At the age of 24 I married into a fourth generation farming family in the South East of SA. I instantly loved the landscape and community that was my new home, but it took time to acclimatise. In that time I became inspired and committed to understanding the dynamics around family and the impact of these relationships on the long term sustainability of family business.

With a focus on the unspoken mother and daughter-in -law relationship, I could develop research that would unearth the challenges and positives of the family business dynamic. The goal was to provide awareness around how to drive successful family business and foster thriving family relationships for all.

The project, Working Her Out was acknowledged by the Agrifutures Rural Women’s Award and I was named South Australian Rural Woman of the year in 2007. I then had the honour of being the runner up for the Australian award. The bursary supported the project through the facilitation of family business workshops across South Australia and into the WA Wheat belt.  Contributions of personal stories, poetry and interviews were received nationally.

This is how I came to meet or hear from all of you, how generous you were, sharing your personal stories.

Although there were many great outcomes from the project, I was unable due to personal circumstances to publish the proposed Working Her Out book.

However, through collaboration with Social scientist Karen Cosgrove, an academic research paper was developed. Using your contributions we gained insight into the importance of integrated succession planning in family business.

The paper was taken overseas through the interdisciplinary Social Science conference in Prato, Italy, whereby it received positive feedback and a shared empathy for what appeared to be an international issue.