nurse as an adult. My mother was a cook in an aged care institution. So we weren't the kind of family that thought about people going into politics or anything like that. So when I became interested in policy, political activity, particularly in education policy, it was important for me to have a mentor. And the person who became a close mentor for me was a woman called Joan Kerner, who ultimately became the first premier of the state of Victoria. So in the United States, that's the governor equivalent, that regional level of government. And I didn't get to know her as some big-time politician. I got to know her because she was the mum of a guy that I went to university with. So I got to know her son Dave and then got to know Joan herself and was mentored by her as she went through the ups and downs of her political journey. And that really proved to me that a woman can do it. That there's not somewhere this sort of, you know, super set of human beings and they're the only ones that ever get to go into politics that people like myself could go into parliament and could make a difference. So she was a hugely transformative influence on my life. Yeah, I think it's also like both of you, I imagine, you are mentors to many young women that you don't even know. So I think also mentorship is about following the journey of women, seeing that, yes, if they can do it, we can also do it. So I think it's also about inspiration. I wanna follow up with you, Julia, because you've talked openly about sexism you faced as Australia's first and only female prime minister and also your 2012 unforgettable misogyny speech, which is an anthem for women and girls around the world. So I want you to reflect again on your position if you could go back, would you have reacted to this treatment any differently and how can maybe women leaders use their platform like you to encourage other women or male allies to call out sexism and misogyny when they see it? I mean, hindsight is such a wonderful thing, isn't it? And with the benefit of hindsight, I would have done some things differently. What I particularly would have done differently is I would have called out sexism and misogyny earlier in my political career. I made a wrong assumption when I first became prime minister that the sort of maximum reaction to me being the first woman to lead Australia would happen in the early days of my leadership. And then it would sort of work its way through the system and out and then it would just be politics as usual. Actually what happened, the longer I governed, governments make controversial decisions, some people don't like them, people start campaigning against you and the sort of gendered image, the sexist insult came to the fore at that stage. So the sexism was actually worse later on than it was at the start. And looking back, I think I missed the moments at the start when it was there but wasn't at a fever pitch. When I could have started to have the conversation with the nation that this isn't the way that we should be doing our politics. And perhaps if I'd pointed to the problems earlier, then they wouldn't have got as bad as they ultimately did get. And I would want to echo Ngozi's words here that I think women have a role calling out sexism, but so do men. And one of the things that would have been really powerful for me as prime minister is if some men, perhaps some Australian business leaders had got involved and had said, look, we don't agree with this being part of our political debate. We think we should be talking about policy and it's fine for people to have different views of complex decisions, but there should be no room for sexist insults. I think that would have been very influential. Yeah. And you know, sometimes I find it like patriarchy is so creative. So the more I am finding a way to react to some situations and, you know, claim my power and myself and really, you know, stand tall in that situation. Sometimes I'm like surprised and like, patriarchy bringing on another new way of sexism and misogyny. So Ngozi, do you have any strategies? Do you know when you, you know, use your strategy of silence, let's say, or another strategy? And when you have to speak out in a situation, certain situations, because, you know, at the end of the day is about going back home and feeling that power that you were true to yourself on that day or in that situation. Well, for this, I have to go back to something my father told me as a teenager, when I was going abroad for the first time to the United States to study, he was giving me some advice about how I should manage myself. And he said to me, you may encounter racism, you may encounter anti-feminist feelings. You may have encounters of people who just have gendered reactions to women. And he said to me, if you encounter those feelings or those reactions to you, it is the problem of those people. It is not your problem. Take that problem and make it work for you. Let it make you more powerful and able to accomplish. And that is what I followed. So that's been my mantra. Yes, I've encountered a lot of resistance to leadership of women, my leadership in many places. I've also encountered reactions to race. So it's, in my case, it's complex because you're not only talking of reaction to you being a woman, but you're also talking about your color and your race. And in my case, I'm very visibly African. So when I enter a room, people know who I am, like you, I am. So what I've done is power through. I call it their problem and I keep going, being myself, ignoring what is before me and just focusing on what I need to do and getting it done. I focused on getting results because I also find that in a situation, if you're involved in a task and you can get to the end and get good results, sometimes people forget whether you're a woman, whether you're black, what you're wearing and who you look like. Yeah, so power through and turning the challenge into an opportunity, basically. I wanna follow up with a question, Dr. Ngozi, as the first woman to hold Nigeria's finance minister and foreign affairs positions. And as the current board chair of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, you've had a front row view to some of the gender dynamics that play in global health and development in many of our audience today, also in this field. Could you maybe speak to some of the challenges that need to be dismantled in this field in particular? Well, yeah, one of the biggest challenges is the perception that one faces as a woman in the field of global health. When you look at who are the leaders in global health, you said it, we've said it before. Whereas you have 70% of workers in health being women, only 20 or 25% of them are in leadership positions. So the perception of who leads is of men leading. So when you walk into the room as a woman, that perception that perhaps you're not a leader is there. And that's the first challenge you have to confront to convince people that, yes, for example, a doctor walking into a room like my daughter, she has these people look at her first, is she a nurse? Or is she some other kind of helper? And it's not only men who look at you like this, it's also other women, because we've got an image in our heads that leaders in health are not necessarily women but men. So cutting through that perception is one of the first things that one has to deal with. And I really urge women that we are also part of the problem sometimes in the global health field. When you see a fellow woman, don't assume that she's something other than one of the leaders and help make others know that women can be strong in leadership positions in health. I want you to react to that also, Julia. I know you're a global advocate for education. It's also in the development field. And I wanna know from you also some of the challenges that you see. Well, certainly a major challenge is girls' education and for me that's the foundation stone of everything that we're talking about now. If girls don't get an equal chance to go to school, then they're not gonna have the opportunity to go on and to get equal access to leadership. And at the Global Partnership for Education, which I chair, we're dreadfully concerned that the progress that everybody has been making on girls' education will be pushed back by the COVID pandemic and the closure of schools. The evidence from earlier epidemics like Ebola is the most marginalised children, particularly the girls, never make it back to school. And so this time around, we are putting money in, $500 million US dollars, but also urging the world to make special efforts so that this time around, the girls don't get left behind. And when schools reopen, we make sure that girls go back to school, that they catch up lost learning, that they continue to have opportunities. There's much to do in our world to achieve equality at that level, as well as at the level of leadership that we've been talking about today. And the girls' child's day has been also a fantastic celebration a few days ago. So I really wanna use this opportunity to ask a personal question, which is, how do you do it? I am starting in my leadership journey and yet I get sometimes overwhelmed with responsibilities and also because you're pressed when you're young and female to deliver because if you do one mistake, then it's because you're a woman and you're a young person. Not because the whole system has challenges and you are put in situations where it's not gonna work if everyone don't put in the work. So how do you do it? And you were talking about being pregnant, Dr. Ngozi, while being at work and delivering, I mean, every month I get my period and I have to wake up and go to work as well. So we go through a lot of pain as women and yet we stand up and we multitask and we do all of these things. But how do you do it? Is there a secret routine? Is there some simple powers that you are so successful? Let us know about them. Well, let me comment on that because one of the things we did do in the book is talking to women on this very issue, particularly on balancing work-life issues. And when we talked to Jacinda Aden, the second woman ever to have a baby while in office, I think the first was Benazir Buto. And we said, how do you balance your work and your life? And she said, I don't balance, I just make it work. So women find strategies to make it work. And that's what I've done in my life. I've also, let me just share one thing. I've made sure that I chose positions in my career as much as I possibly could. That were positions that really made me want to get up in the morning and go to work. I chose jobs that I wanted to do that would bring out the best in me. And I have this rule, I call it the 70-30 rule. You must get up in the morning, 70% of the time wanting to go to work. Well, 30% yes, you accept that not everything is fun where you work. And so that 70-30 rule has propelled me to have the energy and creativity to be able to manage. And I often say to young women to excel, make sure it's not all about advancing. I didn't really think of one promotion to the other. I never even thought of being finance minister. I just thought in a field where I really want to work to help people and chose a career path where I thoroughly enjoyed my work and it brought out the best in me and I made it work. So balancing work life is not always that easy. You try to make it work. There's no magic answer, Aya. Be yourself and have confidence in who you are and keep going. Yeah, and be passionate to wake up every morning doing that. So what about you, Julia? If there's a magic answer, I haven't found it yet. So I'm within gozie. I don't think one exists. I think that sense of purpose is incredibly important. If you really believe in what you're doing, then that gives you the energy to keep going even when the going is quite tough. I do think it's important for women particularly to nurture a sense of self, to not be too worried about criticism, about other people saying mean things about them. When I was Prime Minister, I had to think about that quite a lot because you get a lot of incoming criticism. Much of it very unfair. You know, the sorts of toxic things that get said in social media posts and the like. And I had to make a decision how much of that I would really let inside me and how much I would let it wound me. And I ended up coming to the conclusion that you should take constructive criticism from people you admire and whose opinions you value, but you can't let all of that kind of rubbish get in your head. You've got to build a barrier and hold that back. And I think, you know, everybody today with social media needs to think about that, but women in particular do. I also think it's really important not to sweat the small stuff. I think as women, often we're very perfectionist and if one tiny thing is not done or not done as well as we would have liked to have got it done, then we're very critical of ourselves. The reality is you should make the big things work, the big decisions, aim to get them right and not get too anxious or head up about the smaller things. And as I went on in my political career, I was also very thoughtful about that, the sorts of things that when I was more junior might have quite worried me. I ultimately got to a stage where I let them go and honed my focus on the big things that really mattered. That's amazing. I'd like to talk to you forever. We have running out of time, but I want to go with one more question before we wrap up with a call to action and just following up on what we're talking about now. A lot of the challenges that young people face right now is really mental health challenges. And I know that a lot of young women look up to you and say they are really superheroes. How do they do it? But when it really gets tough, like now we are in a gloomy space of this pandemic. A lot of people have been through lockdowns for a lot of months and quarantine and all of that, far from family and all of these difficulties. So I really want to know, what do you do when it gets really tough? Do you go for the jogging? Do you put on music and dance? What do you exactly do? What do you do when it gets insane? We want to know your secrets. I'm digging deeper into that. I know you said you have secrets. I'm sure you do those things, whatever. It's really hitting tough. Dr. Ngozi. In this COVID pandemic, it's really been tough and it's been tougher for women in many circumstances. First, they're the majority of frontline workers and not only do they have to do their work, they also have to come back home and be the caregivers and those who make the home work as well. So this is really tough for women and girls during this time. And there are two or three things we need to think about, how to take care of ourselves during this time of confinement, as you said, of extreme stress. How in our home, those of us who may not be so fortunate can avoid being a victim of gender violence. What we need to do not to become one of the casualties during this pandemic, either of COVID itself or a casualty of the economic recession or even a casualty in our home of gender violence. So there's a lot going on. And personally, I want to start by saying, I often think, remember, you're not the only one in this situation because many times we find ourselves in situations where we think, oh, we're the only one going through this. And sometimes we blame ourselves for the positions we find ourselves in. So one of the first things I do is, there are other people who are also going through this. You're not alone. I think that thought helps a lot. Two, I focus on whether I'm in my home or outside on two or three things, purpose. What is it that is happening outside and in the house that I can do that will give me purpose, that will make me want to carry on, that will make me want to wake up in the morning? And then three, you asked about relaxation. I go to swim, I have to say that, and I do aerobics in order to unwind. Sometimes you need to do something. And what is happening with women is we often don't think of ourselves. We don't take care of ourselves. And that stress mounts up. I urge women to take a few minutes. Your children and your husband and your partner, they're all important, but so are you. Find something you can do that can enable you to ward off that stress. Sometimes I read, just break up from all my technical papers on health and other areas or economics, and I read something light-hearted. Sometimes I do exercise and I do swim. So those three things tend to keep me going and the thought that I'm not alone. That's fantastic. You're not alone, purpose, swimming and aerobics. I love that and reading and self-care. What about you, Julia? Yeah, I think all of that is really good advice. I'm not someone who sings and dances around my house. I'm probably way too clumsy for that. But I do enjoy getting out, going for a walk. I live very near the beach in Adelaide in Australia and that gives me a sense of peace and relaxation to see the ocean. I love losing myself in a book and that takes me away from the stresses of the day to day. I think when we interact with this technology so much, you can sometimes feel yourself sort of getting more and more anxious the more you do the next video conference, the next email. And I think turning to reading a book helps de-stress and take that away. In this pandemic period, my whole family has taken to doing jigsaws. And I'm finding that that's a good sort of mindfulness exercise just every so often wandering past it and doing a few pieces, getting that sense of satisfaction of the jigsaw slowly coming out, a way of de-stressing. So really just small things, but they do help break up a day that otherwise would be full of intensity and could leave you feeling very rung out and very kind of hyper at the end of it. I think it's important to find some moments of retreat in the day. Small but important things that we do every day, that makes a difference. Thank you for sharing that. And now to wrap up, I want each of you to share with us a call to action. I'd love for that call to action to be one for the leaders and one for the young women who really want to step into leadership position, step into their power to climb the ladders, seeing you as role models. So please share with us your call to action. I'll start with you, Dr. Ngozi. Thank you, Arya. Well, I would say to leaders, their call to action is not to forget those that are behind them, to pay it forward, as people often say, to stretch out a lending hand to those who come after them, to have this intergenerational approach to other women, to mentoring and helping them. Take on specifics, three or four or five women that you can give advice and help to find their way into leadership positions in life. We know you're all very busy, but there must be a little bit of time to turn around and help others. So my call to action is, don't forget those who come behind you. Take on some specific younger women with whom you can share your experiences, to whom you can give advice and whom you can help make their way up. And to younger women, my call to action to you is nothing will be handed to you on a platter. You've got to fight for it, you've got to make it work, you've got to go for it. Be yourself, be confident, and know that the experiences you're going through are not peculiar to you. One of the best things about the book that we wrote is showing other women that even women in high leadership positions go through some of these same experiences. They don't go away, but knowing that other women go through it helps when you're a younger woman. So my call to action is, seize the moment, be yourself, move forward. Thank you, Dr. Ngozi, for that inspiring call to action, Julia. Thank you, I would say to leaders, particularly leaders in healthcare, this is such a difficult, such a stressing time. But as we come out of this, I think that there will be a community appetite for building back better than we have had in the past. And when we turn to that phase, keep gender and diversity at the forefront of your mind as the rebuilding happens. It would be a terrible waste if in five or 10 years time, we looked back at this period and said, oh, if only we had been more mindful about these issues of diversity and gender equality, we could have built a different system. I think let's put that at the forefront and we can use what has been a dreadful crisis to create some new opportunities for change. To young women who are aspiring to be leaders themselves, my main message would be go for it. But my second message would be, you have the benefit of having seen the journeys of other women leaders. I like to joke you've seen this movie before. And that means that you do know that there will be some times that you are treated lesser or differently simply because you're a woman. And you can think about how you're going to react to those things in advance. You can war game it with your friends. You can talk about it with your mentors and sponsors. So instead of being blindsided and then looking back in hindsight and wishing you'd done something differently, you can actually plan it in advance so that you engage in the most effective response when there are those moments, when you are treated perhaps differentially with some sexism because you're a woman. So get strategizing, get ready. Well, you've heard it, my sisters. Nothing will be handed over to you, fight for it. You will get there. And you have to be looking at role models and women leaders like Julia and Dr. Ngozi. Thank you very much to both of you for your honesty and wisdom and for being an inspiration to so many of us. I feel ready to face the word. I got all the advices I need and I hope everyone watching is too. And knowing that we're not alone and there are women all around the world coming together to reshape a word where we want it to be equal. I think that's very powerful. I think also we have to believe in our power as women not just to understand the system and climb the ladder but to change it when we don't like it and when it's not functioning and bring our leadership qualities to transform it, empathy, emotional intelligence and collaboration. So thank you again for helping to set the stage for today's conversation and for your continued leadership every single day. Thank you for your inspiration and absolute inspiration to us as well as a young woman. Thank you. Absolutely. Thank you so much.