Australia’s top 10 female start-up entrepreneurs

When it comes to women in business, Australia is lagging behind the rest of the world. Still.

According to figures released today by the World Economic Forum, Australia ranks just 23^rd in the world when it comes to female presence in the boardroom and key industry positions.

A separate survey today of 134 Australian businesswomen, conducted by Telstra, found strong support for an attitude change in the workplace to gender, with 65% claiming that flexible working conditions would improve matters.

Kate McKenzie, group managing director Telstra Innovation, Products & Marketing, says: “While family friendly workplaces and tax deductible childcare remain issues of high importance, it is clear too that for some women greater self-awareness of their abilities is necessary for them to reach the senior levels in management.”

Of course, there is one way to avoid the unfair hurdles faced by women attempting to climb the corporate ladder – start a business yourself.

With this in mind, we’ve compiled a list of the 10 up-and-coming female entrepreneurs who are currently making the biggest waves in the start-up world.

1. Rebekah Campbell

Business: Posse

It’s been quite a year for Rebekah Campbell. In the space of 12 months, she’s launched her business, Posse, launched international versions of the site and even managed to secure Google Maps creator Lars Rasmussen as an advisor and board member.

Posse allows bands to reward fans that boost their profile via social media. Campbell came up with the idea through her frustration in shifting tickets as a band manager.

She now heads one of Australia’s leading tech businesses, as we discovered when we chatted to her in September.

In Rasmussen’s own words, Posse is set to become a “worldwide big deal”.

2. Larissa Robertson

Business: SCO Recruitment

However many times you hear Larissa Robertson’s start-up story, it doesn’t fail to amaze. And it’s a story that plenty of people have now heard, after she was placed second in this year’s StartupSmart Awards and topped the recent SmartCompany Smart50.

Robertson was working as financial controller for recruitment, landscape, property maintenance and training group SES when she put a proposal to the board to split the company in two.

When her idea was rejected, Robertson pressed ahead anyway, nabbing staff and clients of the recruitment division, buying SES’s physical assets, and starting SCO Recruitment, as well as a not-for-profit property management business. It now commands more than $8 million in revenue.

3. Professor Maree Smith

While there’s a good chance that you haven’t heard of Maree Smith, you would be thankful for a number of her innovations that have received heavy backing from investors recently.

As the head of the Pain Research Group at the University of Queensland, Smith has developed a number of products that have had real commercial value.

Aided by the university’s commercialisation arm Uniquest, Smith’s biotech start-up Spinifex got $6.3 million in funding from a group of investors in September. This follows the sharemarket listing of QRxPharma, which Smith co-founded, in 2007. The business debuted with a market cap of $150 million – a record for an Australian biotech company.

4. Nicole Kersh

Company: 4Cabling

While she admits that being a young female in a traditionally male-dominated industry has sometimes raised eyebrows, Nicole Kersh hasn’t let that stop her.

Inspired to start 4Cabling while working at her parent’s electrical cabling company, Kersh set about to supply voice, data, fibre, electrical and server rack equipment to customers – without the hassles associated with pricier and more established players.

With Kersh building the business from the ground up from 2006, 4Cabling is bringing in more than $3 million in revenue a year.

5. Nikki Durkin

Business: 99dresses

One of our recent Future Makers, Nikki Durkin is a serial entrepreneur at the tender age of 20.

She started her first business selling t-shirts via eBay when she was 15. But it wasn’t until her third attempt that she struck gold.

99dresses is a site where users upload their unwanted clothes to sell for a virtual currency called buttons, which they can then spend on other users’ unwanted clothes. Durkin was taken on by sought-after incubator Pollenizer and is tipped for big things.