Audacity in action: Suite Talk with Stella Avramopoulos, CEO of Good Shepherd ANZ

What is Good Shepherd’s mission and how do you go about bringing it to life?

Our mission describes a journey of healing, recovery and thriving; ensuring women, girls and families are safe, well, strong and connected. Those four words came from a woman with lived experience when we first developed our strategic plan seven or eight years ago.

I’ve known this organisation for a long time but never expected its level of courage, vulnerability and genuine audacity. Perhaps as a women’s organisation we inherently do things differently. For instance, our unique operating model involves winning large contracts, then subcontracting or partnering with local organisations who are experts in their communities. We prefer to work with and through others.

"Our mission describes a journey of healing, recovery and thriving; ensuring women, girls and families are safe, well, strong and connected.”
– Stella Avramopoulos, CEO of Good Shepherd ANZ

Collaboration and information-sharing seem central to your organisational DNA, is that right?

Absolutely. We’re 200 years old. We began as a women’s refuge in Angers, France. We’re now in 68 countries, including Australia, where we’ve been for 161 years. We know our history, the good and the bad, and understanding our past provides the solid foundation needed in the current complex, high-risk world of service delivery.

I didn’t fully appreciate how embedded the values – like zeal and audacity – or the volume of each person were until I came here. Staff might not know every detail of our strategic plan but they know our values, their reasons and how they shape our culture and behaviours.

We’re increasingly operating in poly-crisis environments, where agility is essential amid constant complexity. Standard processes rarely hold up well in these chaotic situations. No person or organisation is a legend; we’re all learners and need to take a systems lens to how we work with others. This is also why we have set up a department called Ecosystem Enablement, where we imagine, learn, test and spread new approaches to activate cross-sector, multi-stakeholder coalitions to leverage impact better. Whomever we partner with in the ecosystem, our guide is that they must align with our mission, values and co-responsibility – our stewardship must remain collective; this is a trademark.

How do you balance addressing individual needs simultaneously with systemic barriers?

It’s an ecological model, placing us within a dynamic, complex environment right from infancy. When we work with women in our community, you quickly realise you can’t just focus on her; you must consider her family, community, and the broader systems affecting her life. The real challenge is aligning efforts. There are tens of thousands of not-for-profits with ambitious missions, but how do we coordinate our support to make a lasting impact?

At an individual level, there’s insufficient funding to address long-term issues, like income, financial wellbeing, and psychosocial needs. No single organisation can manage this alone. A key lesson from my time as a corrections officer was that sustained change, particularly around intergenerational disadvantage, needs strong interventions combined with multidisciplinary support, implemented and sustained for a sufficient time period.

Funding often resembles an unstitched patchwork quilt, with organisations operating in tandem but being funded through separate lanes. Multiple sectors share the same client without realising it, missing opportunities to intervene earlier or prevent crises from becoming intergenerational. It’s about aligning efforts beyond individual sectors.

At Good Shepherd, we collaborate for shared impact, leveraging the strengths multiple sectors and organisations have, rather than always delivering services directly ourselves.

“At Good Shepherd, we collaborate for shared impact, leveraging the strengths multiple sectors and organisations have, rather than always delivering services directly ourselves.”
– Stella Avramopoulos, CEO of Good Shepherd ANZ

What’s a collaboration you’re especially proud of?

In our family violence services, which is part of why we partner with CommBank, we noticed that many groups focus on crisis response, but fewer address recovery. A major issue is refuge shortages, meaning women and children are forced into hotel rooms, which is especially tough on children.

We wanted to disrupt that cycle. Through our partnership with the Mercy Sisters and Housing all Australians, an unused convent with 10 bedrooms and a lift became available, rent-free. Housing All Australians arranged pro bono renovations using their building sector connections, enabling us to move women out of unsuitable hotels into a safe crisis refuge and the Victorian Government was able to find staffing for the next two years.

We now offer a genuine wraparound service there, including corporate-funded financial independence programmes with CommBank, government initiatives, and our no-interest loans program. Staff and visiting professionals operate onsite, creating a one-stop shop.

Why is disruption important to you as a leader?

Over my 30-year career, I have seen three generations of one family fall through the cracks. We kept placing ambulances at the bottom of the hill instead of breaking the cycle.

I openly discussed this frustration in my interview for Good Shepherd and one of the Sisters responded, “Audacity is one of our oldest values. Give us two audacious ideas, and we’ll let you use our balance sheet.” In the not-for-profit sector, CEOs rarely get to leverage balance sheets this way. I proposed a transformational strategy and investment into affordable housing. Since then, we’ve created an Audacity Centre for innovation and a Good Shepherd Institute.

“Over my 30-year career, I have seen three generations of one family fall through the cracks. We kept placing ambulances at the bottom of the hill instead of breaking the cycle.” 
– Stella Avramopoulos, CEO of Good Shepherd ANZ

What is your most valued career lesson?

I’m big on the idea of a leadership odyssey, not just a career ladder. An early mentor taught me to take opportunities outside of my comfort zone, because nothing grows inside it.

My criminology degree led me, at 23, to a job as a corrections officer visiting Barwon Prison, a maximum-security male prison. Quickly, I realised formal qualifications weren’t enough. Those seven years were foundational; inmates kept telling me that early intervention would have prevented their situations.

I moved into youth services, despite having no formal training there. I kept saying yes, even to roles I initially didn’t want, because I was committed to the mission, open to learning and pushing myself to lean into challenging roles.

My biggest lesson came as CEO of Kildonan UnitingCare when responding to the 2009 bushfires near the Epping office, just after starting in the role. It meant committing resources without guaranteed funding and a significant expansion. It taught me that genuine recovery requires walking alongside people from prevention to recovery, taking a holistic approach to large-scale events – such as bushfires – and working closely with the board and government to implement a disciplined, focused and acceptable response.

“An early mentor taught me to take opportunities outside of my comfort zone, because nothing grows inside it.”
– Stella Avramopoulos, CEO of Good Shepherd ANZ

Was there a turning point when your career confidence increased?

I’m always learning from success and failure, continually stepping into complex leadership roles: I’m never landing on Ithaca in my odyssey. I’m now much more comfortable in myself as a “Greek girl from Reservoir”, who was a first-time CEO at 36.

In early meetings, people often assumed my colleague was the CEO, not me. I constantly questioned myself, wondering, ‘Will I ever be credible or respected?’ For years, I felt excluded from established CEO circles. Eventually, I realised they’d done me a favour; they were busy with mainstream business-as-usual work while I quietly disrupted, built coalitions, and explored change.

What excites you about Good Shepherd ANZ’s long-term strategy?

We want to disrupt ourselves and our sector by no longer sitting on lazy balance sheets when there’s such urgent need around housing, family violence, refuges, and recovery. We’re leveraging our balance sheet to invest in new initiatives like the Good Shepherd Institute, the Audacity Centre, and a village for women that we’re building in Marrickville. It’s a mindset shift embedded in our strategic plan, fully supported by our board and the sisters, which requires our own co-investment.

“We want to disrupt ourselves and our sector by no longer sitting on lazy balance sheets when there’s such urgent need around housing, family violence, refuges, and recovery.” 
– Stella Avramopoulos, CEO of Good Shepherd ANZ

That approach changes the dynamic significantly, because we’re no longer a charity looking for handouts to do the same old things. Instead, we’re at the table with genuine skin in the game. I’m saying to our cross-sector coalition partners: invest with us so we can achieve a greater impact together. It takes courage in leadership to lean into this. We’re consciously shifting away from individualistic approaches at systemic and organisational levels. Drawing from First Nations peoples, multicultural, and multi-faith communities and organisations, we’re building collective, collaborative, and communal ways of working with and through others.

That’s why we emphasise interculturality, truly understanding that diversity requires collaboration, collective action, and community. This mindset involves behaviours like listening, openness, vulnerability, truth-telling, and a willingness to learn rather than rushing the process.

“We’re consciously shifting away from individualistic approaches at systemic and organisational levels. Drawing from First Nations peoples, multicultural, and multi-faith communities and organisations, we’re building collective, collaborative, and communal ways of working with and through others.” 
– Stella Avramopoulos, CEO of Good Shepherd ANZ

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.