In this episode of YS Up Governance and Boards Podcast, 3YS Owls Governance Consultants, Ainslie Cunningham and Deb Anderson interview Sarah Zeljko. Sarah is a professional non-executive director on the Boards of Powerlink Queensland, Energy Super, MILLovate Pty Ltd, Stockyard Beef Pty Ltd, and LogiCamms Limited (ASX:LCM). We discuss with Sarah running one of her father's businesses while studying law, her early career working in organisations, like mining and big infrastructure projects, a wind farm in Wonthaggi, a foray in council, in statutory bodies and water businesses, always working in big organisations, big infrastructure, a lot of front-end construction and some of the hot topics around the Board table.

"Probably the biggest challenge I had, was at WICET because it was, as I said, $4 billion project that was overtime and over budget. It was a massive coal terminal that was being built at the height of the coal boom. By the time I arrived, it was probably six to 12 months off being finished. It was $1 billion over time and over budget. For me, trying to move the organisation from the halcyon days of, this is a great project and this is going really well, to a $1 billion worth of contractor claims where everybody I was dealing, with claims from John Holland, BMD, big, small, you name it. It was a matter of taking a Board on a journey as well, because they were all representative directors of big coal companies like Glencore and Wesfarmers and Yancoal."
- Sarah Zeljko

Summary of episode
· How Sarah obtained her first non-executive director role
· G8 Education Ltd (ASX:GEM)
· Wiggins Island Coal Export Terminal (WICET)
· Board meetings during COVID
· Mentoring with McCarthy Mentoring
· Mental Health in the workplace
· Surround yourself with the clever people.
· Workplace health and safety
· Working in male dominated businesses -v- female dominated businesses
· Culture
· 4 pillars of strategy
· Plan on a page
· Diversity

About Sarah Zeljko
Sarah Zeljko is a professional Non-Executive Director on the boards of Powerlink Queensland, Energy Super,