Chempro exec’s key to women empowerment

In small rural towns, everyone knows everyone.

And growing up in New Zealand, where her grandfather’s pharmacy was the only one in the area, Bianca Olsen grew up with a keen sense of serving the community and an ever mounting pressure to live up to her grandfather’s image.

“So when I moved to Australia, I just did retail to get away from the family business,” Ms Olsen, 37, said.

“I just wanted a bit of anonymity and people not know me from a very small town.

“I wanted to be able to do retail and just go through the motion of popping a nine to five.”

Despite her efforts, Ms Olsen was drawn to the industry that nurtured her as a young child and eventually began a nine-to-five role in a local community pharmacy.

“I was literally in the field every day visiting the stores during the campaigns,” she recalls.

“And I’m not a pharmacist, but I had good people skills - I was able to get people to action health programmes and do things for the better health care of the community.

“I soon realised I wasn’t really a nine-to-five person.”

Sitting across from me, Ms Olsen exudes an easy confidence and her voice, steady and welcoming, draws you in. Her words are precise and her attitude, down to earth. A gentle curiosity lights her eyes.

As general manager at Chempro - the largest pharmaceutical franchise in the Gold Coast - she leads all 150 stores and their owners.

When she thinks of success and good leadership, she thinks of her grandfather.

“My role model is my grandfather, he was a very hard worker and I feel like I’m very much like him,” she said.

“I’m probably just a bit more of an empathetic leader. He was very stern, back in the day type of thing, but I always look to him for guidance.”

As a mentor and leader, Ms Olsen works closely with a variety of women from all works of life. Her personal philosphy of ensuring flexibility means she is acutely aware of people’s external commitments like family, pets and personal life.

“Everyone has the ability to be a leader in their own right. That’s how I feel,” she says.

“Leadership is not a badge or a title - your actions have to speak louder than your words.”

And they do. Over the course of seven years, Ms Olsen rapidly rose to general manager. Her direct influence within the company has seen an equally as rapid shift towards prioritising women empowerment - with 35 per cent of all its stores now owned by women and offers a multitude of dedicated mentorship and leadership programs.

But it wasn’t always that way, and change was hard won.

“Pharmacy is one of those industries that originally was very male dominated,” Ms Olsen said.

“So the biggest thing for me was imposter syndrome, and feeling like I was good enough for the roles I was in and deliver on the strategic direction of the business.”

It’s a common trait she notices in young women entering the industry and especially in the women she mentors.

More than outright sexism, Ms Olsen said falling prey to corporations offering false promises of diversity and empowerment had been tough to navigate in her early days.

“There’s been plenty of times when companies preach women empowerment but there’s actually a hidden agenda,” she said.

“I was in evironments and situations where I thought they were focused on inclusion but their agenda was actualy about sabotaging other people’s career progressions.”

When asked how she overcame her own personal anxieties, Ms Olsen said it was about surrounding yourself with “like-minded” people.

“I had to find my tribe of women ... that group of people you can trust, and they understand you and for me that’s my team,” she said.

“But my biggest thing is communication ... I can watch people and understand how they learn, their journey and where they want to go.”

She also says it’s about celebrating the small wins as much as the big ones - and to also celebrate the wins of others.

“When I look at my team I think ‘what can we celebrate this week? Or what have we achieved this week,” she said.

Leadership is not a badge or a title - your actions have to speak louder than your words

“Now when I sit back and look at how fast my journey has happened over the seven years I’m like, ‘you’re doing something right to get where you got to’.” - AMAANI SIDDEEK