Given International Women’s Day fell on a Saturday this year, consider this week’s conversation our annual dedication episode. And I don’t think we could have a more perfect guest for the occasion than the woman currently holding the highest position that exists in one of the most traditionally male dominated landscapes in Australia… the AFL.

We are so lucky to have Laura Kane with us today, the Executive General Manager of Football at the AFL since August 2023. We so often talk about how you don’t need to know where you’ll end up because the job you’ll have might not even exist - well, Laura’s did exist only just not for women until she became the first woman to take the reins then build an executive team around her that’s 40% women and counting.

Getting her Mum to write a letter to her school so she could play Auskick and not netball, Laura’s love for footy has been longstanding but coming up before women could play football professionally, she started her career in law instead. This was not the only thing we had in common either - with a career as stellar as hers, I expected her to be much older but we both grew up in the 90s era of Nokia 3310s and it humbled me immensely to realise we’re the same age.

As a powerful, intelligent, but incredibly down to earth woman (who I actually met through Ang so that gives you an idea of the kind of legend she is), I was and still am fangirling hard so I’ll stop myself there before I read out her entire life story and she tells it way better herself. I hope you are as inspired by Laura as I am.

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