Jane McAloon’s varied career at the centre of big business decisions

Through the course of her long career in business and the public service, Jane McAloon, has been at the epicentre of some of the defining issues that have shaped corporate Australia.

Through the course of her long and distinguished career in business and the public service, Jane McAloon, who has been awarded an AM for services to business and the energy sector, has been at the epicentre of some of the defining issues that have shaped corporate Australia.

As the chair of EnergyAustralia and a director of BlueScope Steel, she is helping lead one of Australia’s biggest energy providers – and a major power consumer – through the tricky waters of energy transition.

As BHP’s president, governance and group company secretary, she helped shape the mining giant’s transformational spin-out of South32. And as a young adviser to Northern Territory MP Warren Snowden in 1992, McAloon was part of the Keating government as it shaped its response to the era-defining Mabo decision.

McAloon also served as the director-general of the NSW Ministry of Energy and Utilities and deputy director-general for the NSW Cabinet Office before joining BHP. Since her retirement from the mining major she has been a director of Viva Energy, health companies Cogstate and Healthscope, and insurer Allianz.

Jane McAloon.

But McAloon says the biggest influence on her approach to both her personal and professional life was the death by suicide of her first husband in her mid-30s.

“I just realised eventually that everything is about people, and you never really know how they’re feeling about things. And so every time you engage with people, it’s a privilege, and it’s a responsibility and it’s an opportunity to learn more,” she says.

“And at the end of each day, hold yourself kind of accountable for how you behaved. So I’ve always believed that how you behave is more important than what you know.

“I’m always attracted to things where there are great people and a great cause – so when there’s sort of that intersection between business and social issues.”

Her former husband’s job as a guide at the Australian War Memorial led to an abiding interest in the welfare of former service personnel, and roles on the board of veteran’s charity Bravery Trust, the Australian War Memorial, and an appointment as the chair of the Defence Reserves Support Council.

McAloon says she also remains a passionate supporter of the campaign to recognise Indigenous Australians in the ­Constitution.

She says the debate around the Voice referendum has significant parallels with the national response to the High Court’s Mabo decision in 1992.

“Everybody was really fearful at the time. And those fears in the end didn’t amount to anything – we all worked our way through,” she says.

“And that’s the same thing with the Voice to Parliament. I think we just need to keep talking and work our way through.

Originally published as Jane McAloon’s varied career at the centre of big business decisions