For our final International Women's Day feature, we're proud to spotlight Lisa Lake, Director of the Centre of Excellence in Sustainable Fashion & Textiles. With a career built on purpose, research and a deep commitment to climate action, Lisa has spent nearly two decades working to shift the Australian fashion industry toward a more sustainable future. 

Read on to learn about the journey that brought her here.

1. What was your first start in the industry and can you share your career journey? Was there a pivotal moment in your career that led you or pushed you to where you are today?

 I started in this industry as a sustainable fashion activist, and my environmental passion has shaped my career in the industry. My early professional life was in marketing and branding in the US and Australia, but I quickly felt I needed change and started looking for greater purpose. For nearly two decades, I have been driven to work towards climate action, and it is that internal driving force that has led me to use my unique skills, relationships and opportunities to aid in the sustainable transition of the Australian fashion industry.

Thinking of key moments, 2009 was a big year for me – I had my environmental “awakening” thanks to the film An Inconvenient Truth, completed a master’s degree where I studied – among other things - culture and environmental behaviour change, and started to work for the Green Building Council of Australia (GBCA). While working at GBCA I wrote my book Sustainability with Style (2012), an eco-memoir documenting my lifestyle changes including fashion, beauty, food choices and more. Thanks to the book, I connected with incredible sustainable fashion pioneers in Australia and around the world, and together with three of them (Carlie Ballard, Kelly Elkin, and Yatu Widders Hunt) founded Clean Cut, producing the first sustainable fashion show on the Australian Fashion Week program in 2014. Putting on the show was a huge labour of love – we all had full time jobs, and called in all the favours imaginable, including with our amazing PR partner at New Future, Elena Silverwood. The show featured eight sustainable fashion labels from around the world (including my current colleague Rachael Cassar and New Zealand brand Kowtow). It was incredibly challenging, incredibly fulfilling, and well received by industry and media.

Just as the fashion show was coming together, I also embarked on my PhD, which allowed me to focus deeply on transitioning the Australian fashion industry toward sustainability. Following completion of my PhD, I had a few years of contract sustainability work and had a couple babies, and then started my role in late 2021 with the Centre of Excellence – it has been an ideal opportunity to support industry transformation as it brings educational expertise and research excellence into collaboration with industry. Looking back, my path in the industry has not been linear, but it’s always been values- and purpose-driven, which feels like a true privilege.

2. Are there any mentors or influential figures who played a key role in your leadership style?

I’ve been fortunate to have many mentors - academically, professionally, and personally. As I reflect on them now, I can see they all share traits I deeply value: integrity, intelligence, compassion, and a commitment to leading with values over ego. I try to bring these qualities into my own leadership, which is certainly still evolving.

My time at GBCA was especially formative and I had the privilege of working directly with then-CEO Romilly Madew AO, a natural leader who demonstrates values-based leadership. I witnessed how she could hold her own in an historically masculine industry, command a room of thousands when she spoke, and also nurture a growing team, supporting a culture that made space for employees to thrive. Romilly supported my working part-time while writing my book because she wanted to create a workplace where women could achieve all their dreams, and my role was the first in the organisation to become a job-share, which I shared with a working mum. Rom’s unique blend of extreme talent, work ethic and compassion has greatly influenced my leadership style – and I also think of her every time I’m in the office early and turn on classical music, as I heard her do countless times over the years in those early hours, enjoying the calm before the chaos of the day.

Academically, I’ve been shaped by my PhD supervisor, Professor Natalya Lusty. She is wickedly clever, precise, curious, warm, and direct. She saw potential in my academic work when nearly no one else in our field did, and bolstered me when others challenged the importance of addressing sustainability in fashion. I often reflect on Natalya’s enthusiasm and optimism about the work we all do, and am pleased to also call her my friend. Last but certainly not least, my colleague Associate Professor Timo Rissanen inspires me daily through his compassion, brilliance, wit, and unwavering commitment to meaningful work. It’s a real pleasure when your colleagues are also your mentors.

3. What has been the biggest challenge you have faced on your pathway, and how did you overcome it?
My biggest challenge is that I don’t always fit in - whether that’s being one of few women in male-dominated leadership spaces, talking about fashion when others were talking about the built environment, entering fashion as an activist, or navigating a hybrid academic-industry role. At times this has meant not being taken seriously, missing opportunities because I framed ideas differently, or facing delays or relationship setbacks because I was challenging established norms. (And let’s be honest, when you’re actively challenging standard business practices to prioritise the planet and people rather than solely profit, sometimes your phone calls just go unanswered).

For me, the key to overcoming this challenge has been to turn it into my superpower. I know that my varied background helps me see problems from different angles. I also ask a lot of questions, put in the time to understand the issues, and treat challenges as an opportunity to approach the work from a new perspective. Due to my time in different industries, I also have a large network of colleagues I can call upon for advice or collaboration – relationships are so important to making a meaningful impact and I deeply value the connections I’ve made along the way. On a practical level, I’ve also taken leadership training to identify my unique strengths, understand different personality types and how to best work together, support a high-performing team, and gained strategic tools that provide structure to challenging, impactful work. Leaning into difference – rather than trying to erase it – has been uncomfortable at times but has been key to navigating many challenges.

4. Our industry is 77% female, however this is not the case at executive level. Do you believe the Australian fashion industry has evolved over the years, particularly in its support for women leaders? What can we all do to help change this statistic?
The statistics on women’s leadership are disheartening, but unfortunately not unique to our industry. Women remain underrepresented in leadership positions across all sectors despite high education and workforce participation rates. I can’t speak to how it has evolved in the fashion industry, but I do see clear opportunities for progress.

First, structured mentorship and leadership training tailored to women – not designed to make us like businessmen – is critical. Next we need more realistic expectations around work hours and travel, especially since women still take most caregiving responsibilities for children and aging parents.  Childcare support and paid parental leave for all genders matter, as does continued cultural change, but in this moment in time, so do honest conversations with aspiring female leaders about how leadership roles can work around real lives. By the time a woman has enough experience to enter a leadership position, she is often also considering a family or already has one, and we should not ignore this complexity.

Without becoming too binary or stereotypical in our definitions of gender, we should also be welcoming traditional ‘feminine’ traits  - like empathy, creativity, and multi-tasking – and learning how to use them to the benefit of our organisations. In addition, success should not be measured by speed or burnout, both too common in our industry. Collectively we can change expectations of what success looks by slowing down, reshaping timelines, and genuinely prioritising staff wellbeing as a marker of organisational success. Finally, businesses can work to ensure representation on their boards and leadership teams reflect the gender and diversity make-up of the industry – yes, that means more women than men on boards and leadership teams. But if fashion can’t lead on representation, which industry can?

5. What's one piece of advice you’d share with someone aiming to follow in your footsteps?

Listen to your internal voice and don’t back away from doing the hard work. Creating change – especially in complex areas like climate action, social inequality, or shifting long-standing industry systems – is difficult and unpredictable. Your career won’t follow the path you expect, no one ever does. But if you are true to yourself, act with integrity, and take the time to do things properly, you’ll create a positive impact in ways you may not even foresee.

Find more about Centre of Excellence in Sustainable Fashion + Textiles

Thank you to Katie-Louise, Lilian, Ebony and Lisa for sharing their stories with us this International Women's Day. Their vision, courage and commitment to building a better industry is exactly what balancing the scales looks like in practice.