administration and sales support at an in-
dustrial estate in her native Scotland. One
around, a customer turned up to pick up a load of
steel. Cox had never driven a forklift before, but
she fi gured it wasn't much different than driving
a car. So rather than turning the customer away,
she hopped on and did the job.
propelled Cox through a highly successful career
in the business of technology to one of the top
jobs in the IT industry. As head of the Australia
and New Zealand desktop and notebook PC
division of Hewlett-Packard, the world's biggest
technology company, Cox is tasked with driving
growth and profi tability across the company's
entire portfolio of consumer and business PC
devices.
was just starting to take off. She was in her early
20s, had just arrived in Australia, and was still
working in administration and sales support. At
the time, the vast majority of sales reps were
male, and women would usually only be found in
these types of support roles.
salary and she also saw that the work they were
doing wasn't beyond her capabilities. She started
to offer her help on tasks or projects that wouldn't
usually fall within her remit, and
thereby began grooming herself for
a promotion. Her male bosses were
extremely supportive, impressed
by her initiative and more than
happy for the help. Before long,
she was working on large scale IT
projects for high end customers and
was quickly promoted to Channels
Account Manager at DEC, her fi rst
sales role.
mentoring other women on their careers and is
keen to attract more women to the IT industry.
General Manager, Personal Systems
Group, Hewlett-Packard South Pacifi c