“I’ve always believed I would overcome any obstacle I encountered and I’ve never let the fear of failure stop me from having a go,” says high-profile journalist and television personality Ita Buttrose. "It's important to be brave."
Buttrose took her first steps into her aspired career path at just 15, as a copygirl on The Australian Women’s Weekly and was awarded a journalism cadetship at 16. “Most women didn’t have careers back then, like they do now, so it was very different for me,” she reveals. “There were times people asked, ‘what are you doing here – this is a man’s job’, but I would reply ‘I’m not leaving’.”
A passion for the profession coursed through her and never wavered despite the inevitable obstacles that greeted her – as they do – and in having professionally dealt with these from a young age Buttrose still proudly admits, “I always knew what I wanted to do”, which was to be a journalist, since she was 11.
“You can’t run away from obstacles. You have to find the right strategies to overcome them, strategies that work for you,” Buttrose says, reflecting on her earlier years in the profession, which included working weekends without pay to learn as much as she could from senior journalists. From going on to become founding editor of game-changing Australian magazine Cleo, which became an instant sensation for its honest exploration of female sexuality, and then to the The Australian Women’s Weekly as editor then editor-in-chief, the youngest woman to have stepped into the position at a time when the magazine was hailed as the highest selling, per capita of population, in the world – one may ask – when did it all sink in?
“I was married at twenty-one and at twenty-three I became women’s editor of the Sydney Daily and Sunday Telegraphs and that’s when everything changed,” she says. “I realised I had it in me to go all the way.” Buttrose’s inherent self-belief and level-headed approach, teamed with an unwavering passion for journalism, propelled her to become not only an incredibly successful businesswoman but also an influential force that has questioned the status quo since her years as an editor. A founding member and former president of Chief Executive Women, she continues to motivate other businesswomen to rise to the occasion while not losing sight of the different skills both women and men bring to business.
With eleven books to her credit Buttrose is candid about the challenges she has faced as a professional woman in her lively autobiography A Passionate Life: Covering her childhood years, her time at the helm of two of the most influential magazines that shaped the identity of contemporary Australian women, and her appointment by Rupert Murdoch to become editor-in-chief of the Daily and Sunday Telegraphs, making her the first woman to ever edit a major Australian metropolitan newspaper. “Life inspires me,” Buttrose says. “I believe in living life to the fullest. We’re only here once so there’s no time to waste.”
‘A Passionate Life can be purchased here.’
