Get The Girls Out with Lucy Bloom - Speaker, Author & Consulting CEO
“A leader is someone who makes the right decisions, not the popular decisions, all the while maintaining a sense of fun.”
Lucy Bloom is as well known for her mohawk as she is for her success in business, leadership and memorable speeches. She’s an award-winning leader, consultant and international speaker with an unshakable reputation for using her superpowers to ignite a spark in others on the notable topics of courage, trust, failure, change, maverick thinking, generosity and fun!
Lucy led a successful boutique advertising agency for 20 years before taking on the start-up challenge as founding CEO of a brand new women’s health charity, In less than three years, having raised $7M for a network of hospitals and a midwifery school in Ethiopia, Lucy moved on to lead a Cambodian children’s charity as the organisation’s first CEO. She’s an expert in large-scale charity governance and fundraising, a charity expert
She transformed it from an administration function to a fundraising machine with proper policy, procedure, budgeting and strategy, raising more in 12 months than the charity had raised in any year before.
Lucy has an impressive list of accomplishments.
The first and only Australian to be listed in the world’s top 30 #socialceos
Founding director and CEO of Hamlin Fistula Ethiopia (Australia), going from volunteer to CEO in 8 years
Her knack for social media brought a niche charity in Australia a monthly post reach of more than 20M. Her social media clients report instant results. Even Facebook HQ has called on her expertise
A recipient of a Kindness Award from the Wake Up Project
The winner of the 2015 Women’s Agenda Emerging Leader in the not-for-profit Sector Award
A finalist in the Agenda Setter category of the 2016 Women’s Agenda Leadership Awards
Nominated many times and named a finalist twice in the Telstra Business Woman of the Year Awards
The Winner of a Weekly Award for Best Talk at the Adelaide Fringe Festival 2019
The creator of the world’s first childbirth education program for men, which is run in pubs all over Australia. She is the author of the best selling book which accompanies the program, Cheers to Childbirth
What’s one of your greatest accomplishments to date and what impact did it have on you, others, society or the world?
I was the CEO of an international aid charity which funded a network of hospitals and a midwifery school in Ethiopia. In under three years, I raised $7M and helped shore up the legacy of the founder and also to smash the backlog of obstetric fistula cases in Ethiopia. I am really proud of that achievement. It will have ripple effects for decades to come as trained midwives deliver 350 babies every year and the women who were treated for horrific childbirth injuries had their lives restored. My next greatest accomplishment is my three kids who will have a whopping impact on the world. Just you wait.
What’s one of the biggest challenges you’ve experienced and/or overcame in your journey as a leader?
The Boys’ Club. Today I made a phone call to a MAN to ask him to go and negotiate something for me because the person causing the roadblocks is a MAN who is used to getting his way and will only deal with MEN. This bollocks happens to female leaders all day long. The man I asked to assist said, “Of course I am happy to help. But please know that I am acutely aware of both the privileged position I am in and the lunacy of the situation that requires this request.” This is a challenge I have not overcome other than to play to the dynamics of the Boys’ Club from time to time, to get what I need to be done. I am grateful there are members of The Club who are happy to be my mole on the inside. It shits me to tears.
Who do you turn to for guidance, advice or support?
I’m a newly minted member of the Country Women’s Association. I write for CEO Magazine Global from time to time and interviewed the CEO of CWA NSW, Danica Leys. She taught me that you don’t need to live in the bush to be a member of the CWA and given it is the largest women’s network in Australia, I wanted in. There are metropolitan branches and I joined my local in Sydney last year. Baking and knitting is just a front for world domination. In the CWA you will find support, advice and guidance on just about any challenge that you face. Honestly. Join.
Further to the CWA, I am a member of a few Facebook groups which have been a surprisingly solid support network for me as a business leader, mum and general human living this one wild precious life. I highly recommend finding a group - usually a small one with less than 5000 members and an admin who doesn’t take any bad behaviour - and you’ll find a 24/7 support network you can rely on.
I also thrive under the guidance of several mentors who share their incredible experience and knowledge with me. In turn, I mentor others.
Connect with Lucy at the following:
Linked In: https://linkedin.com/in/thelucybloom
Website: https://thelucybloom.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/thelucybloom
Instagram: https://instagram.com/thelucybloom
Facebook: https://facebook.com/thelucybloom