In that role, when I'd be out there driving my little white Ford for Steve all over Sydney
and beyond, down to Canberra, down to Batemans Bay, nobody wanted to meet with me.
I could recognise how exhausted I was.
I wasn't calm under pressure, I was short-tempered, and it really became a moment in time where
I knew that I had to change the way or how I was using my time.
Hi, I'm Sally Patton, editor of BOSS from the Australian Financial Review, and welcome
to 15 Minutes with the BOSS, a podcast about success and failure and everything in between.
And along the way, we're hoping to get some really great advice from our leaders.
My guest today is Melinda Petrenov, the Managing Director for Pinterest in Australia and New
I'm good, thank you.
Now, Melinda, as I said, you're the Managing Director of Pinterest in Australia and New
Zealand, Pinterest, of course, being a visual search and discovery platform for information
on topics such as recipes, fashion, and home decoration.
You have 553 million monthly users, and you are growing as a shopping platform, particularly
among Gen Z, which now comprise about 40% of your user base globally.
And I believe that about 66% of global weekly Gen Z users say Pinterest is one of their
first stops to browse or shop.
Now, do you use Pinterest very much, and if so, what do you use it for?
Are you on there for recipes, fashion, home decor?
Right now, I'm at the very end of a home renovation, which has been a very long project.
We've gone from using Pinterest to design kitchens and bathrooms and gardens, but I'm
at the fun point right now where it's been very much about getting inspiration for some
new furniture pieces as well to bring it to life.
I also use it for planning holidays, getting inspiration on where to plan the next moment
and to create memories with my family.
Great to hear you're using your own product.
Now we've only got 15 minutes, so let's not waste any more time.
The clock starts right now, and my first question is about your morning routine.
What time do you get up?
Look, I wake up every morning and spend the first 30 minutes with my three-year-old border
colleague, Cross Poodle.
So what time do you get up?
We spend the first 30 minutes together enjoying my coffee, and I do spend that 30 minutes
checking in on messages and emails that have come through overnight from our global business,
and I take the chance to read the news.
After that, I head out for a walk with my husband, and that's a really special time
of the day for me.
I find the chance to, you know, to be in quiet space is to really give me a lot of energy
and creativity into planning my day ahead.
It's that chance to stop and pause, and so many of the things that I'm thinking about
are the juggling priorities that every leader will be navigating and leading through.
How could I do things better or how could I do things differently?
It could equally be, are we really thinking about a new category and bringing that to
life in its, to the fullest extent?
A new focus for us at the moment is really leaning in and working with many of the travel
companies in Australia and helping them to understand how people's travel, journey and
planning is taking place.
And those moments in time that allow me just to step back and stop, I think, some of the
most valuable moments of my day.
My next question is about a pivotal moment in your career.
Can you tell me about a time, a project or a promotion that you got that changed the
trajectory of what you were doing in some way?
The most pivotal moment in my career was the decision to move overseas.
I've always been a huge traveler, but I was really, really hungry to have that opportunity
to take my career outside of Australia.
And I decided that I wanted to find a role in Singapore, being headquarters for most
companies in this region.
At the time, I was running the e-commerce business for Facebook in Sydney, and I applied
for a role in Singapore to run e-commerce across Southeast Asia.
And I was unsuccessful in getting that role.
A few weeks later, I got to attend a conference in Singapore and that gave me the opportunity
to connect with the leader of the region.
In having a conversation with him, I mentioned that I had applied for a role in Singapore.
I'd been unsuccessful and what he said to me was such a turning point.
He said, your career ambition cannot be a secret.
And just really encouraged me to make sure that I was connecting with leaders across
the business to make my ambition aware and be able to really telegraph that out.
In kind of changing my approach from thinking those changes would always be very much an
individual decision that I would keep to myself, really changed the way that I was engaging
and communicating within the business to unlock that next chance.
I was actually interviewed on a panel as part of that conference and the woman that interviewed
me ended up being my next manager and she was the person that I was able to get that
opportunity through.
The reason why that was such a pivotal moment in my career was it gave me so much growth.
It gave me the chance to be able to run businesses and grow businesses across the region in
I'd say in parallel to that, the next biggest growth was being able to manage such diverse
groups of people.
Singapore is a melting pot of cultures and being able to effectively communicate, to
be able to develop and grow people from so many cultures was a huge learning curve for
So next question is, what is the best piece of career advice you've ever been given?
One of my first or my first corporate job was actually working for your company at Fairfax
and I was employed to work for Domain.com at AU and in my role as an account manager,
I was responsible for getting out on the road and going and meeting real estate agents to
sell them subscriptions to our monthly platform.
And in that role, when I'd be out there driving my little white Ford for Steve all over Sydney
and beyond down to Canberra, down to Batemans Bay, I learned a lot.
What was the advice you were given?
Well, the advice I was given was when you think about how you stretch yourself and how
you grow as an individual, if you're not feeling uncomfortable for, I'd say, 20 percent of
your role every single week, you're not learning and you're not growing.
What I felt really uncomfortable about was nobody wanted to meet with me.
The most common feedback I was receiving, and mind you, this is a very long time ago,
was this internet thing is a fad and it's going to go away and don't waste my time.
I realized I had to learn to be very persistent and find creative ways to be able to get my
foot in the door.
When I was working within New South Wales, I would honestly call the real estate agents
and say, I work for Sydney Morning Herald.
Can I meet with you?
And of course, everybody wanted to meet with the Sydney Morning Herald, but nobody wanted
to meet with the digital arm of Sydney Morning Herald.
So I found creative ways to get my foot in the door and I had to be pretty compelling.
Can you give me another example of what you felt uncomfortable doing and how you got over
that? I mean, fast forward a few years later, still at Fairfax Digital, we developed our
first online digital platform for Western Australia called WA today.
I was one of three employees that was asked to go to Perth for the launch event and speak
at that. And that was the first time that I did public speaking in a meaningful way.
And I was incredibly nervous about that opportunity.
But I knew that if I wanted to achieve my aspirations of being a leader within business,
that's a really important muscle that you have to quickly build and get better at.
I took the opportunity really seriously.
I practiced and practiced and practiced.
And I did well in that moment.
And that, you know, doing well at something gives you the belief that you can continue
And I really just I seized the opportunity throughout my career to just work my way up
from small audiences to large audiences.
And before you know it, you know, a thousand people is a thousand people, two thousand
people is two. But had you said to me 20 years ago, 25 years ago that I'd be speaking
to a large auditorium, I think I would have walked away.
It would have been too terrifying.
On that note, that is the end of our first section.
We're now going to take a short break, but don't go away.
When we come back, we're going to open the chatterbox.
Welcome back to 15 Minutes with the Boss.
I'm here with Melinda Petrenov, the Managing Director of Pinterest for Australia and New
Zealand. Now, Melanie, this is our section called the Chatterbox.
In front of you is this lovely brown chatterbox.
I'm going to ask you to pick out some questions one by one and we'll have some more
fun. Have a fish in the box.
Who is a leader, business or otherwise, whom you really admire and why?
I grew up admiring my mum and my nan, to be honest.
And I think often your inspiration is pretty close to home.
Both of them were leaders of their own business.
What did they do? Both of them were general managers of medium sized businesses.
My nan was the general manager of Bezama.
It's a cookware company that sold their products back in what would have been the
late 50s and 60s via pyramid selling.
And I grew up spending all my school holidays at my nan's company.
What were you doing? Packing boxes, doing anything, colouring in the corner of her
office, to be honest.
And I just really admired the way she went about leading her teams and running that
business. She just showed so much care towards her people.
She knew everybody.
She inspired them and motivated them and collectively they were really successful.
She later retired and moved to Port Macquarie.
And around her birthday and Christmases, she was always so delighted that she
continued to receive cards from them.
And she was always in their thoughts.
And she was so touched by that and that continued connection.
And then fast forward, she passed away at 90 years of age and she had so many of her
old team that actually took the time to drive five hours out of Sydney to join her
funeral. I was just like, talk about the impact of somebody on other people's lives.
And I really inspired to be a leader that would be as people focused as her.
And I'd say I saw the same thing with my mum as well.
Mum was running a wine business, so Furlong Wines.
At the time, she then went on to be a leader at NutriMedics as well.
That people first leadership style is something that I greatly admired.
And it's been absolutely what's so important to me as a leader.
So, yeah, Nan was definitely and mum were people that I really looked up to and
learned a lot from.
And you'll no doubt have lots of people at your funeral one day.
Oh, don't say that.
OK, have a fish in the box.
If you could give a TED talk on something not related to business, what would you
I've got four children, an adult stepdaughter and three teenage boys at home.
My youngest are identical twins.
And I often say being a mother of identical twins is like having a science
experiment at home or a marketing experiment where we say it's an A and B
test. They're at a really challenging age right now.
Fifteen year olds that I would liken to terrible twos.
What I find fascinating is how close they are, but at the same time
fascinatingly not dependent on one another, but they are just in each other's
shadow. And it's just going to be fascinating as time goes on to see how
they lead their adult life, because right now they lead a life together.
And it's almost going to be, I'd say as a mother, quite heartbreaking to see them
forge their own journeys.
But it's a matter of time until we get to experience that next stage of their
Is it the nature versus nurture element that you would discuss?
When I read about identical twins, or I've watched documentaries, you often
hear stories around how twins were separated, identical twins, and yet then
how similar they are, even though they've spent 20 years apart.
So yes, I think that would be one area I would speak to.
I would also say the ability as a parent to survive challenges like managing
twins would also be something I would recognize.
I was terrified when I found out I was having twins.
I had found my first baby whilst he was delightful and happy.
It was really hard.
And 21 months later, the idea that I was then going to have three boys under two
years old, I was terrified on how I would manage.
That would be terrifying.
So focusing on just how to parent.
So is there some way that you can take that lesson to your professional life?
I mean, having three kids under three is very stressful.
Managing a business with many priorities, you often go through times
where things are stressful.
I try and reframe it to be optimist in me and just often say, well, one, we're
not saving lives or two, this could be, it could be much harder.
I mean, there are ways it's just, it's mindset.
How you, how you think about situations is everything and being able to turn it
around into a positive mindset, I think will help everybody be able to, to
manage to the best of their ability.
And I guess it puts those decisions that you've got to make at work in
perspective, because you've got equally or if not bigger decisions that you've
got to make at home raising twins.
Life is a constant juggle.
Have another fish in the box.
Tell me about a time when you failed at something, how did you
recover and what did you learn?
About 10 years ago, I worked for about six months without taking a
break and I was exhausted.
Like not even a weekend?
A weekends, but not taking a week off weekends.
It's hard for me to ever truly switch off on a weekend.
So working six months, there's not a lot of switching off, but it really became a
moment in time in my career where I could recognise how exhausted I was, but I
pushed it for too long and I wasn't calm under pressure.
I was short tempered.
I wasn't creative and it really became a moment in time where I knew that I had
to change the way or how I was using my time.
I realised that the best I could work for a period of time for me is really
three months and since then I actually take one week off every quarter and that
works perfectly in my career.
Cause whilst I have an annual plan, we set goals on a quarterly basis.
So the first week of every quarter, I actually take off as leave as a
mum of school aged children.
It actually works really well because it coincides with every school holiday.
And I find doing that allows me to recharge my batteries and have something
one to look forward to that I've got the break coming up, but most importantly
allows me to show up in a way to be a calm leader, to be able to do the
best I can at my role.
I really share that because I think we all get given annual leave.
Planning how you use it is also a responsible way of thinking about
leave and too often I meet people that plan a holiday because they need a
holiday, that's too late by that stage.
And realising the impact that it has on your peers, on your family, because
you're running short of energy, that's not a great outcome.
So being in the driver's seat of how I use my time has been really,
really beneficial.
On that note, Melinda, well done.
You have passed the chatterbox section with flying colours.
I now have one more question, which we ask everybody.
And that is, if you weren't doing your current role, what would you be doing?
I love watching emergency room drama.
I love watching hospital series.
And I would say being an emergency doctor is something that would be
very exciting and fulfilling.
I really admire both nurses and doctors who work in that very
high-pressured environment.
So does that suggest also a real desire to help people and save people as well?
Look, I've been on the board of Office Harvest for the last 10 years and it's
really important for me to support and really purposeful driven businesses and
the work that they're doing to solve for hunger in a first world country, which
is frightening, incredible work in helping to support the communities.
Yes, I will always find ways to lean into purpose driven things.
And Aus Harvest is, is my way.
I'm terrible with seeing blood.
So it's completely unrealistic that I'm going to be successful
in a future medical career.
That's going to be really hard in the emergency room.
It's yeah, I think I just like the high pressure environment is what's
appealing to me and yeah, being able to solve problems quickly.
And that is our time up.
I have really loved the idea that you need to take short breaks, say a week,
every quarter in to make sure that you're recharged so you can remain calm
and make just good decisions in the office.
I really love the way that you say that you should not keep your career
intentions secret, tell people there's absolutely no harm in doing that.
I love the way you recognise the need to feel uncomfortable sometimes, in
fact, for 20% of your job, because that's the way you are going to learn.
And also just really like the way you sit back, pause, think, enjoy the simple
things of life, because that's where your creative ideas will come from.
And good luck playing the guitar and the piano.
I hope that someday you'll get around to that.
Although I must say it does sound very difficult.
So on that note, thank you so much for allowing us to spend 15 minutes with the boss.
And thank you to everyone for listening.
If you like the podcast and would like to hear more, consider sharing the podcast
or writing a review as it helps us to reach more people and follow us wherever
you get your podcasts at The Financial Review.
We investigate the big stories about markets, business and power.
For more, go to AFR.com and you can subscribe to The Financial Review.
The Daily Habit of Successful People at AFR.com slash subscribe.
This podcast was hosted by me, Sally Patton, and produced by Lapfan.
Our theme is by Alex Gao.
Our head of podcast is Lapfan and the head of premium content is Fiona Buffini.
The Australian Financial Review.