Speeches
Thursday, 23 April 2026
Reception for the Minerva Network
I warmly welcome you to Government House.
It gives me great pleasure to host the Minerva Network community here this evening, and to celebrate the South Australia chapter of this important initiative.
South Australia is the proud home of exceptional, ambitious sportswomen - Olympians, Paralympians and national champions across a wide range of sports.
Over the course of their sporting careers, these women learn how to form a vision, pursue a goal and overcome obstacles with the greatest of resilience and dedication.
They learn to witness their own fears, to examine their own limitations, and overcome them.
Many learn how to work as part of a highly effective team, and to lead others.
Elite sporting careers are, by traditional measurements, short.
Supporting our sportswomen to leverage their exceptional skills and knowledge for future careers is not only a great service to them – it is a great service to our state.
This is why I was greatly pleased to see the Minerva Network launch its South Australia chapter in October last year, giving talented South Australian women the opportunity to work with mentors on their futures, on and off the court or field.
It’s great to see the network provide support to athletes wherever they are in the world, on the road competing or here at home.
In my career I have benefitted greatly from the advice of colleagues, mostly more senior, who stepped in at critical moments, shared what they knew, and backed me for opportunities I might not otherwise have sought.
Formal mentoring structures of the kind Minerva provides are, I believe, even more powerful: they democratise access, they remove the element of chance, and they ensure that the support every talented woman deserves is not contingent on who she happens to know.
I thank Minerva for its efforts to address a structural imbalance: elite sportswomen often retire with less financial security, fewer networks, and fewer pathways into leadership than their male counterparts.
Their mentorships provide the infrastructure designed to close that gap, by pairing athletes with board directors, CEOs, and senior executives who give their expertise and time entirely pro bono.
The goal is not simply better-supported athletes.
It is to help athletes reach their post-sport potential, whatever that may look like.
With more than 1100 athletes engaged in the network, Minerva has opened doors to a range of career pathways for mentees, including opportunities that could only have come through the network’s mentors.
No doubt many mentees are capable of becoming future board members, CEOs, and decision-makers – and, one day, Minerva mentors themselves.
I thank the mentors here this evening for investing their time and energy in working with South Australian sportswomen.
You are part of a 400-strong network of dynamic, well-connected women across the country.
I trust you are proud to belong to the first network of its kind in Australia.
I warmly encourage anyone considering becoming a mentor to do it.
To the athletes with us: I encourage you to lean on the members of the Minerva Network, to ask questions, to seek out conversation that opens a door you had not yet imagined walking through.
I also thank the businesses and supporters whose generous engagement with this program will help to ensure Minerva can deepen ties in South Australia into the future.
I wish the Minerva Network’s SA Chapter every success for the future, and I look forward to seeing the profound impact it will have on the sportswomen of our state.