A conversation with three women at Interflow reveals a powerful sense of purpose and a confidence that you don’t have to be an engineer to shape the future of water.
As she knocked on the door of an elderly lady’s house, Interflow Community Relations Manager Joanna Rodd had no idea she was about to experience a memorable moment that clarified the purpose of her role.
“This lady was 94,” Rodd said. “She had lived in her home for 60 years, and she still drove a car. She was lonely and felt some nervousness around project teams being on and around her property.
“But she sat and had a cup of tea with me and quickly understood that the work we were doing was vital and was for the good of her community. She realised the members of our crew were good people and would take care of her and would get the work done as quickly as possible.
“When you have a genuine interaction with someone, as opposed to just dropping a letter into their mailbox, you realise this is what we have to do more of.”
Rodd had never expected to find her calling in the water infrastructure sector, originally thinking it would be a male-dominated space prioritising engineers and tradespeople. But after three years in her role, the experience has been nothing less than transformative.
“Interflow has been phenomenal for me,” Rodd said. “The support I have received here –from leaders, teammates and even executives – has been nothing short of amazing.”
Women are making their mark across the organisation, shaping the culture, influencing ways of working and delivering outcomes, Interflow Chief Financial Officer Tracy Black said.
From the field to finance, community engagement to marketing, safety and quality control, women at Interflow are redefining what a career in water can be, and who it’s for.
If you can’t see it, you can’t be it
At Interflow, Black said, women are well represented at every level of the organisation. Three of eight executive positions are held by women, and around 25 per cent of all project managers are women, including about 18 per cent of project managers in the field.
That visible female leadership, the very tangible nature of careers for women in a water infrastructure business like Interflow, is an important signifier of future organisational success. It’s also essential for women in the business to see visible examples of where they could progress.
“When I look at companies, I always look at their executive team,” Black, who joined the Interflow executive team in 2022, said.
“For me it’s a major red flag when I see organisations without any women on their executive team, especially when there are positions – like human resources, for example – with a really strong female talent pipeline in the market.
“This is important because companies with a focus on inclusion and diversity are also businesses that are more likely to have a welcoming culture that enables people to be their true selves at work.
“And people with permission to be authentic are happier at work, and therefore also more productive. They enjoy their work, so they do it well.”
Interflow Marketing and Communications Manager Jessica Benten joined the company five years ago. She said the company’s culture of inclusion and values-led leadership, and its visible representation of female leaders, is a vital ingredient in its recipe for success.
“I’d worked in construction and engineering before, but this was my first time in water,” Benten said. “Honestly, I was pleasantly surprised. I’d been in male-dominated industries before, so was prepared for that, but I never really felt it here.
“At Interflow, 38 per cent of leaders are women. One of the key things for me is visible senior women in the industry. And across the water sector there are plenty of female CEOs and managing directors that are really visible and really prominent.”
Success is not a coincidence
Black said that there has been a conscious and well-designed effort to shift the balance at Interflow. That has included diversity and inclusion strategies, regular leadership training programs open to all team members, and a gender pay gap that was measured as minus five per cent.
“The executive group here has a young, modern way of thinking,” Black said. “I really think that matters. In my experience, which is mostly in male-dominated sectors, the old guard has a particular way of working, and the new guard has a different mindset.
“We all hire in our own image, and if an executive team is all male, it’s hard for them to visualise a woman being in that group. But that’s simply not an issue at Interflow.”
Leadership training is a particularly important part of the process. Its availability and openness to all Interflow team members means those who are keen to advance can constantly upskill.
“Learning and development is a huge part of how we do things at Interflow,” Benten said. “We’ve got really robust leadership programs that hit every level of the business. I’ve been lucky to have taken part in three different programs to develop new skills.”
While Interflow is keen to continue to attract the very best water engineers, Benten points out that almost every role imaginable is available in the water space.
“There are marketing roles, as well as people and finance roles,” she said. “There is IT and legal and logistics and working on the tools, you name it.
“Stay open to industries you might not have considered and you could find yourself in a really engaging and important sector, like water, where you can make a real difference to communities and the environment.”
Rodd agrees, saying each day in the water space is unique and deeply satisfying.
“As the conduit between the community and our crews, I’ve learned the technical side over time,” she said.
“But what matters most is listening, adapting and communicating. You need to be a bit of a chameleon, talking to someone in a luxury suburb one day, and someone in a high-needs area the next.”
Part of the attraction of the water sector is the material nature of the results.
“I’ve worked for businesses where you can’t touch the product. But with water, it’s tangible,” she said. You know that it’s essential. You know it matters, and people here feel that. There’s a sense of pride that’s contagious.
“To young women, I’d say go into a sector where you see people like you succeeding. Then lean into your strengths, always be collaborative and curious and, most importantly, always be yourself.”
For more information, visit interflow.com.au
This article was featured in the June edition of Trenchless Australasia.
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