Stepping Out For International Women’s Day

Hi, I’m Vic.

Most days, you won’t see me centre stage, and honestly, I prefer it that way. I’m not naturally a talker. I’m a thinker. An ‘obsess about the problem until it’s solved’ type. The happiest version of me is buried in a whiteboard session or deep in a spreadsheet, building, fixing, connecting dots. Lately, that’s meant bringing Humanetix into our world and working alongside their innovation labs to help providers streamline systems, eliminate admin friction, and make the whole operation run more intelligently, which, for someone wired like me, is wildly satisfying.

Provider Assist is half woman-owned which I’m incredibly proud of, but I’ve never been the loud half (you all know who that is!).

That said…when I get excited about something, I do occasionally step out from behind the curtain.

This is one of those moments.

Ahead of International Women’s Day, I found myself wondering:

Why don’t I step forward more anymore?

I’m surrounded by exceptional women in this industry, we are lucky to have such a large representation of remarkable female leadership. It’s humbling and inspiring all at once. In my 20s and 30s, I wore ‘strong woman in business’ like a badge. I spoke about it. I charged forward with it. I probably exhausted people with it.

Now?

Now I’m juggling kids, ageing parents, the gym (quietly negotiating with perimenopausal muscle loss), friendships, relationships…and somewhere in there, a business.

And then, just for fun, I’ve started to feel guilty for not being more visible as a woman leader.

As if that’s another KPI I’m missing.

At some point, you have to laugh.

Maybe this stage of life isn’t about charging harder.

Maybe it’s about letting yourself off the hook.

The Red Queen Moment

It reminded me of the Red Queen hypothesis from Alice in Wonderland – which feels particularly on brand in the week of International Women’s Day as we celebrate Queens everywhere. The idea that you have to run as fast as you can just to stay in the same place. That’s what life can feel like.

It’s also exactly what aged care feels like right now.

We sprinted to reform as if it were a finish line. Surely once we got there, we’d breathe.

Instead?

More compliance.
More scrutiny.
More responsibility.
More complexity.

Compliance got us across the line.

But compliance doesn’t make you sustainable.

Right now, our sector isn’t just working hard.

It’s sprinting just to stand still. There’s A LOT of untangling and clean up to do, luckily that’s my kind of puzzle.

It’s sprinting just to stand still.

And when that happens, the answer isn’t to run faster.

It’s to redesign the track.

That’s where I find myself spending most of my time these days, not shouting about change, but quietly helping organisations think differently about how their systems connect, how their data flows, and how their teams stop compensating for structural friction.

Because when the structure works, people don’t have to run quite so hard.

Why This Matters

International Women’s Day feels like a good moment to say this and to celebrate all of us:

If you’re a leader right now and you feel like you’re carrying more than anyone sees: you probably are.

Leadership in this season doesn’t always look loud.

Sometimes it looks like holding complexity together.
Sometimes it looks like thinking deeply while everyone else is reacting quickly.
Sometimes it looks like redesigning the race instead of trying to win the sprint.

And sometimes it looks like quietly absorbing pressure so your team doesn’t have to.

If that’s you: you’re not behind – you’re Remarkable.