Victoria Mallinckrodt graduated from UWA in 2004 with 1st Class Honours in Marketing and commenced working in Perth in market research and management consulting. She moved to London in 2008, where she worked for niche management consultancies, specialising in change management as well as procurement. Today she lives in Geneva, Switzerland, working at the World Economic Forum in an ‘operational excellence’ role. She is also working towards a PhD degree in Marketing at UWA. Her research focuses on how the behaviour of young children may be influenced and predicted following exposure to marketing communications in our evolving media environment.
In her spare time, Victoria enjoys a variety of outdoor activities in and around Switzerland with her husband and two young children.
Where do you currently live
I currently live in Geneva, Switzerland. My husband and I moved from London to Geneva five years ago and we are very happy here. Geneva is a relatively small city with a population of approximately 500,000 but it is an extremely international city in the heart of Europe.. For example in summer, we enjoy Lake Geneva and its surrounds or cycling around Switzerland, and in winter we go skiing and snowshoeing. We recently went snowshoeing at night with the full moon illuminating our way to a chalet where we had a cheese fondue - these sorts of activities make us never want to leave Geneva.
Tell us a bit about your journey since UWA.
I graduated from UWA in 2004 with 1st Class Honours in Marketing and commenced working in Perth in market research and management consulting. With this as a background, I moved to London where I worked for niche management consultancies, specialising in change management as well as procurement. I now work at the World Economic Forum in an ‘operational excellence’ role.
UWA has been part of my life throughout my career. The UWA alumni network in London is very strong, with frequent social and professional events, which enabled me to build connections and which gave me a sense of belonging. UWA also taught me how to combine a strong work ethic with lots of extracurricular activities. Kayaking, rogaining and selling Prosh newspapers during my university days have now been replaced with cross-country skiing, hiking and life drawing.
What’s your passion and how do you want to make a difference in the world?
Last year, my best friend and I founded a social enterprise “The Finance Sisters”, which aims to help women around the world take control of their finances. We realised that many women that we talk to are interested in investing, but don’t know where to start. It’s been a very rewarding and eye-opening journey so far and takes up all of my spare time. We have run workshops with over 500 women from around the world, have created a website and written a book as well. It feels great to help women start on such an important journey.
What is the most interesting aspect of your career?
What I love most about my career so far is the variety of projects that I have worked on, as well as the interesting people that I have met along the way. I’ve worked in oil and gas, financial services, and at an indigenous university in the Northern Territory. The variety and the people made up for the frequent travel, sometimes to unglamorous locations like Swindon in the UK.
As the International Organization for Public-Private cooperation, the World Economic Forum offers a wide variety of career paths that are personally interesting and exciting. For example, in addition to our famous Annual Meeting in Davos, we are increasingly acting as a platform where companies and civil society organisations come together to accelerate activities to advance the sustainable development agenda. It’s very exciting to be part of an organisation that is so forward thinking and in touch with world leaders of many new disciplines. This intellectually and professionally stimulating environment offers me many opportunities to further develop my career.
What does International Women’s Day mean to you?
When I think of International Women’s Day, I always think back to my mother, another UWA graduate. When she began her career at one of the Big Four Accounting firms as the first female auditor, the company considered it perfectly fair that she receive a lower salary than her male counterpart. When she asked about the discrepancy, the Board explained that men had to take women out for dinner and pay for their cars (although she had equal outgoings for stockings and make-up) and they would not back down from this position.
To me International Women's Day is a day to reflect on how far fortunate women in countries like Australia have progressed from one generation to another, but at the same time, it is a day to acknowledge that even in developed countries there is a lot still to achieve, and in the developing world, we still have a very very long way to go.
Through my Finance Sisters initiative, I hope to help make a small but important improvement to the quality of life of women.
Words of Wisdom to first year student?
My advice is to foster good relationships with academic staff, for example by dropping by their office to ask a specific question and engaging in discussions with them. I enjoyed this stimulating and enriching aspect of my studies a lot and have developed several strong, long-term relationships with professors.