Ep. 1800 Jane Thomson OAM | Voices With Cynthia Chaplin

Welcome to the Italian Great Geek podcast. Join us as we explore personal stories of travel and tasting with Italy's must know grape for idols. Chart your own course with my Italian Great Geek journal, your personal tasting companion to accompany the series. Available now on Amazon. With thanks to calendula and partners for their generous support with this project. Welcome to the Italian wine podcast. I'm Cynthia Chaplin, and this is voices. Every Wednesday, I will be sharing conversations with international wine industry professionals discussing issues in diversity, equity and inclusion through their personal experiences working in the field of wine. If you enjoy the show, please subscribe and rate our show wherever you get your pods. Hello, and welcome to voices. This morning, I'm very happy to welcome Jane Thompson to the show. She's the founder and the Managing Director of the Fabulous ladies wine society. Australia's very first wine community for women. She was awarded digital wine communicator of the year by wine communicators of Australia in twenty nineteen, twenty sixteen, and twenty thirteen. And the medal of the order of Australia in twenty twenty three recently for services to women in the wine sector. Jane's also the founder and the chair of Australian women in wine, advocating for gender equality across the sector. So right up my Street, Jane. Thank you so much for making time to talk to me today. It's my absolute pleasure. Thank you for having me here. Well, let's talk about how you got into the wine business. I know you trained as a psychologist, and now you're really well known as a wine communicator and an amazing event host. So tell me how this all got going. You know, what got you fired up about wine? How did you get started? Sure. Well, you know, people think it's a a fairly distant path to go between psychology and wine, but really I'm just helping people to forget their problems in a whole new way, I think, Cynthia, but, to be more to be more serious about that question, I grew up with a father who was very obsessed about wine. And, it was quite rare to be a child in the nineteen eighties in Australia where wine was at the dinner table every night, for dinner, it was part of our everyday lives, but it certainly was in our house. And, there was always very regular deliveries of wine to our, suburban home. And then when I was an early teenager, he actually bought his own vineyards in the Hunter Valley and became a grower and producer as well. And so I kind of have had wine around me, and was a very enthusiastic wine consumer, and then I had an opportunity about twelve years ago now to turn that passion into a business. And so I've always been very passionate about wine. I've always been somebody who's wanted to share that joy and that passion, particularly with her girlfriends always feel like there's been so few platforms, particularly here in Australia, where women can get together to follow that passion. And so socially, I was always that friend organizing, get togethers to try wines, to do tastings, and I had an opportunity to take that passion and turn it into a business, and that's how the fabulous ladies wine society was born. I love that story. It it's interesting because I think somehow we are twins separated birth. My my training in in university was also in psychology, and I I think it does really help. It's a great bridge. I found it very useful as a mother and very useful getting into the wine business. So I think psychology is a very good background for a lot of things, but it's it's true what you say. I think in the UK, where I lived for many years, very similar, not a lot of space for women to get together and have wine events. There is now, but not back in the day. So great that you took, you know, took it to the next level and, you know, took it out of your drawing room and into the business sector. So since then, over the past sort of fifteen years, I guess. You've built up the business and your reputation, you know, you've taken a lot of steps in the right direction here. First was the fabulous ladies wine society. And this sounds so fun. It really took off. You know, I know that there are a lot of members now. And in Australia, you know, as you said, this wasn't something that was already out there. So the fact that people really grabbed onto it and ran with it and ran with you is important. So I wanna know You know, since you started in twenty twelve, you know, here we are just over ten years later, what impact has the fabulous lady's wine society had in the wine sector in Australia? How do you think see sort of things changed from when you started to what's happening now? Well, I think it's had two impacts that are quite clear. So, firstly, when we started, there was no platform at all that was highlighting or showcasing female wine producers to a consumer audience. And so one of the things we do at the Fabulous ladies wine society is we only work with female wine producers. And so we run dinners and events all around Australia, every capital city, some regional centers as well, where we bring those female producers and put on a fabulous wine dinner, lots of fun, lots of chat, and lots of great wines. And all the guests are women. So that's the first thing. Given giving women in the Australian wine industry, their very own event platform to showcase their fantastic products and who they are as people. I think one of the great things that we are able to do through our events, is not just showcase wines like a traditional wine dinner, but also really make the female producer a hero in her own right where the guests get to know her, talk to her, and because there's always a third party host in the room, usually myself, we get to talk about them and tell their story in a really, interesting and different and unique way. And so they're not just sort of standing there telling their own story. They're also getting us to be able to do that for them. And so the audience gets to engage in a different way, I think, just then they would if they're normally just, you know, attending a wine dinner with the wine maker that's there. Are there many female wine producers in Australia these days. I really have no idea. It's a really great question, and the answer is we don't know for sure because the research has never been done. We've been calling for that research for the last ten years out of the twelve that I've been working in this sector. We do have some hope in that area. I do know that there's a, a tender out at the moment from wine Australia to try and get that count done. But what we do know is that there was account an, a small research project done in twenty fifteen by a researcher at curtin University in Western Australia by the name of Jeremy Galbraith. And he estimated that, Wine makers were around about in a ten percent, made of about ten percent of, female participation, sorry, in winemaking, and for Viticulture, it was around nine percent. So, you know, nine years later, those stats are fairly outdated now. But there hasn't been a lot of anecdotal evidence to suggest that there's been much growth either Cynthia. So we'll I'll look forward to seeing what happens when that research finally gets done. Going back to your question, I think the second big impact we've had is the flip side of that, which is actually giving female consumers a platform as well to come and explore and enjoy wines, and a really safe, fun environment where their questions, their comments, their opinions, how given space, like given amplification, are encouraged. And, the culture that is very dominant in Australia at wine dinners is that, the men do all the talking. That is changing, but it's very much been the dominant culture. And so it's great to have a platform where we don't have to compete with that, where we can ask our own questions, do our own learning, have our own fun in a really safe environment. That sounds absolutely wonderful. It really does. And for anyone who doesn't agree that women need their own space to do these sorts of things, I have to tell you every time I am in a room, either with all female judges or all female producers or just all women in the wine sector, The vibe is always so different. People relax. They feel able to speak eloquently. They don't worry about being spoken over or shouted down or dismissed, and the energy is enormous. Groups of women together really produce an energy that is something spectacular. So I love men, but women do need a a space where they can explore their potential and their leadership and their power without you know, that sort of sometimes stumbling block of men in the room. So, you know, kudos for this. It sounds fantastic. Thank you. I completely agree. We we love men. We need men in our lives. Absolutely. But just not in the same room as us when we're talking about wine. So, yeah, it it absolutely it absolutely, creates a freedom that I think doesn't exist in most spaces, in most places that we are where we men and women coexist together, I don't think women have that freedom very much at all to talk about anything, with, you know, without boundaries around it. I think we're always very aware of the restrictions and the boundaries that are around us. I think and I hope that that is changing significantly. But the progress is very slow until that. So until we do see some significant change in that, I think having a space just for women, it's gonna be really important to to build that sense of empowerment I completely agree. And I think sometimes, you know, it's just exhausting. Eventually, you know, when one finds themselves having, you know, a conversation with men in the industry, and it kind of being either battered away or dismissed. It just gets exhausting. And sometimes I think people just, you know, lose the will to live. You know, we do see a a talent drain of women in the industry, and I do think that it's possible that that this is part of it. So I love to see that you're combating it with such energy and and drive and determination. So, you know, I know the next step that you took on this path was the Australian women of wine. So You know, we've talked about this need for a a women only, you know, space, but you also came up with an awards platform in the Australian women and why. What made you see this award category specifically needed in Australian wine. We know that there's no data. I'm absolutely astounded to say that there's no data on women producers or women growers in Australia. I mean, it's it's not eighteen ninety five. It's it's just interesting that nobody has nobody has put the money into that research, which probably wouldn't cost all that much. But, anyway, I suspect we know what your answer is gonna be here, but tell us a little bit about the structure of, you know, the awards that Australian, women, and wine, give out what categories you're in? Who's winning these awards? You know, what's the ethos of this organization today? Sure. So Australian women in wine started in twenty fifteen, and our very, very first initiative was to create this awards program. And the reason that I chose an awards program, was because I wanted to have something that united the entire industry. And who doesn't love a winner? Right? And so, you know, what what doesn't get men and women together more than backing a winner? And so I thought what a great way to champion and to showcase the achievements and to tell the stories of some of these achievements of women in wine? Through an awards program. So I thought there must be something out there. I'll see what other people are doing around the world. And, as I started to begin my research, I quickly realized that actually there wasn't anybody else doing this anywhere in the world. I think there is now, Cynthia, but back in twenty fifteen, there certainly wasn't. And so we created our own program. We decided to start with just a couple of awards that first year. So I think we had four awards where we covered, winemaking, Viticulture, marketing, and sell it all. And then, by twenty twenty, I think we'd extended it to nine different awards. And I'm I'm not I'm not smart enough to remember all of those off the top of my head, but I can tell you that it the idea was that we wanted to span the whole spectrum of what is a very broad industry and make sure we could recognize and tell the stories of as many women as possible through this awards program. So it was really popular. It did its job in that both men and women brought their energy, their support, their excitement to these awards, and it certainly got the whole industry talking, and it really did allow some women who I think had possibly been on the sidelines a bit too long, actually be celebrated for their achievements in a way that, they very much deserved that that activity, the awards, the last one we held of those was in twenty twenty for reasons I probably don't have to explain. Sadly. No. No. And then when it came time for, thinking about whether to restart that again, We actually decided not to because when we started in twenty fifteen, we actually had a timeline even then where we thought we should probably just be running this for about five years. Shortly after five years of having an awards program like this, we would have seen enough industry change to be able to retire them. As it turned out, we ran it for seven, and we still didn't see much change. But we thought, okay, we've run it for seven years. It's time to do something a bit fresh, a bit different. And so last year, we actually held, a full day symposium instead, where we ended up having a hundred and fifty women from all over the country. And as you know, Australia is a big country. And all the different regions, arriving in Sydney for a full day of, guest speakers. And our theme was empowerment. How do we empower women to reach leadership stage in the Australian wine industry? Because We have no trouble attracting them in. We do know from university statistics that we have roughly equal numbers of men and women graduating here in Australia from analogy degrees, but once they're out there in the workforce, the dropout rate of women is exorbitant. And again, we don't know why because we haven't got the research. And so we know they're dropping out in huge numbers. How do we support encourage and empower women to stay the course of their career and to accelerate them in accelerate into leadership positions in the wine industry. So that's what we did last year. It ended up being the right decision because without even one keynote speaker announced, it's sold out in three and a half weeks. And so, then we had to put a whole day together once we knew people wanted to come. Are you enjoying this podcast? Don't forget to visit our YouTube channel. Mama jumbo shrimp for fascinating videos covering stevie Kim and her travels across Italy and beyond, meeting winemakers, eating local foods, and taking in the scenery. Now back to the show. Wow. Incredible. I wanna touch on that idea of empowerment and leadership because, again, you know, with this remarkable lack of data on who, you know, what women are in leadership roles in, you know, what wineries across Australia, you're kind of shooting in the dark. I mean, I think this is this is quite brave because it's hard to it's hard to estimate who's gonna come out of the woodwork as you say, you know, suddenly it's all sold out and you have to you have to plan it. In in terms of these sorts of things, how do you see your symposiums working their way up to empowering the women who attend. That's a really great question. So we thought when we were in the planning stages that it would be about who we had to speak on the day and what their message would carry. But as it turns out, Cynthia, it was literally the energy of getting people together that probably had more of an impact. As you touched on earlier in our conversation, the energy that happens when you get women together in a room with a similar objective and a similar purpose. If we could bottle that stuff, we could all be ruling the world right now, I think. So, that ended up having a bigger impact, being able to see faces that looked like yours to know that that was achievable to know that there were other women in your position to hear firsthand that your experience is not isolated, that in itself, I think was the more empowering takeaway from the day. It sounds absolutely amazing. You know, when you started your career, you know, I think you and I sort of got into the wine industry around the same sort of time, what what actual equal in equalities for women did you see initially you know, we're we're talking about what exists now, but, you know, what was going on when you started? How did these issues affect your career development and bring you to this point now where you are, you know, knocking down doors and helping women in? Sure. Well, I am in the very privileged position of having never had to have worked in wine production because I think that the stories I hear from women in wine production roles are quite harrowing. And so I don't wanna try and sit here and tell their stories. All I can tell is my own story. And so what I found from, starting the fabulous lady's wine society was that the women I was working with, the wine producers I was working with were telling me these horrific stories. And I was also working with some who were dropping out after only a year or two saying no, Jane, I'm leaving the industry. That's it for me. Sorry it's been great working with you. And so that's one of the reasons. Actually started Australian Women in wine because I thought somebody has to do something. There's nothing out there. Nobody's talking about this. Nobody is addressing the fact that, Australian wine is actually a really toxic place for women to be working. And this was in the twenty tens, you know, this is as you said, it's not nine ninety four. This is, you know, very recent history, and yet not only were the experiences being shared really troubling to hear, but nothing was actually even being spoken about. The whole issue was being swept under the carpet. And I think that, the Me too movement, which happened sort of around a similar time, twenty fifteen, twenty sixteen, helped change the zeitgeist worldwide and particularly for a lot of industries for whom had, you know, the norm had been covering up or not talking about it that created a new sense of empowerment for women to be able to start talking about this stuff and I think that me too movement helped many in our industry go, oh, hang on. It's not just our industry. This is a little bit broader than just us. We actually need to listen here. And when we do listen, what we're hearing is that our industry is particularly bad, we actually need to start focusing on this a bit more. So we did get a lot of pushback and a lot of, dis persuasive voices when we first started Australian women in wine in twenty fifteen. And by twenty seventeen, the opposite was true. We were starting to get support from major industry bodies. We were starting to get, people who'd been against us in the early stages, turning around and nominating the women in their businesses for awards. So the change was quite significant even within just a few short years. I I think you've hit on a, you know, sort of a global phenomenon. The Me too movement absolutely shattered a ceiling that that we were contending with up until that point. So I'm glad to hear that it you know, got to Australia and and had an impact there too and that you're able to support that sort of grounds while of change in the right direction. So just kind of sidelining a little bit. What do you think the challenges are for first nations or indigenous women in wine in Australia. Again, I suspect there's probably not a lot of data on how many, women from that community are in the sector. But are there avenues for them to enter the wine industry? You know, is there a good representation of of this community in Australian wines? Well, I'd probably like to broaden that a little bit further because our first nations people here in Australia are such a tiny, tiny percentage and in fact, their story can probably, in this particular circumstance, in terms of wine, be broadened to incorporate all people of color in Australia because there are just no people of color in Australian wine. It's a very, very white industry. And, while there is not any to my knowledge specific pathways for indigenous nations people to enter the Australian wine industry. The the issue is just brought is broader than just them, Cynthia. So there's really very few pathways for anyone of color to enter the Australian wine industry. It's still very much, a white person's career. With that said, there are a couple of very active, very vocal, and very wonderful people who are starting to try and bring attention to this issue. My focus is very much on gender. And so I feel like it's not my area of expertise to comment on this at all, except to say that diversity is diversity, and we need all kinds of diversity in the Australian wine industry for us to be able to be a wonderful industry. Yeah. Absolutely. And it and it does sound like Australia's wine industry would benefit from, you know, some serious analytics being thrown at it, and and that's never easy to get funding for. So No. And if I and if I may, I mean, it might shock most of the world to know that, you know, the the the budget, the overall budget, from wine Australia, for all diversity and equality and inclusion programs in the current and the previous financial year was zero that's just horrendous. So the idea of actually taking action to encourage diversity and equality in our sector is woefully lacking. Yeah. That's that is that is shocking and and pretty short sighted if I'm gonna be kind and despicable if I'm gonna be honest, but, hopefully someone will hear this. And we can we can do something about this. Like, you, you have power now. You know, we should talk about this. Just recently, last year, you received the medal of the order of Australia for your services to women in the Australian wine sector, and you've become a real leading light for shaping this more inclusive, more equitable landscape in the world of wine in Australia. So You know, let's let's dial down on this. You know, what do you think the biggest challenge is for women in the wine industry in Australia today? You know, white, brown, whatever, you know, just women in Australia trying to get into wine. Where are the roadblocks, you know, what's what's gonna be needed to keep women in the industry you said they get in, but then they leave. We need some change happening here. What would you like to see? What are you gonna do with your new power, your new metal, How can we how can we change this? What needs to happen? What would you like to see in the next couple years? Well, I wish it was, Power, I wish I wish it did come with a magic wand because there is so much I would do. But all it does Sounds like it should come with us toward. I love that idea. I'll take that. But look, again, I think the biggest challenge as you've touched on and and I mentioned earlier is not attracting women into our industry. We have no trouble attracting women into our industry. The biggest challenge is advancing their careers is keeping them here. And if I can go back to my previous career as a psychologist for a moment, I actually worked as an organizational psychologist. And so that meant that more than twenty five years ago now, I would go into businesses and corporations and help them understand how to better their recruitment practices to ensure that they were focused on recruiting and managing and advancing people of all diversity. So diversity was an issue that we were helping train, within sort of management and middle management twenty five years ago. You know, making sure you had the right people, keeping them in your organization and advancing them through because even back then, everybody knew that, you know, your people were your biggest asset. If we fast forward to today, in the Australian wine industry, apart from the very few big players that we have, most of the businesses in Australian wine have never to my knowledge because I've asked almost every single person I encounter ever had diversity and inclusion training, any kind of recruitment or interview training whatsoever, any kind of management training, absolutely nothing. And part of the explanation for this is because most of Australian wine is made up of very small and medium sized businesses. And so they, you know, often they're just doing everything, and the last thing on their minds is actually getting in expertise to help them with their people and their HR. And yet that's exactly the thing I think needs to happen in order for people at every level of a business to understand what it takes to overcome their own unconscious biases and actually help to recruit and keep and advance people of all diversity and all backgrounds into their organizations and businesses. This is this is great. I'm I'm really enjoying listening to you talk about this because I utterly agree You're not the first, and I'm sure you sadly won't be the last person I have a conversation with this about. How do we take this obvious need for, you know, deI training, interview training, you know, management training to make people understand the benefit of having a diverse population of people working for your organization, whether you're five or five hundred. What could Australia do. I mean, is there such a is there such a thing in the future in Australia? Maybe it's gonna be Eugene who, comes up with some sort of, you know, training material that can be pushed out and rolled out to wine businesses. Who, you know, where would we look for that to happen? Sure. Well, I think it already exists. It doesn't have none of this training is specific to wine businesses. Like, when I was doing it twenty five years ago, it that we did weren't doing it for a specific type of business, all of the knowledge, all of the training is is unit can be universally applied. It's not for a specific sector. What I think, has created a lack of action in this area, is that we've never had, as a sector here in Australian wine, any kind of accountability to ensure that we are making women, comfortable that we are adhering to all of the best practices for our people. There's never been any accountability on that on that front. And I think I would love to see some kind of diversity and equality measure in place where there's an accountability factor where businesses have to report and if they're not up to a certain level, if they haven't implemented certain amounts of training or if they don't have a certain number of staff, that ticks certain boxes. I mean, I'm being very generalist here. But some kind of accountability, if they haven't done those things, then surely there must be some kind of penalty applied. And I think until we have that sort of accountability, there's no impetus on businesses to spend that extra money. To create, you know, the best practices that they can within their businesses. I mean, from a bottom dollar point of view, implementing these things makes all the financial sense in the world, but getting people to realize this is a part of the problem, I think. Absolutely. No. Completely. We, you know, we've seen figures in other countries where the analytics already exist, but, you know, having a diverse, staff, having a sustainable, supported, equitable policy in place in wineries really makes huge difference and keeps people in the business for longer because they feel vested. So this is a this has been a fascinating conversation. I am so happy to talk to you about this, and, I'm concerned about women in Australian wine now, so I'm gonna be looking to get more of these conversations going with my Australian colleagues. But thank you so much, Jane. I really appreciate your time today, and congratulations again on your, medal of the order of Australia. And, hopefully, I will meet you in person one of these days soon. I would very much like that too. Thank you so much again, Cynthia. It's been a pleasure for me also. Thank you for listening. And remember to tune in next Wednesday when I'll be chatting with another fascinating guest. Italian wine podcast is among the leading wine podcast in the world, and the only one with a daily show. Tune in every day and discover all our different shows. You can find us at Italian wine podcast dot com, SoundCloud, Spotify, Himalaya, or wherever you get your pods.