As International Women’s Day approaches this Sunday, one of Australia’s most experienced company directors is asking a simple question: why do we keep talking about the same problems every year?
For Marina Go, the answer is not that progress hasn’t happened. It’s that progress rarely gets the spotlight.
Speaking to Mediaweek, Go says the annual conversation around International Women’s Day can sometimes drift into a familiar cycle – identifying structural inequality, acknowledging the work still to be done, and then repeating the process again the following year.
But in focusing on the problems, she believes many organisations overlook something just as important: the solutions that are already working.
“I think maybe one of the challenges is that there are many organisations that actually are doing things and have done things that have made great progress for women, and maybe we’re not hearing from them enough,” she said.
Go says the real opportunity lies in highlighting the organisations that have already taken meaningful steps to improve outcomes for women.
Rather than focusing solely on the challenges, she believes there is value in hearing from leaders who have changed workplace environments and expanded opportunities for women, because their experiences can offer practical ideas others can follow rather than simply “admiring the problem.”
“I think,” she added, “we’re a great admirer of problems.”
Marina Go. Source: SCA
Progress that rarely makes headlines
Go speaks from long experience.
A former media executive turned company director, she now sits on several of Australia’s largest boards, including Southern Cross Austereo (SCA) and chairs the 30%+ Club Australia, an organisation dedicated to increasing female representation in senior leadership.
And by one measure at least, the numbers show change is happening.
“In many ways, the 30% in the 30%+ Club i is redundant because we have more than 30% of women now on average in ASX 300 boards, certainly in the ASX 200, and really nudging 40% in the ASX 50,” she said.
“But we don’t really hear what was done to get there because it happens over years.”
Real change, she said, rarely comes from broad statements or symbolic gestures. It comes from deliberate strategies that unfold over years.
Go recalls her time on the board of Autosports Group, a company operating in one of the most male-dominated sectors of the economy.
Go says that during her time on the board of Autosports Group, a heavily male-dominated industry centred on car sales and mechanical workshops, the board made a deliberate decision to focus on diversity and inclusion to address the gender imbalance.
But she explains that recognising the problem wasn’t enough. Rather than simply pointing out that there weren’t enough women in the organisation, the board concluded they had to take practical action to change the situation.
“One of the things that we had to do was put a programme together specific to female apprentices. We had to be very specific and deliberate about it,” she said.
Why reporting rules are changing behaviour
One of the biggest drivers of change in recent years, Go argues, hasn’t been corporate goodwill, it has been transparency.
A growing set of governance expectations, ESG frameworks and regulatory reporting requirements has forced companies to examine their gender balance more closely than ever before.
“A lot of the heavy lifting has been done in the areas of thinking about the aspect of inclusion in the workplace. So that includes thinking about not only what you need to do to attract women to the workplace, but then how do you keep them there?” she said
“The only way that you get to keep them there is if they have a thriving opportunity for advancement, and therefore you have to look at the ecosystem within your organisation.”
That shift has been accelerated by policy changes and governance pressure across corporate Australia.
Go says a range of regulatory and governance changes have helped drive progress, pointing to updated ASX rules and pressure from organisations such as the Australian Institute of Company Directors that have pushed companies to take ESG issues more seriously.
As a result, she said equity, inclusion and opportunity have become stronger focuses within many organisations. Go argues that public reporting has been particularly influential, noting that transparency forces companies to confront their performance.
“What gets reported gets done,” she said, explaining that when organisations are required to publish data such as gender balance or pay gaps, it creates accountability, and in some cases even a degree of reputational pressure, that encourages companies to improve their practices.
There’s no shortage of paraphernalia for International Women’s Day, but what about real change?
The numbers behind the debate
The national data reflects that tension between progress and unfinished work.
New figures from the Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA) show Australian employers have narrowed the national gender pay gap over the past year. But the gap remains substantial.
Across the workforce, women earn an average of 88.8 cents for every dollar men earn, leaving a national gender pay gap of 11.2 per cent.
Importantly, the figure does not measure equal pay for the same role. Instead, it captures the broader structural difference in earnings between men and women across the economy.
The latest dataset also reveals wide variations between industries and employers, with sectors such as aviation, health services, fashion, recruitment and cosmetic services among those recording some of the largest gaps.
A very different workplace
For Go, who began her career in media more than three decades ago, the transformation in workplace culture has been profound, even if the work is unfinished.
“When I think about my early days in media, women had to come back full-time or not at all once they had children; there wasn’t maternity leave available for women in the beginning,” she recounted.
“When I had my children, and my kids are 32 and 28, it was really, really difficult.”
She recalled returning to work after her first child and finding her career abruptly stalled.
Later, once she reached senior leadership roles, she made her own adjustments, even when they ran counter to official company policy.
“When I got to a senior role, I made sure that I let the women who worked for me come back part-time after maternity leave, even though the organisation didn’t allow it and didn’t let me, I let them do that,” she said.
Her reasoning was simple.
“The outcome for me is, and as it should be for any executive or director, what’s in the best interest of the organisation for the long term, and what’s in the best interest is that we have the best people available.”
Why leadership representation matters
That philosophy underpins another key shift in corporate Australia – the growing presence of women in boardrooms.
According to Go, the effect is not just symbolic.
“Having more women on boards means that we are looking for these things in an organisation that encourages more women in leadership roles,” she said.
“It also helps women look up and say I could be that person, maybe I could do that.”
Advice for women already at the top
As International Women’s Day approaches, Go also has a message for women who have already broken through into senior leadership roles.
She believes their influence can shape the path for the next generation.
“You want fairness, and you want to do the right thing, so why would you not want it to be easier for the next generation of women?” she said.
Go’s advice to younger women entering the workforce is less about navigating office politics and more about learning to anticipate change.
“I’ve always tried to think a few years ahead, even five years ahead, so instead of kind of looking down at your job day in, day out, take the opportunity to sit back and consider your sector; where is it going, where are the consumers going, where are the audience, where is the audience going?”
It was that mindset, she said, that led her to pivot early in her own career.
“That’s how I made my jump from print to digital. At the time, I was very steeply in print, but I could feel the audience moving to digital.”
For Go, that instinct to look ahead, to understand where audiences, industries and workplaces are heading, is the same mindset she believes organisations should bring to gender equality.
Progress, she argues, rarely arrives overnight. But with deliberate strategy, accountability and leadership, it does happen.
And as another International Women’s Day approaches, Go’s message is simple: the conversation shouldn’t just dwell on the problems that remain, but also on the solutions already proving they work.