Inside story: How Katie Page grew up believing she could do anything

Harvey Norman’s CEO Katie Page on beating failure, the value of hard work and public schooling - and growing up country.

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KATIE PAGE grew up believing she could do anything.

It was instilled in the now powerhouse CEO of the global Harvey Norman empire by her dad.

Ms Page, one of four sisters, recalls: “Our father was very strong on feminism and that we could do anything we wanted to do. So the four of us grew up believing we could do anything actually.”

She had a country upbringing: “It was such a blissful childhood right – we’d go fishing in the river and, you know, make our mud pies and things.

“It was just a great lifestyle growing up.”

In an interview for the Gold Coast Women of the Year awards – sponsored by Harvey Norman – Ms Page opens up about what makes her tick, what shaped her and why she’s proud of her public school background.

She’s long been a household name in Australia as one of its corporate titans but she already stood out back in her school days.

In her final primary year at Coorparoo State School, a female teacher told her parents “you must get your daughter to sit for a selective school – Brisbane State High”.

Woman of the year. Katie Page Harvey at 19 at The Star. 26 May 2021 Broadbeach Picture by Richard Gosling

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They did and she got in, with Ms Page professing she was “so proud” of that school.

“Some people will say you’ve got to send your children to a private school for them to have any opportunity. I went to a select school, I had the best teachers, the sport in that school was amazing. I had the best opportunity I could have had and it was the public system.

“Then dad moved to Sydney so I was accepted into North Sydney Girls – another select school and that was an amazing experience as well. That’s all through the public system. If you’ve got the ability it’s there.”

But she does have an admission to make: “I was really lazy at school. I should have done a lot better but I chose to not study like my mates did.”

She also admits back in those days she never envisaged she would one day be in the type of role she is now.

“I’ve got to tell you, I was the least bright in that school.

“I was surrounded by girls who were so bright, so intelligent and so it kicked me around a bit.

“I learned early that you are not going to be top of the tree all that time, that you’ve got to fight.

“Because I’d been accepted into those schools I knew I had the ability and I knew if I applied myself and worked hard I could get somewhere but I had to work. If you’re given an opportunity you’ve still got to work at it and that stayed with me for the rest of my working career.”

Ms Page also credits learning about failure and dealing with it as a key part of her evolution from a young age: “Learning failure early is a really good thing.”

She adds: “Understanding that you’re going to fail for the rest of your life in certain things – failure is not something you go through at a young age and then suddenly you get it and you never fail again.”

To this day, with the growth and runaway success of Harvey Norman – founded by partner Gerry Harvey and now spanning almost 300 stories across eight countries – she admits failure is a constant in their lives.

“Gerry and I fail at a lot of stuff but we get up and we keep going – it doesn’t knock us around. We accept that we got it wrong and then you keep working on it.

“So that comes with age. And I don’t know that you can change a teenager’s life by saying this because they’ve got to go through it – and you’ve either got the tenacity to keep going and understand it for what it is or you give up.”

PAGE’S KEY ROLE IN RISE AND RISE OF HARVEY NORMAN

WHEN Gerry Harvey launched his first Harvey Norman multi-retail outlet in Sydney’s Auburn for $3 million in 1982 with business partner Ian Norman, Katie Page was his first call.

Mr Harvey, in what’s proven a winning move, brought the dynamic then-25-year-old into the fold from the start.

Since then, they have overseen the growth of an empire that now has more than 280 stores across eight countries with revenues in the billions – and importantly for them – 65 per cent of stores are in regional communities.

Ms Page explains whilst their growth has been global, it has been fuelled by a strong commitment to the regions, due to both her and Mr Harvey coming from country roots.

“Our (initial) expansion was into Queensland and that’s because my family wanted to shop at Harvey Norman – that’s how our focus group worked.

“It was very successful. We entered Victoria in the early ‘90s. Queensland was going so well, we thought our brand could be accepted nationally.

Woman of the year. Katie Page Harvey (middle) in conversation with Tamika Smith (right) and Criena Gehrke (left) at 19 at The Star. 26 May 2021 Broadbeach Picture by Richard Gosling

“A couple of years later a friend of mine phoned from Auckland and said ‘Katie, I need to shop with you at Harvey Norman’. So I got on a plane and had a look at New Zealand.

“We were wanting to do something overseas and I said ‘Gerry get on a plane, our Harvey Norman brand could really work well and this should be the first country outside of Australia’.

“New Zealand has been very successful and that started us looking at other countries. Back to Australia – very early on, (we were) doing country stores as well as city. It was never even thought about, just doing capital cities because we understood regional so well.

“Gerry came from the country as well; he had a similar upbringing in NSW country and so we’re both strongly country. We both support all of our Harvey Norman stores and communities strongly – 65 per cent of our stores are in country areas. It’s been important to us the money didn’t just go to big cities. We’re in every major town in Australia now – happily – and you can see by our business how strongly all of those communities really love the Harvey Norman brand because they know we’ve done that. It goes back to both of us being country people.

“We wanted a brand that would be for all Australians.

“Look at New Zealand – we’re everywhere. Have a look at Slovenia and Croatia. We are in Zagreb, in Croatia – capital city. I said to Gerry ‘I want you to come over because we want to do some regional. I want to take you to two regional towns in Croatia. You’re going to agree that we should be doing regional in other places as well’. And he’s like ‘Go faster, go faster’. I took him to Pula, and he’s like ‘Oh my gosh Katie, what could we do here – go faster’.

“We’ve got great teams in every country. You can’t do this sitting in Sydney, you’ve got to have terrific people that have come through with us for many, many years.”