Stories

PayPal Australia is committed to championing women and to gender equality across our business, with 50% female representation across the business and 53% on our 2022 senior leadership team. We’ve had pay parity since 2016, differentiating us from the broader AU financial services industry, where the gender pay gap is 24%.

While we continue striving to challenge long-standing biases and stereotypes about gender roles in the workplace every day of the year, on International Women’s Day, we want to celebrate two outstanding female employees.

With their roles within science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), these women break biases and outdated expectations of how women contribute to the workforce.

Anna Pomroy, Technical Account Management Lead, PayPal Australia

_{Anna Pomroy.}

Embarking on her career in tech as a web developer in 2006, and subsequently working as a software engineer for more than eight years, Anna had come to accept her fate to always work within male-dominated teams. This was until she joined PayPal as a technical account manager, three years ago.

Anna shares three quick tips this International Women’s Day:

1. Your own competency matters more than anything else. Have confidence in yourself and the skills you bring to the table.
2. Never be afraid to speak up if you feel you have been overlooked in the workplace. If not remedied, don’t be scared to look elsewhere and to go where you’re valued.
3. Hone your human skills and work on being a good communicator – if there’s a stereotype that men are better at STEM, it’s also stereotyped women are better communicators. Show everyone you’re great at both!

Alison O’Brien, Head of Mid-Market and Small Business, PayPal Australia

_{Alison O'Brien.}

According to 2021 findings from Australia’s Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA), women only comprise 26.1% of key management personnel roles in the financial and insurance industry, as compared to 33.5% across all industries.

With 15 years of business development under her belt, Alison, who has been with PayPal since 2015, is a member of the senior leadership team as PayPal’s Director of Customer success. Here are her thoughts on gender equity on International Women’s Day: 

1. IWD is a powerful reminder of how far we have come as women, while reminding us of what we still need to change in order to achieve gender equality.
2. Companies need diversity and inclusion for improved innovation, creativity and problem solving. With greater inclusion comes greater performance.
3. IWD is a much-needed day to celebrate our advancements and achievements as women thus far, but we must work on empowering women and striving for gender equality all year round.