Rebecca Gundalech, 24 April, 2024
Cindy Hook is an outstanding business leader with more than 35 years of global leadership experience across three continents.
US born, Cindy spent three decades working for professional services giant Deloitte – including four years as Australian CEO and four years as the inaugural Asia Pacific CEO. In her current role as CEO of Brisbane 2032, Cindy Hook is responsible for leading all aspects of organising the Games to create an outstanding experience for the athletes and spectators and leave a positive legacy for Brisbane, Queensland, and Australia.
Ahead of her appearance at the QUT Business Leaders’ Forum on 29 May we sat down with Cindy Hook to find out more about her leadership style, how she’s navigated such a successful career and the challenges she’s facing in the lead up to Brisbane 2032.
Who are leaders that you admire and draw inspiration from, and what qualities do you appreciate most about their leadership styles?
Apart from my husband and two boys, who I draw inspiration from every day, I’ve been fortunate to have many leaders support me throughout my life and career. Three that come to mind are:
Giam Swiegers – the CEO of Deloitte Australia before me and an innovative leader who was a master at driving business performance through a combination of strategic clarity and a high performing culture.
Lieutenant General David Morrison – formerly Australia’s Chief of Army and Australian of the Year in 2016, and a leader of cultural change and gender equality.
Liz Broderick – a determined female leader who has driven gender equality and human rights across Australia and beyond. Liz was Australia’s longest serving Sex Discrimination Commissioner, founder of the Champions for Change, and has served the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights.
Each of these leaders has had a profound influence on my leadership style and they all share qualities that I admire and adhere to – centred on passion for what they do, courage to take on major challenges, and compassion for others.
Can you tell me about a significant challenge you faced as a leader and how you addressed it?
A challenge I often look back on was taking on the leadership of Deloitte Australia back in 2015.
I was following a revered leader who had very successfully run the firm for 12 years. Many, at times including myself, wondered whether I was up to the task. It was a challenge for me mentally and emotionally to step into some very big shoes.
I treated my preparation for taking on the CEO role like I treated my marathon training at the time. It was intense, focused and consistent. I worked very hard to prepare. That’s one of a few leadership lessons I live by – the others include:
- Know yourself – be authentic, know who you are and what’s important to you, and bring this into your leadership.
- Work hard and deliver proven results – just putting in the hard work won’t be enough.
- Build a great team around you – know your strengths and weaknesses and find others whose strengths compliment your weaknesses.
- Get global experience – the exposure to different people, culture and business environments will challenge and expand you personally and professionally.
- Make yourself future ready – find the balance between investing for the future, while not letting performance today fall away.
How did you navigate the career you’ve had – did you always know what you wanted to do? What influenced these career decisions?
No, it was not like I grew up always wanting to do this. I found my way over the course of my career by “playing to my strengths”. Might sound cliché, but at every step of my career, I tried to match the things I was good at with the things I really enjoyed doing.
On the suggestion of my father, I studied accounting at university. I was logical and good with numbers, so it made sense to me, and I found I really enjoyed and excelled in my accounting courses.
I graduated from Miami University with a Bachelor in Business and began my career with Deloitte in audit. This gave me exposure to a wide range of industries, taught me to be inquisitive, and helped me understand the drivers behind different business models. These were strong foundations that have served me well over my career.
In 2009, I sought out the opportunity to live in a different country and I moved to Australia with my husband and two boys. This was a major challenge but played to my ability to adapt to different cultures and build new relationships.
Fast forward to current times and taking on another challenge in organising the Brisbane 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games. When I read the role description for the job, it was a great match to the skills and experiences I had developed throughout my career and the role played to my passion for sport.
My biggest advice to my kids is to find something you are reasonably good at and that you really enjoy doing. Success will follow.
If I had had my choice when I was a child, I would have loved to become a rock n’ roll star. I had the passion, but unfortunately zero musical talent. So I had to take a different path!
What is the biggest challenge facing Brisbane 2032 right now?
One of our biggest challenges is pace. What do we move forward on confidently; what do we pause on to reflect on global and local pressures and outcomes; what do we make quick decisions on, and what do we push down the track.
We are working in a new model for Games delivery. Not only are we the smallest region to ever host the summer Games, we also have the longest delivery runway.
Brisbane 2032 is fully committed to being self-funded as an Organising Committee. This requires us to optimise delivery in a collaborative way with our Games Delivery Partners. We must take advantage of the extra time we have been granted to allow for strategic investment, while not doing too much too soon which will drive unnecessary cost structures, leading to re-works as planning and progression evolves over the next eight years.
While the year 2032 will be here before we know it, there are still two summer Games to play out before our turn – and a lot will happen within Australia and around the world over the next eight years that will affect and determine our decision making. We are being very strategic and measured in setting our pace.
It’s the day after the Brisbane 2032 Closing Ceremony – what is the front page, newspaper headline?
Rather than a specific headline, I hope that communities – including the media – find that the Olympic and Paralympic Games in Brisbane, Queensland and Australia were ‘worth it’.
Worth it from a positive athlete and spectator experience; worth it from an increased economic and social inclusion sense; worth it because together as a state and nation, we have a sense of deep pride and unity in what we delivered; and worth it because the Brisbane 2032 Games propel the Olympic and Paralympic Movements forward.
Will there be ebbs and flows along the way? Yes. But I hope we can look back together and know that all the hard work, planning and preparation was worth it.
Join Cindy Hook and moderator Ellen Fanning, at the QUT Business Leaders’ Forum on Wednesday 29 May.
Tickets on sale now: www.qut.edu.au/events/blf
