Trailblazer Ita Buttrose to speak at Karratha business event

One of Australia’s most high-profile media personalities, Ita Buttrose, will share insights from her extraordinary working life next month in Karratha as the keynote speaker at a regional women’s business luncheon.

Buttrose will be speaking about her career, charity work and the challenges she has faced, at the Business Centre Pilbara Women’s Network Luncheon at Karratha Leisureplex on Friday, November 9, in line with the event theme of “Press for Progress”.

Business Centre Pilbara administrator Cordelia Diaz said the centre was excited to have secured Buttrose as their speaker and hoped her story would be an inspiration for local businesswomen.

“Given Ita’s successful career in an industry that was at the time a typically male-dominated industry (journalism), and her success as a business woman and work as a public personality, it was an easy decision for us to choose Ita to speak at our event,” she said.

“(She) is someone who can connect with the stay-at-home mum or the career-driven achiever, and this was one of our reasons for having her as our keynote speaker.”

Buttrose, who won Australian of the Year in 2013, is regarded as a trailblazer in the Australian media landscape, starting with her founding editorship of Cleo magazine in 1972 — the subject of acclaimed ABC miniseries Paper Giants: The Birth of Cleo.

She was also the youngest ever editor of The Australian Women’s Weekly, the first woman to edit a major Australian metropolitan newspaper as editor-in- chief of the Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph, and the first female director of News Limited Australia, and most recently worked as a co-host on Network Ten morning show Studio 10.

She has also achieved success as a businesswoman, author and advocate for numerous health causes.

Buttrose is not the only celebrity figure to visit Karratha at the invitation of the Business Centre this year, with the organisation also recruiting well-known Australian actor and comedian Magda Szubanski as a keynote speaker for their International Women’s Day event in March.

Jessica Brosnan, founder and chief executive of Karratha business Jessica Louise Wellbeing, will also be a speaker at the upcoming luncheon.

The event is being funded by the Federal Government through the Building Better Regions Grant, and Environment Minister and Durack MHR Melissa Price will attend on behalf of the Government.

To buy tickets, go to the Pilbara Women’s Network Luncheon Eventbrite page.