In her role as Chief Information Officer, Kerrie Campbell oversees IT systems across the University, but there is a lot more than tech expertise to this inspirational leader. 

What does your work at Flinders involve?

I oversee our systems that including People and Culture, Finance, the Learning Management System (LMS), research management and network infrastructure. I have seven direct reports myself, and my own team is responsible for the IT management of the research, student and teaching, and enterprise systems, together with the cybersecurity safety of Flinders University.

What do you think makes an exceptional leader?

Leadership is all about being passionate about what you do. You have to have a passion to make people be the best that they can be.

I think truly great leaders make the hard choices and self-sacrifice to enhance the lives of those around them. Leaders must be authentic and true to their own styles and empower those around them to achieve. Being a leader forces you to analyse your own strengths and weaknesses and it is really important that you honestly self-reflect, as you can only grow as a leader when you have the courage to do this.

To be an exceptional leader you must set the example for others to follow, this is where commitment, passion, empathy, honesty and integrity come into play; in great leaders these are obvious and people truly believe when their leaders have these capabilities, they are heartfelt and real.

Exceptional leaders have good communication skills and decision-making capabilities that play a crucial role in their success.

What are some of the key factors in your background that have influenced your approach to management today?

I had a very unique childhood, when I was five I moved to Dubbo in NSW to live in Western Plains Zoo, as my Dad was instrumental in the build and development of the Zoo. (Yes I was well before Bindi Irwin !!)

I lived in the zoo until I was 18, so spent my childhood surrounded by animals including having tigers, cheetahs and monkeys for pets. I think this very unique childhood allowed me the freedom to enjoy the outdoors and nature, but the very close interaction I had with animals meant that I had the opportunity to observe animal nature day in day out, which really helped me understand people and their natures. I think this helped me develop my body language skills and understanding of human behaviour.

I also played representative hockey when I was young (both for NSW and Australia) and this built my understanding of great team work, developing others and working at optimum performance while also ensuring teams can work at optimum performance under pressure. I think this has definitely helped me in my career as IT can at times be a very high pressure environment and as a leader you need to learn how to handle people under pressure and how to build strong capable teams under this type of pressure. So I think my long history of playing sport really set me up as the leader I am today, even though I now have the body of a 100 year old!

Have you always worked in the tertiary sector?

I started my IT career in the Data Centre of the State Bank of NSW and then worked for many companies including the Commonwealth Bank, EDS, AGL, Department of Human Services, British Gas, Centrica, the University of Adelaide just to name a few.

So I have worked in numerous sectors over my 35-year IT career. I think this broad range of roles and insights into a variety of sectors has given me an advantage as I see all the good and bad in other sectors and can bring best practice ideas into our sector.

What is something you are proud of?

It’s pretty clichéd but I am most proud of my children, they are all amazing human beings and have brought me a great deal of love, laughter and at times frustration but their growth and development in this world and the way they take the world on really has made me very proud.

How do you relax or wind down away from work?

When I am away from work one of the things I love is to DJ. I used to work as a DJ and playing a set now and again or being in my studio to play and record music is one of the things I love to do. It’s a great way to switch off and relax and also such a great way to have fun.