Simone Szalmuk-Singer

Simone Szalmuk-Singer, a lawyer by profession, has been a leader in Jewish communal organisations in Australia for nearly a decade. Her first communal leadership position was as President of the Jewish National Fund (JNF) Victoria and National Vice-President of JNF Australia. In her early 40s, at the time, Simone was considered to be a relatively young leader of a major Jewish organisation. Says Simone, ‘I didn’t appreciate that it was a big deal to become President in my early 40s until I was congratulated by others who pointed out that I was both ‘young’ and ‘female.’’

A member of a new, young generation of leadership, Simone used the skills she developed in the corporate world to evolve and develop governance and innovative leadership in the Australian Jewish community. Mentored by a wonderful woman, Sara Gold, Simone now fosters young leaders, women and men, and encourages them to take up leadership opportunities in the Jewish community.

Simone is currently Co-Chair of the Australian Jewish Funders, the network of philanthropists committed to inspiring effective philanthropy and strengthening Jewish community. She is also a board director at Jewish Care Victoria – the largest Jewish services organisation in Victoria. Simone co-founded and co-edits Jewish Women of Words – an online writers’ platform for emerging and established Jewish women writers. In 2017-18, Simone is a fellow in the prestigious Schusterman Foundation Fellowship program, a global leadership development program for senior Jewish communal professionals and lay leaders.

Simone does these things while managing the responsibilities of family and home life; experiencing the dynamic challenges posed by that juggling act along the way. In the communal space, Simone has found that she can have meaningful and profound impact on the sector whilst still able to retain work-life balance.

Family and background

I was born in 1968 in Melbourne – the youngest of three. My parents were Holocaust survivors. My mother survived concentration camps and my father survived exile to Siberia. They arrived in Australia after the war; my mother came with her aunt who, after the experience of the Holocaust in Europe, said she wanted to go to the furthest place on earth. My father originally settled in Israel, came here on a visit to family in the early 1950s and stayed.

Judaism and identity

My family were strong Zionists, my father fought in Israel, in the Palmach during the War of Independence. My parents had a strong sense of Jewish identity but were not religiously observant. Philanthropy to Jewish and Israeli causes was an expression of my parents’ Judaism. Through this, they instilled in me a strong sense of communal duty.

Judaism remains an integral part of my identity. My husband and I work hard to create a traditional Jewish home in which our children can develop their own unique sense of Jewish identity and a love of Jewish culture and traditions.

Education

I attended Mount Scopus College for all my schooling with the exception of eight months spent living in Israel at the age of eleven. This time spent living in Tel Aviv and attending the local school was a highlight.

I studied Law/Commerce at the University of Melbourne. During those years I focused on feminism and feminist theory, particularly in economics. I was particularly interested in the research about the failure of traditional economic frameworks to measure the unrecognised work of women and the consequence for economic policy development.

I held student leadership positions while at University. I was President of the Melbourne University Jewish Students’ Society and held positions on the national board of the Australian Union of Jewish Students.

When I finished my law degree, I felt equipped and empowered to pursue any career I wanted.

Working life

When I started my career, I did not anticipate barriers based on gender. On reflection, I think I was somewhat unprepared for the challenges of the corporate world and it took some years to acquire the confidence to be my authentic self. As I became more senior, I felt I was able to lead with more intentionality and authenticity. In what is a very hierarchical profession, I was very focused on respecting and valuing everyone’s contribution regardless of their title and position.

When I moved to a mid-size firm as a relatively junior lawyer I was instrumental in introducing an equal opportunity policy into my workplace. I trained the partners and staff of the firm as well clients. This was a great opportunity to help evolve the culture of the firm. I didn’t fully appreciate the importance of this achievement until someone else pointed out to me that I had started this work as a very junior lawyer. I can now see how this is an example of the way in which women’s inability or reluctance to recognise our own achievements can play a major role in women’s lack of confidence. Others saw what I did as path-breaking, but I didn’t!

When my first child was born I found that balancing work and family was much more difficult than I ever anticipated, especially without being able to draw upon an extended family network. My routine became unsustainable. After serious deliberation, I resigned from full time legal practice. I worked from home for many years for the firm doing a variety of tasks ranging from assisting in HR, occasionally filling in for the partner who took over from me and writing employment law educational material.

Switching careers

I was working from home when I made my first foray back into the Jewish communal space with the Jewish National Fund (JNF). Becoming President of JNF Victoria and National Vice President of JNF Australia, represented major generational renewal as my predecessor, Sara Gold, was twenty years my senior.

I became involved with the JNF largely because of Sara Gold’s visionary leadership that recognised the need for generational succession in the organisation. The JNF is a ‘legacy’ organisation that has existed for over 110 years. Early in Sara’s presidency, she began to plan her succession by searching for future young leaders who she could engage with in a meaningful way. Sara succeeded in this mission through reaching out and patiently empowering the group of young leaders.

Learning to lead

Through the process of organisational restructure and renewal and the successful years that followed, I learnt that the key to ‘professionalising’ communal organisations is understanding and embracing the differences between corporate organisations and not for profits. They have different funding sources, performance metrics and stakeholders and therefore require a particularly nuanced approach to leadership.

I have continued to develop my skills as I believe that in leadership, learning should never stop. Through my experience and my studies in the Schusterman Fellowship, I now appreciate that self-awareness as a leader is vital and empowering. One must understand the skills you have and access training for the skills you lack.

Gender, youth and leadership

At various times, being young and female have impacted upon people’s responses to me as a leader. I needed to ‘break in’ to communal leadership.

My personal experience has strengthened my resolve that as communal leaders we cannot continue to pay lip service to leadership diversity. We ostensibly want young and diverse leadership in our community but struggle to properly welcome, engage and empower diversity. For instance, there is little point appointing young people to a communal board but not allowing them to have a voice until they turn 60. This type of negative experience often causes these people to ‘bounce off’ boards after a year or two and likely never return to the communal space.

Particular challenges for women in leadership

I don’t think that there is something uniquely ‘Jewish’ about women’s leadership in the communal space. I don’t think we are different to other women leaders as we face the same challenges as other women. It is my view and my experience that people are more comfortable with female leaders when they assume the mentor and nurturer role. Once women exert authority or begin to ask hard questions, their leadership becomes less palatable.

There are structural issues that must be named and confronted. I have come across 3 types of bias and discrimination: overt, covert, and unconscious. Overt bias is ironically easier to deal with as it is visible and can more easily be called out. Covert bias is much harder, because often even women tend to question themselves when they experience it. ‘Am I reading too much into this’, they’ll ask themselves when they get ignored repeatedly as a meeting. Unconscious bias is the most difficult area as we don’t realise it is happening or that we may be engaging in it. It is something both men and women may hold and can be very difficult to recognise.

Self-awareness should play a big role in leadership growth and is particularly important for women. Profound lack of confidence and the Imposter Syndrome come up time and again in my experience with women. I’ve met great women through Project Deborah, LaunchPad and mentoring programs who have achieved so much in their career and family but who nevertheless lack confidence. For some, all of whom are great women, the lack of confidence virtually paralyses them from stepping up. I get it, because honestly, I periodically suffer from Imposter Syndrome too. We need to acknowledge that in some cases we are holding ourselves back as much as we are being pushed back. Recognising this will empower us as women to take more control of our future.

Moving forward in the communal space

Melbourne has a wonderful communal infrastructure developed over a century. In order for it to resonate with future generations it needs leaders who constantly strive for excellence and understand that the infrastructure no longer has a monopoly over people’s lives. The whole approach to Judaism and Jewish identity is not ‘a given’ any more. At the core, our sense of Jewish identity is very strong but there have been changes. Twenty, thirty years ago one went to synagogue – one just had to go – there was no choice. Now people choose to ‘opt in’ to engage in Jewish communal life and only do so where they are inspired.

In order to thrive we need to provide solid leadership development and exciting career paths. Whilst pay equity between the communal and the corporate space is difficult to achieve, people should still be able to have meaningful Jewish communal careers in which they get solid professional development. Importantly, training also needs to happen at board level in order to achieve cultural change. Board training must encapsulate an understanding of the duties and responsibilities as a director as well as provide the skills to develop innovative and creative leaders.

The duty of women leaders in the Jewish community is to elevate women’s voices as much as possible. This can be achieved through mentoring, becoming aware of unconscious bias and bringing it out in a way that everyone can discuss. We need to ensure that more women sit on communal boards however, numbers alone are not enough. Women need to hold executive and office bearer positions so that they truly have a voice.

In this context, as a leader, I mentor both men and women. I hope to help men to develop as leaders attuned to the fact that work in a diverse workforce. They need to learn how to regularly ‘check the temperature’ in the room to ensure that the culture is conducive for everyone to be heard. I seek to provide women with a role model that can help and inspire them to step up and lead. I assist them in identifying and managing their own vulnerabilities and ensure that they realise that they are not alone in their fears.

The women leaders I have learnt from over the years, those I work with and those I meet every day, continue to inspire and fill me with a sense of great optimism for the exciting possibilities in our evolving Jewish community.

Simone Szalmuk-Singer was interviewed by Dr Nikki Henningham on 24 April and 2 May 2018 for the She Speaks project. PHOTO: Leigh Henningham