Leading with Purpose: CEO Nieves Murray on Change, Compassion, and Community

Episode Description:

In this episode of Never the Same, Dr. Tony Pisani sits down with Nieves Murray, CEO of Suicide Prevention Australia and one of Australia’s 100 Most Influential Women. With a leadership career spanning over three decades, Nieves reflects on the people and moments that shaped her approach to suicide prevention, systems change, and inclusion.

Born into a Spanish-speaking family, Nieves shares how her bicultural upbringing influenced her values and ability to lead with empathy. She recounts her early days in engineering—a rare space for women in the 1980s—and how those formative experiences forged her resilience.

From reshaping the national suicide prevention policy platform to championing lived experience voices, Nieves offers both practical and heartfelt reflections. She also discusses personal loss, the importance of mentorship, and what keeps her grounded after years in leadership.

This conversation is honest, wide-ranging, and full of wisdom—an invitation to reflect on what leadership can look like when it’s deeply human.

Key Themes

• The power of bilingual and bicultural identity
• Leadership lessons from aged care, finance, and suicide prevention
• Changing minds: how experience reshapes perspective
• Balancing data with lived experience in policy work
• Grief, care, and learning from family

Guest:

• Nieves Murray is the CEO of Suicide Prevention Australia and has spent over 35 years in leadership roles across aged care, finance, and human services. Recognised as one of Australia’s 100 Most Influential Women, she is a champion of systems thinking, community voice, and inclusive policy.

Host: 

• Dr. Tony Pisani: Dr. Tony Pisani is a professor, clinician, and founder of SafeSide Prevention, leading its mission to build safer, more connected military, health, education, and workplace communities.

Referenced Resources (Timestamped):

• National Policy Platform by Suicide Prevention Australia
• Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make The Leap and Others Don't by Jim Collins 

Tony: Welcome to the Never the Same podcast where we explore suicide prevention, career development, and personal reflections. I'm really happy to share with you today a conversation that I had with Nieves Murray, the CEO of Suicide Prevention Australia, which is the peak body for the suicide prevention sector in Australia.

Nieves was named one of the hundred most influential women in Australia and has devoted 35 years to leadership in the human services sector, as well as others. So she brings a rich experience as a leader, but we talk about a whole range of topics, including some of her own personal experiences in her early career and talking about a couple of key themes in leadership, which is listening, teaching, and a real commitment and courage for change. I hope you enjoy and learn from this conversation as much as I did. I'm so glad that we could sit down and talk, Nieves. And, I should probably say that, some people who know you might be thinking that I'm mispronouncing your name, like how embarrassing. Tony has wrote a podcast and he's calling her Nieves, when, that's not what most people call you.

Could you share about your name and some of your background?

Nieves: Yeah, absolutely. I am of Spanish extraction. I was born in Australia, but my parents are Spanish migrants and my name means 'snow,' and it's pronounced Nieves, as you correctly say it. However, in Australia it's been anglicised and I get called all sorts of things, Tony, but mostly 'Neeves'.

However, my name is Nieves. And I have to say, as a young girl, I was called Maria because my name is Maria Nieves, as was very traditional for people post-Spain, post-war in Spain, and a very Catholic country, all firstborn daughters were Maria-something, but then used their middle name. When I went to school, that was very unusual to use somebody's middle name, and because my birth certificate said Maria Nieves, I was often called Maria and it took a long time to be able to be called what I really am, which is Nieves.

Tony: I didn't–that's really interesting. Wow. So you are bilingual?

Nieves: Yes.

Tony: And I'm curious about how you think that may have shaped you.

Nieves: It's interesting because, and I often think about this in the context of Aboriginal languages.

And growing up I spoke Spanish at home. In fact, I didn't speak English 'till I started school. And so, some of the fundamental thinking I do is still in Spanish. So, simple things like arithmetic, often I still think in Spanish because that's how I was taught arithmetic. Simple things like herbs and spices.

I didn't know that parsley was parsley. I always thought it was perejil. And so, just–

Tony: Especially those things around the home.

Nieves: That's right. So it's quite formative in the way you think about things and, expressions that don't exist in one language. There's a Spanish tradition of sobremesa after you have a meal, there's a discussion.

It's a normal part of Spanish life where you have a discussion after a meal and people chat, like we're doing now.

Tony: Yeah.

Nieves: And of course that doesn't happen in Anglo cultures. And usually what happens in an Australian family, you finish the meal and the table gets packed away and that's the end of that.

Whereas in Spain, and in my family, we would sit around the table for an hour and chat. And so, it does shape the way you think and the way you behave, culture does, and I think language does as well.

Tony: Did you grow up here in Wollongong?

Nieves: I did. Tony, I have not traveled far–well, I have traveled far and wide.

I've had the privilege of traveling far and wide in my career. But, I was born and raised in Wollongong and I still live in Wollongong. And in fact, even when I've worked away from Sydney or Wollongong, I've always commuted and stayed here. So this is my town. I'm a proud, this is something you probably don't know, but I follow the basketball and our team won the league for the first time in 21 years last weekend, Tony. So I'm, right now I'm a very proud Hawks supporter as well. But yes, born and bred in Wollongong, and with everything that came with being an immigrant child or a child of immigrants in the sixties and seventies in Wollongong, which is pretty tough. It was a tough town. It was a very tough town, particularly for migrants.

Tony: Say more about that.

Nieves: So it was a place where, there was a, there was, people were received well. I married into an Australian family and my in-laws called us new Australians and they were very respectful of that, but it was always, we were different. And so for a lot of my peers, I certainly was fortunate not to experience this, but for a lot of my peers, there was a lot of bullying, particularly for the boys because of our ethnicity. Simple things like the sandwiches we took to school. In fact, I was speaking about this yesterday on the way home from a University meeting with a colleague who grew up very near me. And, she was saying, we'd have, she's Italian, and she was saying, "We'd have the best mortadella,” and, and she would beg her mother to give her devon and tomato sauce in her sandwiches so that she wouldn't be different and she would throw away her mortadella sandwiches. So it, you know, the cultural differences were at the most fundamental level of what we ate at school and, yeah, how we spoke, how we dressed.

So yes, it was a challenging time.

Tony: Yeah. Well, this maybe is a point of transition into your career because I know that you have, through a variety of different roles and organisations, devoted yourself to people who would maybe, kind of trying to empower vulnerable individuals.

Could you talk about that?

Nieves: I don't know what the genesis of that desire to change communities and help people be the best that they can be, I don't know what the genesis of that was other than knowing that as a child, my mother always told me that I could do whatever it was that I wanted to do.

And that education was the key to unlocking a better future. And so, I saw that for myself. That if I worked hard, I studied hard, I could actually change things, I could change– I came from a very poor family, and I saw that the only way out of that was to actually progress my career.

And for me, the fact that the migrant child–who couldn't speak a word of English–could actually make a difference led me to have the, perhaps naive, confidence that I could help others move beyond whatever difficult circumstances they were currently experiencing. And in the first instance, I worked in aged care, and I had a strong belief that older people were just, had been on this mortal coil longer than the rest of us, and therefore had more experience.

And, you know, unlike the belief that older people are weakened at the end of their life, I just saw experience. I saw people with so much knowledge that we were just leaving on the shelf. So yeah, I became a bit strident about the fact that we had to change things. There had to be a revolution about the way we regarded older people.

And I was very young in those days. So–

Tony: Yeah, you know, this makes me think about–we work with different groups of young people, and I think some people feel a little overwhelmed about how to make change and maybe discouraged about the ability to do so, you know, right now. It seems like you had a, almost like a naive sense of I can

Nieves: Yeah.

Tony: potentially make a difference. What, are your reflections on that?

Nieves: It's interesting. I often wonder at what point things changed for me. And, the best way I can describe it is that story of the girl or the boy who's walking along the beach, and she's, or he's, leaning down and picking up the starfish and throwing them back into the ocean.

And the older man walks towards her and says, "What are you doing, little girl?" And she said, "I'm saving the starfish." And he said, "But look down the beach. There's thousands of starfish. You can't save the starfish." And she leaned down and picked up the starfish and threw it back and said, "I saved that one."

And for me that was like, I can't necessarily solve all of the problems of the world, but I can make life a little better for some people. And if by making life better for those people, they can then make an impact on other people, then you start a movement. And perhaps we can create a kinder world.

Tony: Yeah. I think that can be very helpful for people. I get the sense too that some people who are entering into difficult fields, sort of a little girl on the beach idea would be to, wherever you are, do your part

Nieves: That's right, and being the change that you want to see.

So actually, not feeling overwhelmed, even though we all feel overwhelmed from time to time, particularly when you, well, when I look at global affairs, and I know I speak to friends who say, I can't watch the news anymore, it's overwhelming. And it's true, it is overwhelming. But knowing at the end of the day that you've made a difference to someone's life can feel, be fulfilling for yourself as well.

So, it's the dual benefit.

Tony: Now, and the path that you ended up taking towards trying to improve things, empower people, is through leadership and management. Could you talk about that? What's the thread there for you?

Nieves: I probably stepped into leadership again, naively. As a very young person, even at school, so I would always step up to be the house captain or the sports captain, even though I was pretty average at sport. And inspiring and leading people gave me great joy. Watching people do things that they never thought they could ever do, was, is, continues to be one of the greatest joys I get from work and from friendships and, just encouraging people to do things. Because at the end of the day, if I could do it, so could they.

I can't see why if I can do it they can't. And, yeah, that gives me great joy. I'm deputy chancellor at the University of Wollongong, and I have the privilege of conferring degrees as part of my job as the deputy chancellor. And watching people cross the floor, often first in family as I was, and receiving their testamurs, and the joy in their face. They've spent three years, four years, five years to get there and it's been a big effort, and that gives me enormous joy. And the difference that they're gonna make in their community and for their family. So yes, it, it's definitely something that drives me. I have to say, I, even in my swimming club, I couldn't just be a swimming teacher, a volunteer swimming teacher, I had to become the leader of the group and recruit more people and enthuse people about teaching children who would otherwise not learn to swim, to swim. So I think in every aspect of my life, I've always felt this need to, of course we can do this, we can change things, we can make things better.

And that, that led me to leadership. That's not where I started. I didn't start in human services, Tony. I actually started in engineering.

Tony: Okay, so tell me about that.

Nieves: Yeah, I, my mother was a Type 1 diabetic and very frail. And at the time I finished school, I wanted to be a pilot in the Air Force.

That was my grand ambition. But that meant I would've had to have moved away from home and that wasn't gonna happen. My dad was a shift worker and my mother was blind. She was clinically blind and couldn't draw up her insulin for her in her daily injections. And so somebody had to be at home to do that.

And so, I stayed home. And at the time, the steelworks was a very, the steelworks here in Wollongong was an enormous employer. There was 22,000 employees and they offered cadetships for young people to do either traineeships, sorry, apprenticeships in the trades or cadetship into degrees. And I was fortunate enough to get a cadetship in the very early eighties here at the steelworks. I was the first girl at Lysaght’s, which is a part of the steelworks that makes the painted steel. And, it was challenging. Very challenging.

Tony: This is probably a very naive question, but were you aware of being the first girl?

Nieves: No. So I, I was good at maths and science and, I remember having a conversation with my careers advisor. I said, I wanna be a pilot, but I can't leave home, so I'll become a maths teacher. And she said, no, don't do teaching, which is a bit sad coming from a teacher, but she said, don't do teaching. Although that's still, my ultimate career ambition is to be a teacher. And she said, you should apply for these cadetships.

So I did. And I was fortunate enough to get it, and I had no idea that girls back in the late seventies, early eighties weren't meant to be good at maths or science. And so I started my engineering degree and, it was challenging. There was some incredibly supportive people, amazing men that I met, and women, who were very supportive, who wanted to see me succeed.

And there were others who questioned why I was there, and made it very challenging for me. But, I endured for four years. And then, moved on and did psychology and never looked back. I was very fortunate. I've had extraordinary mentors through my career. The very first doctor I worked with who was a geriatrician, was a great mentor and taught me a great deal about the health system and encouraged me to use my technical skills, so my maths brain, to help him with some work he was doing around, mobility and people with, head injuries.

And so, that's how I started in the health services. And from there, yeah, again, was curious about trying new ways of caring for people, became very involved in the development of community aged care, so care for older people at home, rather than in institutions. Because I often heard my own parents say that to put them in a nursing home was to, that would be the greatest disrespect. So it was trying to understand what supports people needed at home and then working with government to fund those sorts of services. So, back in the eighties that was not a thing, care for older people at home.

Tony: Yeah.

Nieves: And so, it evolved and I grew up with it.

Tony: Yeah. Can I just circle back though to, you said, you endured that for four years and then you went to psychology. What was the, slow that down for me a little bit. How did you make that shift at the end of that four years?

Nieves: Yeah, great question. My, my strength was definitely the maths and science side of it.

I had a friend who was studying psychology, my best friend at school, and she was struggling with the statistics in psych and so I was helping her with the stats and realised that this was really curious and interesting stuff that she was learning about human behavior. And I became interested by helping her with her stats.

And, to be fair, most of my psychology studies were in the kind of, cognitive science and stats. That side of psychology, rather than counseling. But that's how I became interested, helping someone with stats.

Tony: Wow. Wow. So by, so this is, by helping her, you ended up, oh, I kind of like this.

Nieves: Yeah.

Tony: And, what drew you to that? What was it that you found–do you remember? Was there a sort of a moment where it sparked, like I think I'd like to move into something more about

Nieves: People.

Tony: people?

Nieves: Yeah. Look, I think it was probably my own, I mean, I was very young when I started as an engineer.

I was 17. I was becoming more mature and realising that I liked being around people. I actually was curious about people, and in engineering, that wasn't something that was gonna happen for me. And so, psychology was a good transition, I think, because I was able to use the science side of my brain and work with people and make a difference to people.

Tony: Yeah.

Nieves: I also started working, I was very fortunate that as a student, I actually gained a placement with this geriatrician I spoke about. And, he made it real for me. So I wasn't just studying in, it wasn't just all about books. I was walking hospital wards with him, talking to people my age with head injuries who'd had a head injury because they had been hang gliding, and, or in a car accident and just that realisation that life turns on a pin, and the importance of a health system to support people for whom life has changed so radically. Yeah, it just drew me. Yeah.

Tony: One of the themes that I've heard through having some of these different conversations with very accomplished people like you is that, is that what I just heard of, that people don't always end up where they started.

And we've heard from early career people that's a helpful thing to see. I mean, you started off in engineering and now you're the CEO of Suicide Prevention Australia. What's been your observation about that? Many times in people's careers, they don't end up where they started. Yeah.

Nieves: Yeah. And so I think the whole notion of a linear career is I think a fallacy. I don't think that anybody's career is linear. And, I think for me at least, the common thread has been this desire to teach or learn, and that has held my career together regardless of where I've been working or in what position I've been working.

Also, the ambition that I wanted to lead. I wanted to make a difference. I wanted to change things. I have an ambition to change things. So it's not just about picking a career and sticking with it. It's also about finding your purpose. Understanding deep down what gives you joy and looking for that in roles. And not always will the roles that you take on–a community services coordinator, which was a role I once held, isn't about teaching, yet I found a way–

Tony: Except that it was for you.

Nieves: That's right. I found a way of finding my joy by teaching the assistant or teaching the people who were going out to care for the people that we were looking after.

And so it is about finding ways of expressing those things that give you joy in a job and not feeling, never feel a prisoner to your job. Love what you do. We spent a long time at work, and I think it's crucial that we find the joy in what we are doing at work. Or move on. No one's holding us there.

And often I see people, I call them prisoners, who are so unhappy at work. And I think a good employer encourages you to get the skills and then find somewhere else to continue to grow. And if you are given a good experience by that employer, you'll come back. I did that. I left, I'd spent 12 years in one organisation, I left, and then I came back in a different role.

I've had employees at Suicide Prevention Australia leave and come back, or maintained that connection with the organisation. because they came to learn, they offered, and contributed to the organisation. They've now gone to do something else, but they're still friends of the organisation. So this whole notion of what an employee is, again, I think can be gentler.

It doesn't have to be this kind of, yeah, one way relationship. It can be much richer.

Tony: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there probably are some people at certain points who are for a variety of reasons, are stuck and they really can't make changes. But for a lot of people, that seems like that's true.

What do you think holds people back from pursuing something else or something in addition to their work if it feels like it's not suiting them, or it's not providing properly for them? What do you think holds people back?

Nieves: Oh, Tony, fear. Fear of the unknown. Fear of, what if I lose this and I'm unhappy wherever I go to? Fear in so many areas of life, fear holds us back. And particularly I think in pursuing careers and pursuing joy at work, it's fear because you don't know, what happens if I don't like my new job, or it doesn't work out? How do I pay my mortgage? How do I pay my bills? How do I provide for my family?

Tony: Yeah. Very real thing.

Nieves: Absolutely. And so it's fear, and yeah, I also think there's an element of mindset. Not always can you turn things around. I reflect on some of my experiences at the steelworks, and they were awful experiences and there's no, no way that you could sugarcoat that.

But I grew from them, that's for sure. And it helped me get more and more clear on the fact that's not where I wanted to spend the rest of my life, and found a way to make a transition. And, I was young and, I was starting my career out, so it was probably an easier time for me to make those changes.

So I'm not suggesting that it's easy, but recognising that it's fear that holds you back. You know what they say, when you know what the problem is, you can then address it. So I think recognising that it's fear, and then building some scaffolds around that so that you can make a transition, I think.

Tony: Yeah. I wanna come back in a minute to you've mentioned now a couple times the, what that experience was like as a young engineer. So I wanna come back to that in a second. It seems like something important there, but I wanna just follow up on this teaching thread for a second.

What role does teaching have in, as a CEO?

Nieves: Oh, it's,

Tony: How are you a teacher?

Nieves: Yeah. A hundred percent of my role, well maybe 98% of my role, is teaching. It's about, you know, I think about my executive team as an example and, I've spend a lot of time with them teaching them things about what it's like to work with the board.

What, the best way to interact with the board so you get the best outcome for an organisation. Teaching them how to support their people, and ensure that their people are well at work, but also, productive and thriving. So, I'm constantly teaching. It's a fundamental of my role. Teaching things like, strategy, what it means to write a strategy.

How you ensure that a strategy is not just a piece of, or a document that sits on a shelf, but how you activate a strategy. How you be disciplined about that. Because sometimes it just feels like you're being administrative of when you start to say, no, now we have to do this document that goes with the strategy, and then you activate it, and then you report against it.

And, so teaching, every part of doing their job, not just being technical specialists in advocacy, as an example. So they're teaching me around advocacy. I'm teaching them. So it's not a one way teaching relationship, it's, yeah. We learn from each other.

Tony: And what makes a good teacher?

Nieves: Empathy. I think recognising that you are not the, you are not the holder of all of the knowledge. To, I think, understand where the person is at. To provide information for them where they are at, and in a way that they can digest it and use it, and then to support them to use it. Get them to test it and sometimes get it wrong.

Give them support when they get it wrong. Reteach, guide, provide scaffold, and then get outta their way.

Get outta their way and let them do their thing. And, they will always surprise you.

Tony: Yeah. I think I could really relate to that. One of the things that I've also observed is, as a fundamental to, let's say, a teaching approach to leadership is, being able to take things back a few steps as to like, why are we doing this?

Not assuming steps A, B, and C and jumping right to D. Is that anything that you've seen as well?

Nieves: The why, the context. The context. We do this because, and helping people understand not just the tasks that you want them to learn or do, but understanding the purpose and how that particular thing will make a difference to what they're trying to achieve.

And I think people–people are wise. So if they understand the context and the purpose of why they're doing something, they're more likely to learn and internalise what you are trying to get them to understand. Always understanding the why. Even in the boardroom, I, you teach in a boardroom.

And, I don't mean that disrespectfully because usually the people who are sitting around that boardroom are incredibly wise and experienced, but they're not in the business 24/7. So you are teaching the context of what's happening in the organisation, or in the environment that the organisation is working.

But understanding the why, the purpose, I think is a fundamental ingredient in learning being, or sticking.

Tony: Yeah.

Nieves: So, yeah.

Tony: And, yeah, communication, really. Yeah. I'm reminded of, we went to a cardiologist for my daughter when she was very little, and when he was explaining what was going on with her heart, the first thing he said was, "The heart pumps blood through the body."

And that always stuck with me, like, you'd think you could assume that, but he really wanted to lay like, I'm not, I'm gonna really walk you through this. And beginning like that, and that's something that's really stuck with me sometimes, is to think what's the most basic thing that maybe you think you can just assume and maybe start there sometimes?

And I think when I've heard you speaking, I've heard you take that step back often to remind, remind us of the broader purpose along the way.

Nieves: Yeah, that's right. It's the why, the why we are here. Yeah.

Tony: Yeah. So if you don't mind and, sharing whatever you feel comfortable, you mentioned how awful it was that you endured those four years, and you know that you were the first woman there.

I don't know if that's all connected, but what would you feel comfortable sharing about, about that time?

Nieves: Yeah. Look, I think it was a difficult time for the organisation. I think the reason I was brought in to work at the steelworks was a genuine motivation to change what was happening at the steelworks.

I think that the motivators, the, the desire to change was definitely there, but it was perhaps at the leadership level and didn't really filter through the organisation. They also didn't have an understanding of what that meant, and perhaps over rotated on what it meant. Simple things like, when I went to a particular part of the plant they would run ahead.

One of the bosses who was a wonderful human being, would go ahead of me and make sure that everybody knew I was coming so that they would behave. And so they were told not to swear, they were told. And so the guys on the floor, they, they just, I was just a pain in the neck because they couldn't do, they couldn't do their work the way they normally would do their work. I remember when I did my rotation into the diesel shop, which is where we did all of the reconstruction of the diesel engines for the trains on the plant. And the guy who was in charge there, I'll never forget him, was a bikey, his name was Scarfer.

I don't know what his real name was. That's what we called him, Scarfer. And Scarfer was the gentlest human, but absolutely horrified that I was coming to the diesel shop because they had some inappropriate images all over the diesel shop that they had to take down. And so they were all on tenterhooks when I arrived.

Now I didn't know any of that till after the event. I'd walk in to this environment where everyone was like, she's here. And so that was really quite, as a 17-year-old girl straight from an all girls school, that was pretty confronting. And then there was people who did immature things. I'd walk through the plant and they'd say things over the loudspeakers and, they would, I would find presents in my locker.

Things that were immature because people didn't know how to respond or react to the fact that I was different. And, I think it was a time that the only difference that we saw at the steelworks was people's ethnicity. We didn't see gender difference. We didn't see, any of the sorts of things that we talk about now as normal and inclusive.

It wasn't an inclusive workplace. Everybody looked the same, everybody spoke the same, dressed the same, and so it was difficult for them as much as it was for me, very confronting for me. But, as I said earlier, I walked into that quite naively. I had no idea I wasn't meant to be good at maths and science.

And that's what I was there to do, maths and science, and I didn't know, I mean, the first year we were actually on the shop floor filing pieces of steel, learning to be tradies and I'd never picked up a file, as in a metal file, in my entire life. I'd never used a tool. I'd done none of that. So, it was a steep learning curve for me as well.

Tony: Yeah. How did you endure it? Four years is kind of a long time.

Nieves: Yes.

Tony: Especially for a young person.

Nieves: Yeah, look, there were some incidents, I think is best, is the best way to describe it. And for periods of time I would be taken to an office environment. So I'd be put in the drawing room, for example, for six months. And that was a much more conducive environment because there was female secretarial staff or typists, back in the day. So there was more women around. One example, I'll never forget, I was building, I was building a G clamp out of a lump of steel. So one of the tasks we had to do was get this rusty piece of steel and turn it into a shiny G clamp with a screw.

And, so we had to build it from scratch. And so I was building my G clamp. And, during the process, it had curves, it had flat surfaces. During the process, you had to go to the supervisor and they would check to make sure everything was perfectly square. They would check, it would mark, you'd be marked on it.

And, I had got to the particular stage of building my G clamp, and I went out to my supervisor and he held it up to the light and he ran the set square over the curves, and he looked at me and he said, "That's really good for a girl." And so I grabbed the G clamp, I was so distressed, and I slammed it to the cement floor and smashed my G clamp, or damaged my G clamp, and stormed out.

And, I was like, wow. I thought it was just good, not because of the fact that I was a girl. And he was mortified that he'd upset me that badly, but yeah, it was a reaction. Yeah.

Tony: Yeah. That sticks with you.

Nieves: Yeah, it does indeed. Yeah.

Tony: Yeah. Yeah. It seems like it could go back there. Yeah. yeah.

So how did those, those early experiences shape you?

Nieves: Apart from the fact that I had a visceral reaction when my daughter came home to say, my youngest daughter came home to say, that she was gonna go down exactly the same path, I think it teaches you that–I came from an all girls school where I was just another girl and then I went to an environment where I was the only girl.

And, I think what it taught me was that we all have a different perspective. And to be fair, gender's just one perspective, because the people that I dealt with could have joined the crew of seeing me just through the lens of being a girl, but didn't. They chose to see me as a colleague or they chose to see me as the kid who was really good at maths.

Or, they chose to see me through a different lens because gender wasn't the only thing that defined me. And, I think what it taught me is that people are multifaceted, and we can't judge them on one dimension. And I also believe that most people are well motivated, including the chap who said

it was good for a girl. He was really impressed. He was shocked because he'd never seen a woman do that. That was his learning. And I think it taught me empathy about the fact that he was a good guy. I actually respected him, still respect him. He didn't mean to distress me, but he was learning. He was shocked 'cause he'd never seen a woman do that before.

So, I think it taught me to understand that everybody's on a journey and that people are generally well motivated and that they're kind, they're not trying to hurt. They just do it out of ignorance or they do it because they're currently learning. So yeah, I think it taught me to be kinder.

Tony: That's very generous.

Nieves: Well, you know, I think the years help you reflect on these things. Would I, would 19-year-old me have been this philosophical about it? Perhaps not. Perhaps not. Yeah, at that point in time I was really distressed?

Tony: Sure.

Nieves: I was really distressed. But I also saw, and even in that incident he apologised, and I saw people go out of their way to rectify when they made a mistake.

So yeah, I genuinely saw people learning through that process, not deliberately trying to hurt. And, yeah. And look, 33 years on, I saw my daughter go through, not the same, but, elements of the fact that she was there because of her gender, rather than her ability, and for me, it's definitely, I see beyond that. I look at people's contribution.

I don't look at what they present like physically and–

Tony: But it is a good reminder, that it would be easy to, and probably more comfortable to think, oh, that was then, and we don't have that anymore. But that would be a, that might feel good to think, but we're, that's not really the case. That even now, you know, it must have been hard to hear that your daughter had experienced something similar.

Nieves: That's right. And look, in a different way.

Tony: Yeah.

Nieves: She experienced it in a different way, but certainly the fact that she was being described because of her gender or, her gender was used as an attribute for why she was doing well, rather than her skill and her dedication and her perseverance, and all those things that were in fact what were driving her wasn't to do with her gender.

And, yeah, and look, I think it's not just gender. It's culture, ethnicity, it's all those things. People make assumptions and that's their reality and that's their safe place. And when you challenge that because you behave in a different way to what they want you to behave, it's challenging them, right?

So you are rocking their boat. So, I think, you know, if we look at it from that perspective, yeah, we perhaps respond differently.

Tony: Thanks for sharing that. So, let's fast forward to your current organisation. You became the CEO of Suicide Prevention Australia in 2017?

Nieves: 18.

Tony: 18. Okay. And you had worked in aged care, financial services, different place, but suicide prevention. Could you talk about what it was like to enter this sector, and if you can bring us back to getting to know the suicide prevention world a little bit from the beginning?

Nieves: My interest in suicide prevention was actually very personally motivated. So, I was the CEO of a very large organisation, here in the Illawarra. That was a national organisation, but it was based here in the Illawarra. And, we had two and a half thousand staff. It was a large organisation and I used to set myself personal goals in, for my own personal development. And one year, I decided that I needed to improve my listening skills, and in, you know, I would do this.

Tony: I have to stop though. How did you decide that?

Nieves: Because, I had a situation with my then chief financial officer where he had been, we had been having this lengthy conversation and at the end of the conversation I was getting frustrated and I was trying to get to a solution and he kept going and I said to him, "this is it. This is what we are doing". And he looked at me and he said, "You're not listening to what I'm saying." I thought, wow. And this is a fellow I had an extraordinary relationship with, and we had a very open relationship, and we would often spitball ideas for hours into the night. And, we had done some great things together. And I thought, maybe he's right. I'm getting to a point where I'd been a CEO for, I don't know, 7 years or 8 years. And, I was getting to a point where I thought I knew things, right? So I was just trying to cut to the chase and get on with things. And I thought, I need to improve my listening skills.

I need to stop thinking I know the answers, and I need to just stop and listen. And I then made the decision to become a Lifeline counselor because I thought if there's going to be somewhere where my listening skills have to be completely honed, it's on the end of a phone listening to somebody who's in distress.

And so I had a psychology background, so I had an empathy for people and I, and so I thought, now I'm gonna do this. So I put my hand up to become a lifeline counselor. And there's a process that you go through and, a number of steps. And during those steps, very sadly, somebody, somebody who I would consider my cousin, because when my parents came out here, there was no relatives.

And we, they created their own family. And this family were like my parents brother and sister, and the children were like our cousins. And, my cousin took his life by suicide, literally the day before I was meant to start the course, the Lifeline course. And it became even more personal because the day he died, I was at a work function.

I was representing the company. It was a networking event, it was a black tie thing. And I was off at that thing. And my, his sister, my sister, my cousin who was, we grew up together. Her name was Blanca. Mine is Nieves. Blanca Nieves. Anyway,

Tony: White snow.

Nieves: Yeah, Snow White.

Tony: Snow White.

Nieves: Yeah. And she was overseas celebrating her birthday, and so my parents were the next of kin.

And so when the, when he was found, the police contacted mom and dad who were already not young people. They were, they had some significant health conditions and they had been trying to call me all night and I was at this event. And so I came out of the event and got mom's very desperate message, and, yeah.

And so it's become personal, Tony. And so then when, my substantive career finished and I wanted to do something different, there was a number of roles came up in the suicide prevention space. And when this one came up, I knew it was the right job. And I'm so glad that I was given the opportunity to step into the role because I really didn't have any leadership experience in mental health.

I had been predominantly in aged care and retirement living. And my only experience in suicide prevention was as a Lifeline counselor for 7 years. And the thing I love the most is the advocacy. The fact that, as a Lifeline counselor, I was that little girl on the beach putting starfish into the ocean. At Suicide Prevention, I'm looking at the system and looking at why the starfish are there and looking at ways to make sure that the starfish don't get to the beach. And working with government, and that advocacy at my stage in my career, is a very joyful thing. To be able to look at enduring systemic change that will leave the place better for my involvement.

I hope, that's my ambition.

Tony: What surprised you about suicide prevention when you started in it?

Nieves: Oh, the competition. Look, if I reflect, it reminds me, it reminded me of where aged care was 30 years prior. I saw it as a group of incredibly well-meaning people with extraordinary passion, with great skills, trying to do good things without any coordination, with very little money.

And because there was, definitely a mindset of scarcity, and so I saw a lot of competition for scarce resources that, as an outsider, I could see duplication all over the place. I could see opportunities for collaboration that people wouldn't step into because they were trying to establish their organisations.

And so, it was 7 years ago, the sector was a competitive, immature sector. I've seen significant change in those 7 years, and I think it has been as a result of increased investment, not enough, but some increased investment in the sector and people being able to stand back and say, do we have to do everything or can we pick our lane?

Can we collaborate with a colleague and make this better, have a bigger impact? That's starting to happen. And hopefully moving away from that scarcity mindset to one where we have the end user in the center and we think about how we use the resources that we have to address the end user rather than fight for our patch.

We're getting there. We've still got a long way to go. So that was my initial observations. It was pretty competitive. Very competitive.

Tony: Yeah.

Nieves: A very competitive sector.

Tony: And for you, it sounds like this was, you said it was, this was a personal, as well as a professional decision, something you really care about.

What kind of things do you think you brought in from your previous experiences into the role? In leading–for people don't, who don't know, Suicide Prevention Australia is the peak body related to suicide prevention here in Australia. And maybe for people who actually, who aren't even in Australia, could you explain what a peak body is and the, what the organisation is called to do?

Nieves: It's a unique phenomenon that I think is widespread in Australia, but not in other countries. A peak body, essentially, is a representative body of a group of members. Generally, it's based on a sector. So for example, in aged care or retirement living, there's peak bodies that work with government to represent the interests of their members.

Suicide Prevention Australia has about 400 members. Half of those are organisations, large organisations, right through to small one man bands, one person bands, and individuals either with a lived experience or researchers, or people with an interest in suicide prevention. And so our job is, some would say crudely, that it's to corral cats.

And perhaps it is because all of those organisations and those individuals have different experiences in suicide prevention and different perspectives, and different desires and ambitions for what they want in suicide prevention for Australia. And so our job is to distill all of those messages and create a common narrative that we can then work with governments across the country, to implement either systemic change, introduce policy, increase funding in particular areas, but to look at the issues of suicide prevention across the system and work with government to embed changes in the system that mean that suicide prevention is more effective across the country.

So our job is to listen very, very well and carefully and intentionally to our members to understand what their pressure points are, what they're seeing on the ground that's causing distress for the community, and then to advocate to government. Also to support our members to grow, if that's what they choose to, improve their quality and their systems internally through accreditation programs, provide access to training. Many of our members are in the training space, so we try to amplify that so that people in the community know where to go to receive training in suicide prevention. Because we know that suicide prevention's not just about those of us in the suicide prevention sector.

Suicide prevention can happen anywhere. In the pub, at the hairdresser, when someone tells their story. I often say, imagine– most of us have first aid skills, most of us know how to do CPR. Imagine if we knew how to respond to somebody in distress in a way that kept them safe. Imagine if we all had those skills.

It's more likely that we would save, in fact, it is likely that we would save many lives because often, it's that first time someone tells a story that can make all the difference to that person's trajectory.

Tony: There's a lot about that, that you just said, that sounds challenging.

Really exciting, but also challenging. Hearing from, trying to reflect so many different perspectives, understand what people's needs are. For you, what do you think are the biggest challenges, either to your role specifically, or for a peak body in suicide prevention? You can take it whatever direction you think, but what are some of the real big

Nieves: Yeah.

Tony: real challenges in that?

Nieves: Because it is, certainly in suicide prevention, it's still very much an emerging sector.

And, there is a misconception that suicide prevention is all about mental health, or mental illness. And so, again, educating people that it's more than that. It can be that, it can be about mental wellness or mental illness, but it could be so much more. It could, could be about financial distress.

It could be about relationship breakdown. It could be about so many other things. And encouraging people to understand that, or to de-stigmatise, to actually change the perception that somebody in suicidal distress is fragile. They're in suicidal distress, they need help, but they may not be fragile.

They may be very robust people, and generally resilient, but they're at a point in life where the options aren't there for them or they can't see the options. And supporting them to find those options, is the task of the person to, of the listener, rather than solving the problem for them. It's about helping them navigate to what the solutions might look like, what the alternatives might look like.

So yeah, for suicide prevention, it is that because it is all of government, it is all of community and how you lift the profile such that people feel comfortable talking about it. It's not that long ago that it was a taboo subject. It's not that long ago that it was a crime. And so, how we help people navigate that conversation, I think is important. For a peak body, the key challenges are representing the diverse voices without upsetting people.

Tony: I would imagine so.

Nieves: Yes. And that doesn't always happen, and sometimes there are points of inflection where you have to make a call and not everybody's going to agree. My experience, though, in the last 7 years, and it's only a short experience really in this sector, is that if you are clear and articulate about the why, people may not always agree to start with, but people in this sector are good listeners and they do listen.

And perhaps two or three years later, they might actually understand the why and say, I get it now. I'm with you. So it is about not trying to eat the elephant in one sitting. It really is about being clear and staying the course. So, we have a national policy platform. It's a tool we use to try and be clear about what our priorities are.

There's a thousand things that we could make priorities, but we've chosen 3, and then in the most recent review, 4 key things that most of our members feel comfortable in supporting, and that's our narrative. We don't stray from that. In fact, I've had government officials ring me to say, I know you're gonna say X, Y, and Z because you become predictable.

So I think the key in being an effective peak body is to pick those things that most of your members are going to be comfortable and support, and then just don't deviate.

Tony: Yeah.

Nieves: Those four things and keep at it. You make progress an inch forward, then push it further. Just be clear and stay the course.

Tony: Sounds like there's a lot of discipline involved in that. What about when people are upset with you? How do you handle it when somebody is, who has their, probably good reasons, but might be quite upset that the things they think are important are not being represented?

How do you personally handle people disagreeing, being upset, or even angry?

Nieves: Yeah, great question and probably about to uncover some wounds. I'm a generally resilient individual. I'm a generally resilient individual and have got fairly good support networks around me. But I have had situations, even in this role, where it's been difficult to be kind in response to somebody who is persistent on their perspective and refuses to listen because of whatever's happening for them.

Often fear, as I say, but I have to say it's only a few years down the track that I can reflect on that with kindness because I felt wounded and, I've developed a strategy with my team because I'm very open with my team and work very closely with them. We're a very small team, so we have a trusting relationship, where if I'm feeling that I'm not able to present my best self in that interaction, to step away from that interaction and have a colleague step in, and so there are some situations where I've felt that I can't contribute positively and that I'm becoming emotional in my response. And I try as best as I can to step out before that becomes an untenable situation and have a colleague step in. And supporting each other, because sometimes when you're dealing, when working with people for whom it's so deeply personal,

Tony: Yes.

Nieves: so deeply personal, they're not gonna hear you because they have lived it. And they're angry that you are not hearing them sufficiently well because you're not doing what they think you should be doing.

And for those people at that time, those around them often retreat from them because they are so passionate about what they want to achieve. And so, anybody who steps in their way becomes the sole repository of that feeling, that position. And as a team, we have worked together to support each other when we are dealing with people, when we are working with people in those circumstances because they're going through stuff as well, right?

Tony: Yeah.

Nieves: But it's not easy and you have to have a support network. In my circumstances, having a support network and people I trust–people who will step in, but also then say to me, I need to step out again, you need to step in for me–has been very helpful.

Tony: Yeah.

Nieves: Because it's an emotionally charged.

Tony: It is. It's just about one of the most emotionally charged things. And, I don't know what it's like in every field, but I feel like a really large proportion of people that I come in contact with came into this for some personal reasons, and have personal experiences. So I would, I think that's what's so exciting about this sector is that, nobody's like business as usual when it comes to suicide prevention, right?

It's why there's so much vibrancy and you meet such wonderful people.

Nieves: Indeed.

Tony: But I would also imagine that there's, there's a lot of emotion in that.

Nieves: But Tony, I get it. If the system has let you down to such an extent that you have either seriously contemplated taking your life or have made an attempt on your life, why wouldn't you be angry? Why wouldn't you be fearful? Why wouldn't you want to change the system yesterday? Why wouldn't you have that, I don't know, fire? That sometimes manifests in a way that could hurt others unintentionally. Yeah. I get it. It's not nice to be the firing line, but I get it.

Tony: Do the cousins, the brothers and sisters of their cousin who died, they know about your work now?

Nieves: Yeah, we don't talk about it very much. Yeah. We don't talk about it very much. And, I think they've dealt with–well, she. It's only one person. She has dealt with it, I think, through her faith.

And she's an incredibly resilient woman. But we don't talk about it very much.

Tony: Yeah. Sometimes it's too hard. Yeah. Yeah. So, 7 years, you said it's a short time. It's a short time, long time kind of amount of time. What are some ways that things that you've changed your mind about, or that you've changed about how you approach things?

Nieves: I have invested a lot of time in better understanding the original inhabitants of this land and, have learned. My knowledge of this country has increased. My love of this country has increased through my interactions with First Nations people and better understanding their culture, and the fundamental principles of kinship, and community, and family support.

I've been enriched by those interactions really deeply, and can see, would speak with Indigenous colleagues and reflect on the times that I spent in the village where my dad grew up and watched how the village interacted and hear the stories about families in Australia, Indigenous families in Australia, and I think that's just like my dad's village. Different, but the same in the principles and the values, not so much the structures, but the things that glue them together are the same things that glue the village together. So I think we have so much to learn around wellness from Indigenous culture and the way we look after each other and the way we build community.

So that for me has been the most rich part of being in this role and something that I hadn't had a lot of exposure to prior. Like many Australians, I went to school at a time where the history books were written by the people who came here from England. And they brought lots of interesting things and the history that they brought, the history books that they brought were one-sided.

That was the way it was back then. I'm not judging that, but I had a one-sided view of this nation, and so this job has given me the opportunity to really understand the richness of this country, and I'm very grateful for that.

Tony: No, that's really powerful. I don't think I would've just guessed that. Earlier, I made a mental note, you mentioned teaching, and also, one of the things that you were teaching people is about strategy? And I wanted to get you to say a little bit more about strategy. It's one of those words that, I'm not sure, I don't even know if I could say like a, what it means, a definition of it.

I wonder how you think about strategy. This country now has also a new national strategy for suicide prevention, and yeah, I just wonder if you could just begin talking a little bit about what strategy means to you, how do you think about it?

Nieves: Yeah.

Tony: Importance of it.

Nieves: I'm not sure that you are born knowing how to do strategy.

I think that it's a learned skill. For me, strategy is about imagining an end state. And so I always start with that. What would good look like? So, I think about in the organisations I lead, what would good look like? What are we here for? We're here for the end user, the consumer, the older person.

We're here for the help seeker. We're here for whatever it is that we are here for. What would good look like from that perspective? And then, I talk about the building blocks. I then work out with the people who know, because you don't know everything, what those building blocks to get to that end state of what good looks should be.

And then you articulate it in the simplest form. So you don't use complicated words, you don't use jargon, which I think is a mistake many, many leaders make.

Tony: Yes. I would say that for certainly the last 3 or 4 years for me has been about simplification.

Nieves: Yeah, absolutely.

Tony: Clarity. Yeah. It's like when you think it's simple enough, then simplify times 10 from there.

Nieves: And it's not about making things simplistic.

Tony: No.

Nieves: It's about simplification of language so that people can resonate with it. And to be fair, that's when you start doing the real work because the real work begins in how you bring that to life. So how you activate that, what way, how you communicate it, how often you communicate it, how people embedded in what they do.

In my experience, you need to stay the course on a strategy. It's a bit like our national policy platform. Pick your three things and stick at them. With a strategy, in my experience, it's the same thing. Keep it simple. And then every year refresh your, whatever you call it, whether it's your operating plan or your business plan or whatever it is that you call it, and have actions that you can then link straight back to the strategy and make, be disciplined about that.

So we're going to, I don't know, play hula hoops every week because it links to the strategy 3.2 that says we're going to make our waist stronger. Whatever it happens to be, link it back, and then talk about it all the time. Talk about it all the time. Everything has to be run through that lens. It's in the execution that a strategy is effective or not effective.

And until it's embedded in people, in our little organisation, we have what we call the compass. And people recognise the compass because of the colors of the compass. So it's visual. They recognise the words, they, and because–

Tony: What's on the compass?

Nieves: So the compass has in the center, the members, then we have true north, then we have the points of the compass.

So we have a world without suicide. We have systemic change. We have lived experiences integral to everything we do. And we have sustainable organisation. And then we have the component parts of the compass, which are inform, influence, sustain, and strengthen, as in strengthen the sector. And so they all have definitions, they all have lots of things underneath them.

But that essentially is the compass. That's the strategic plan. So if what we're talking about is about influencing, how does it influence, who's it influencing, what are we gonna do about it? Is it about informing? Who will we informing? Same sorts of questions.

Tony: Yeah. Yeah.

Nieves: And so from there, we build everything. Our annual operating plan, every activity of the organisation, people's performance plans are linked back to the strategy.

Tony: So this strategy, you, you said the first step was defining what good looks like. Could you break that down for me a little bit? I almost feel like that, for me, that's hard. It takes, that's a lot of imagination. What, how do you do that part?

Nieves: It does take imagination and, some people are, are creative thinkers and so they can imagine and then articulate really well.

So surround yourself by those people. But talk to the end user. I think I made the mistake very early as a leader of setting strategies based on what I knew of a sector or what I knew of a particular problem, without really thinking I knew what the consumer, what the problem was from the consumer perspective. Without really having those conversations.

So for me it really is, I have evolved in the way I develop strategy in really starting with the consumer. What does–for us–what does the member think? Where does the member think we are really bad at what we do? Where does a member think the system has to change? And then, framing the picture of what good looks like based on what you are hearing from as many of the end users as you can possibly speak to.

Tony: So how about a national strategy? As we're recording was, earlier this month I think, that the strategy launched, after a long period of consultation and other kind of machinations of government.

Nieves: We had some wonderfully smart people at the National Suicide Prevention Office leading the development of the strategy, and incredibly impressive people.

They were extraordinarily diligent in speaking with consumers and people with a lived experience of suicide as well as the sector. They consulted really broadly, deeply, in developing the strategy. And I think it's fair to say, and certainly when we participated, obviously in those consultation processes and conducted some of the consultations on behalf of the office, the things we were hearing, essentially people were saying, we've been saying this for a long time.

So, it was a complex strategy because su suicide prevention is a complex area. Nevertheless, people with a lived experience have been talking about what good looks like for a long time. And so, we were able to, they were able to, we were able to as a sector, articulate that fairly quickly. Because it has been an ambition for a long time.

It's very well written. It's simplified.

Tony: Yeah.

Nieves: The language has been simplified in a way that's accessible.

Tony: But still, to me, it's the most intellectually rigorous strategy for suicide prevention that I've seen. That's just from my own perspective. But right, but not jargony, not, yeah.

It is simplified, but quite rigorous.

Nieves: Yeah, indeed. And I think that's a tribute to the way the consultation groups that the office put together. I sit on the National Suicide Prevention Advisory Board, and on that board there are people with a lived experience, but there are also highly acclaimed academics who have been in the human services assessment space for a long time, and brought a very different perspective to, when we were reviewing the strategy, obviously we did other things in that group, but, certainly when we were reviewing the strategy, they brought different perspective. But the deep consultation with the people with a lived experience, with people with a lived experience, I think is, what has made it so practical and tangible.

I think, too, the office had a tough task in consulting with government departments because they wanted this to land. And, they invested a lot of time in speaking to government departments that don't play in the suicide prevention space. So they moved right outside of health and had input from those who didn't see suicide prevention as their business to try and understand how it could, they could be influenced for it to be their business.

So I think, that breadth and depth of consultation has been key to a document that I, like you, believe is incredibly robust, and has the potential to change the system in this country for better outcomes and keeping our community safer from suicide. If it's fully funded, but then that's just me going on to the next stage of advocacy.

Tony: Right. No, it's true. There has to be resources otherwise.

Nieves: Exactly.

Tony: Yeah.

Nieves: And I think the office has been very judicious in they're now developing an outcomes framework that will help them, will help the sector say we're achieving or we're not achieving. So I think they're doing the right thing and it allows us to then advocate for the funding piece separately.

Yeah.

Tony: Yeah. No, and from what I understand about that work, I think that's also extremely innovative, to have, again, a robust, scientifically rigorous way of gathering data, putting it together, reporting against a strategy. Again, would be world changing really. And, I think, we'll make sure that for viewers and listeners, we'll provide a link to the strategy and, and if people are interested in the, in receiving that next phase when the outcomes approach is released, we can also provide a link for people to sign up to receive that. Because, as somebody who cares a lot about Australia, comes here a lot, I feel very, very close to what's happening here, but also realise how much the rest of the world has to learn from Australia.

It's part of why I come here as much as I do, is 'cause I just wanna soak in the public health environment, the good work that's happening. I'm usually on a learning mission. And so it is part of my own mission to have other people, like, you know, really try to amplify what's happening here so that others can learn from it.

I appreciate–

Nieves: We have extraordinary researchers in this country in suicide prevention.

Tony: Yes.

Nieves: Some, yeah.

Tony: Yeah. Yeah. And there's a public health mindset and rigor that I find really exciting about when I'm invited in to learn.

Yeah. So I do want others too, as well. And so, I appreciate the contributions that you and the organisations made as well as so many other people.

Nieves: Oh, yes, indeed.

Tony: Yeah, it's, I think the consultation process here really second to none from what I've seen in different, and I've had little views into other strategies, including our country has had, has recently had a strategy last year. So part– I think one of the things that you said was rich about this strategy was that there was listening that occurred. And, as you said, some people have said, we've been saying this already for a while.

You said that you went into Lifeline counseling to develop your listening skills before. And I was curious how that turned out.

Nieves: I still fall into old habits. I enjoyed my time at Lifeline. I had, I learned so much. I developed a greater appreciation for life through my interactions with the many people I spoke to on the phone.

Tony: Appreciation for life?

Nieves: Life, yeah.

Tony: Say more about that.

Nieves: Yeah. The complexity of life that some people endure that, the challenges that life throws their way. So it, I would always come home from my Lifeline shifts and go and see my daughters who were usually in better sleep by the time I got home from my shift, because I would do it after work and, just appreciate them, appreciate the–I hope my youngest daughter doesn't hear this–but appreciate the fact that it's okay that her room was messy and just put things into perspective.

So for me, it was an enriching time not only because I had an insight into some of the challenges being experienced by people around me, but also helped me appreciate what was truly valuable in life. And it wasn't necessarily that the room was tidy, right? That was the least thing that was important.

It was about her health and her wellbeing. And, and so yes, it taught me perspective. It gave me insights into some of the challenges that the people around us have to live with day in, day out. And, yeah, I learned deeper gratitude for things and probably helped me reflect on things that had happened to me in life in a kinder way.

And yeah, be grateful.

Tony: Reflect on things that had happened to you in a kinder way?

Nieves: Well, just growing up. Things that happened when I was a young woman out of school, the fact that my mother was sick ever since when she was blind from the, when I was 11 years of age.

Being a carer for my mom. The fact that we were incredibly poor, and for in my very early youth, my parents lost their home when I was about two and a half or three. So we were homeless for a while and lived with another family till they were able to get supported housing.

And, so yeah, just, it gave me an understanding that there are people who are still living through that and that's their life, that's, they haven't been able to get out of that cycle. And, yeah, so it just gave me, yeah, that different perspective.

Tony: I know that you recently lost your mother, and she's, you've already reflected how important, you know, she was in your life.

Could you tell me something that you learned from your mother?

Nieves: Oh, yes, so much. My mother was a very proud, articulate woman, stubborn, and very proud of her heritage. And so she taught me a lot about my heritage and to be proud of my heritage rather than be ashamed of being different to the kids at school.

I was very proud of where I came from because that's what I lived with at home. She also taught me that education was key to everything. So for my mother, since I can remember, if there was a learning opportunity, I would be put into that learning opportunity. In fact, I think she thought I was never going to be productive in the world or something.

I don't know, because she made sure I learned everything it was to learn and then some. So I learned from my mother that education is key. That you should never give up an opportunity to learn something new. She was a historian, she was a storyteller. Much better storyteller than anybody else in my family, I believe.

And I learned from her that storytelling, and in fact I think about, the Indigenous culture again, and the importance of storytelling. And, I've spoken to Aboriginal colleagues who talk about the value of their mother and their mother's storytelling to their life. And I often reflected on the importance of my mother's storytelling in my life, and how that's in impacted my children as well.

So she was an incredible woman, and widely read. She was well educated herself. but she married a farmer's son who had no education, had probably not finished primary school. So she made some really brave decisions, and even to come to this country, because she had a comfortable life in Spain.

My father didn't, but she certainly did. But she made a decision to come to this country and start again. So she was courageous as well, yeah. And she lived with a chronic, she lived with chronic illness all her life, and was blind. And she, you wouldn't have ever picked it. I'll never forget images of my mother who was very politically minded, sitting around the table, with the men back in the day when smoking was de rigueur, in a smoke-filled room playing poker arguing politics. The only woman in the room.

And so for me, the whole thing of gender was quite an odd experience when I joined the steelworks because I'd never seen gender as anything other than a product of the fact that I was born with a particular gender and didn't impact my capacity to interact with others. And I saw my mother arguing a completely opposite point of view politically to those around her and holding her own.

And yeah, so she was very strong.

Tony: And I know that there, it, you worked in aged care for a long time. And you were certainly, I know, from our own conversations that, you really also helped and took care of your mother for a long time when she was declining in her health.

What do you take from those experiences?

Nieves: The vulnerability of life. I saw my mother deteriorate and certainly her quality of life in the last few years was not what I would've wanted for my mother, and I know not what she would've wanted for herself. And her vulnerability in that time.

I think that we have a lot to learn on what the end of life looks like, and how to ensure that people have a dignified end of life. I'm grateful for the health system in this country. They supported my mother, but they kept her alive beyond when she was having quality of life. She was no longer having quality of life.

I'm grateful for the extra years, but they were just quantum rather than quality. I also learned a great deal of compassion, well, it sharpened my compassion because she was no longer able to do anything for herself. And I also, I have to say, my sister and I are very different people, whereas there's 8 years between us. We've never been close.

And I saw my sister step up in ways that I wouldn't have anticipated and do things and support mom, because at the end of the day, that was one thing we had in common. Yeah. yeah, I,

Tony: Yeah, there's a lot of people who are in the situation of like full-time care giving and also full-time working.

And obviously the role that you have is, there's a lot of responsibilities. How did you manage those things together?

Nieves: Yeah, my sister did the heavy lifting during the week. She doesn't work, and I would look after mom on a Saturday. That was my day. And it was a special day. It was a day that I would make sure that there was nothing else on her that I would be there for her.

It's not easy because particularly as people frail, it's not just on a Saturday that they're frail. It happens during the week. And, systems fall over and, yeah, I worked for a wonderful employer that has allowed me to get back to see Mum when things weren't well, and she was in hospital for very long periods of time.

So it is about employers taking a human approach to the fact that we all have a life outside of work. And I hope that I'm that employer as well, that I demonstrate that empathy for our people. And I think when you go through something like that where you're caring for somebody who's frail, whether it be a child or a parent or somebody else, that it does give you empathy as an employer about supporting people to do what they have to do in life. 'Cause that's what life's about. It's not just about a strategy. That's an important part of how we make a difference in the world, but caring for the people around us is also a very important role that we play.

Tony: Yeah. So, this 7 years has involved strategy and sounds like also mentorship, compassion teaching.

We've talked about a lot of different aspects of that. Do you still have somebody that mentors you?

Nieves: Yes, I do. I've had mentors. I've been blessed to have accidental mentors and then deliberate mentors through my entire life. When I became a CEO for the first time, I was in my very early 40's.

Now I've aged myself, haven't I? I was a young CEO, particularly for a large organisation, and I was nervous because I had been in that organisation and suddenly I was coming back as the CEO of people who had been my peers and my superiors. And so I was pretty anxious about that. And I was fortunate to have a chair, the chair of the board who offered me the role, was a great teacher.

In fact, I'm still in touch with him. He occasionally rings me just to have a chat or to have a coffee, and he taught me so much. And he also encouraged me to get external mentors, which I did. And so I joined a group called the Executive Connection. I was part of the Executive Connection for many years, and now there's a group of us that are alum of the, Executive Connection, and we get together once every three months just to support each other.

So yes, I have had many mentors. My current chair is, I look to him as a mentor, my former chair, at Suicide Prevention Australia was also a mentor. Every chair that I've worked with in my previous company was a mentor. I've sat on many, boards and I've found mentors in those opportunities as well.

Tony: Yeah.

Nieves: I think that as an individual, you should have your own board of directors or mentors, or a sounding board, that you go to for particular guidance or just as a sounding board. Yes.

Tony: So, if somebody early in their career hears that and they think, oh, that sounds, but I have no idea how I would go about that.

What advice would you give for developing your personal board of directors, or advisory board, or developing, getting, keeping developing, mentors?

Nieves: Be deliberate about it. So I fell into it accidentally because, because I'm curious. I'm a curious person, so I learn from people. So my chair was wiser than me. He had many years experience. I would ask him lots of questions and I think he probably got a bit tired of all of the questions. And so he suggested I get an external mentor. But that for me started the path of deliberate mentors and finding people, whether it be through formal organisations like the Executive Connection, but I'm not promoting that.

There's lots of organisations where you can find mentors, but also your own networks. For people who work in organisations, their supervisors might be able to give them some guidance. I speak to my children about this often. They're at that stage in their career where they're looking for mentors and often they will talk about colleagues and I'll say, that person sounds like they have a skillset that might be good to add to your advisory board.

And, it's, it doesn't take much to get wisdom from people. A coffee once every three months. A phone call, a Zoom call, but have a variety of people. It's not just one mentor. It's a variety of people that help grow you.

Tony: Yeah. And I think it doesn't have to be in the same job or sector either.

Nieves: Exactly.

Tony: Some of my most important mentors are, they have nothing to do with, they don't even know much, much about mental health, suicide prevention. And then, you start to develop principles that are bigger than your topic area.

Nieves: Exactly. And in fact, that's where you get the most insights, I think, because they will ask questions that you take for granted.

They'll say, they'll ask the why question that you probably have stopped asking yourself because that's just the way you do things. They'll ask the why question that makes you articulate the why, and either strengthen your resolve on that particular perspective, or change your perspective.

So yes, in fact the broader the range of skill sets on your advice, it's a bit like putting a board of directors together, the broader the range of skills, the better outcome you're going to get. So I would encourage people. My first chair came from the trucking industry. He was the chair of an aged care organisation.

And so I learned a lot from him about all sorts of things, including people management, but, things like logistics and systems. And my tech chair was a fellow, he was an academic, but also had a strong history in telecommunications. So again, completely different field.

Tony: Yeah.

Nieves: And that gives you a richness of perspectives that help you challenge yourself and grow.

Tony: And just to get one more level to more tactical, how would a person early in their career, how do you suggest your daughters do it? How, do you actually approach that? Is that something that you formally ask for?

Is it something you just, how, what's the tactic for the person?

Nieves: Depends on the other person.

Depends on the other person. For some people. And, you will know that as you're having a conversation with the person, whether it's a more formal arrangement or whether it's just an informal coffee catch up every so often.

I've had young people approach me and it's been a formal approach. I've just joined the university council, I'm a student, can you help me? Can I meet with you before the board meeting to go through the papers? And those formal approaches work for particular things.

But the informal mentoring is equally as valuable. And usually look for people who have had experience, and can teach, and are good listeners.

Tony: The listening. Comes back to that, doesn't it?

Nieves: It does indeed.

Tony: Yeah. So as we've been reflecting, I'm curious about legacy a little bit. Let's say when the time comes for you to exit Suicide Prevention Australia someday, what do you hope will be a legacy?

Nieves: For the people I work with, my direct reports, I would want them to reflect on how they grew.

I want the legacy to be that they grew while they worked with me. I learned once at Uni that, in an American university actually, that people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. And so for me, that they know that they were cared for would be important. As a sector leader, I think my legacy, I would like my legacy to be that I achieved some change, that the dial shifted. That I may not have made, not everybody became my friend and that's okay, but that I was courageous and fought for what needed to be fought for, and that change happened as a result of that. And, often I will say the uncomfortable thing. I think as the CEO of a peak body, that's my job. And I know that people won't like that, ministers won't like that, but they need to be made uncomfortable.

People change when they're uncomfortable. People change when they're uncomfortable. So sometimes you've gotta make people uncomfortable. So, I would hope that I've made people feel uncomfortable in a safe way, but that because of that discomfort, something's changed and things are better so that the dial has shifted for the positive.

Tony: Yeah, that's powerful. As we come to a close, I'm curious about some of the inputs that you've had from outside the people that you know, like books or films or things like that, that have been, if there are any, not everybody has these, but just, so if it's not a useful question, that'll be my fault.

Books that you or movies that have been influential for you, or maybe ones that you've given to other people a lot. What kind of things come to mind for that?

Nieves: Good to Great is my Bible. So that for me, yeah, for me, that kind of changed my perspective on my role as a leader in that I, my mindset shift to this is, I'm just the custodian of this organisation for a period of time and I have to set it up for the next person.

So I think that changed my leadership style quite significantly, my mindset about leadership quite significantly. So that's a book that kind of–

Tony: Good to Great. Yeah.

Nieves: Good to Great.

Tony: And that's interesting because one of the, one of the things from that book is the Hedgehog principle, which is that you're, so that makes, now I understand the idea of we're gonna have these three things and we're gonna keep after them and we're gonna keep saying it.

Yeah. What else from that book?

Nieves: The big hairy, audacious goals, the yeah. I think the fact that great companies, it's about the depth of engagement rather than just the leader. It's more than the leader. So yeah, I haven't read it for a while now. I've actually got two copies in my bookcase at the moment.

Tony: So maybe we'll both go back and read it. Any other?

Nieves: That's the main one.

Tony: That's the one, yeah.

Nieves: I think is, oh, there's lots of others. But, and certainly my children always ask for recommendations, but that's the main one that shifted my thinking. I'm not a movie watcher.

I don't watch too many movies. Although I have been recently, but, no, I can't think of a movie that has had a profound influence. But that book definitely. And one that I remember buying for boards year in year out, yeah. To help them think beyond themselves and the current point in time and think about this as an era of an organisation that we are custodians of for this period and how we set it up for the future.

Yeah.

Tony: Yeah. That's really powerful to be, that's a different kind of mindset, that my job as a leader is to think beyond my

Nieves: Yeah.

Tony: tenure there.

Nieves: Yeah. And making yourself redundant. And the book doesn't speak to this, but certainly for me, it's the how do I build the people around me such that if I'm not here tomorrow, nothing happens to the organisation because everybody is so across what you are doing.

That for me, that investment in others and all systems to ensure that it's not dependent on you, drives me every day. It's making sure that everything's available to everybody so that it's not about, the organisation isn't vulnerable to you or me. Yeah.

Tony: Finally, you said something earlier that stuck with me.

You said that it's still my career goal to become a teacher.

Nieves: Yes.

Tony: What did you mean by that?

Nieves: I don't know what, what I'm going to do when I grow up. I still don't know, Tony. I think I teach okay. I think I could get better at it. I'm not sure what I'd teach. I have no idea what I'd teach. Maths, maybe, but my maths is so bad these days.

I can't even do basic arithmetic. But–

Tony: When you do, it's in Spanish.

Nieves: That's right. That's right. It is. I think that's where I'd like to finish my career. I'd like to teach. I teach now, and that for me gives me great joy. But I think I would, teaching, I started a little school when I was 14.

I taught piano for many years when I was 14 to help my parents pay for my school fees. And, I think I've just, I love teaching. I love watching people learn from me and be better than me, in the things that I'm teaching them. And I would like to do that. As, maybe it is mentoring, maybe it's something like that.

I'm not sure what it will be. But teaching, yes, I want my business card to say Nieves Murray, teacher at the end of my career.

Tony: I love it. I love it. Thank you so much for talking with me. It's been, yeah, just such a pleasure. It always is, and the things you shared, I think are certainly meaningful to me and will stick with me and I think will with people who watch or listen in. So, thank you very much for your work, and for yeah, being here with me today.

Nieves: Yeah. Thank you, Tony. It's a bit confronting and I'm not sure that it was at all interesting, but I'm sure if there's just one little thing that somebody can take away I'd be, I'd be very happy. And I'm happy that I've assisted.

Tony: Thank you.

Nieves: Yeah, thanks, Tony.