THREE WOMEN WHO SUCCEEDED IN BUSINESS

Evening Star, Issue 22228, 4 January 1936, Page 18

THREE WOMEN WHO SUCCEEDED IN BUSINESS

[From the * Sydney Morning Herald.’] There are always those who will say that success in business is a matter of luck. A little bit of luck put Mrs L. Donaldson, advertising manager of David Jones Limited, Sydney, on the first rung of the ladder of business success. Interest in her ability was first aroused by her winning a fiveguinea prize for a staff advertising competition. She was then a junior in Mr C. L. Jones’s office, and every week he instructed her to write a trial advertisement, until finally she was transferred to the advertising department. Now Mrs Donaldson controls a large staff of artists and copywriters, and has trained boys and girls ? who have since taken executive positions on other staffs. She handles work to the value of many thousands of pounds yearly, conducts all the newspaper advertising of the store, brings out five catalagues a year, hundreds of booklets and pamphlets, and manages the varied business entailed in a publicity department. This, of course, was not by luck alone. Her success is the result of gradual development. She has worked up from the time when she started in the advertising department writing small advertisements, until she rose through the various departments of the office to her present position, and she knows it all so well that it is no worry or strain. This is the ideal way, of learning a job, Mrs Donaldson considers. Though her main interests are in her work. Sirs Donaldson finds time to manage a home (marriage did not mean the sacrifice of her career), surf, play tennis, and garden. The last is an exhaust valve after a heavy week. Two years ago she accompanied her husband on an extensive tour abroad, and her travels were made doubly interesting by the comparison of business methods in advertising offices in other centres of the world. Now in her office large posters from the various countries she visited bring back thrilling memories; but even the thrill of these is not comparable with seeing the police outside the doors of the store busily controlling the crowds who have come to do early shopping in response to a successful advertisement. To the business woman in her that is real satisfaction. Publicity for Australia, A New Zealander wio has made' a great success in business in Sydney is Miss Violet Roche, publicity director of the Hotel Australia, who came to Australia" with some secretarial knowledge, ability in short story and article writing, and a determination to get on. It was through an employment bureau that she obtained her appointment with the Hotel Australia as the stenographer in a secretarial bureau which had just been opened as a service for guests. Miss Roche saw the need of organising a publicity department in the hotel, and approached the management, with the result that this was done and a quarterly magazine which Miss Roche edits, and most of which she writes, ■ was founded. This has been published ever since, and has a picked circulation overseas. It was through this that Miss Roche achieved her great ambition,- that of advertising Australia abroad. Since, she has been invited' to visit all the States through various State departments. and these visits have provided her with the subjects for many articles which through the magazine have been circulated throughout the world. _ When the National Travel Association was formed, with headquarters in Melbourne, Miss Roche was; asked to be the Sydney secretary. She also controls a travel bureau at the hotel. Miss Roche attributes her success in business to her great interest in human nature and people. She thinks there is ample scope for women in'business in Australia, but that all women in business obtain the best results through 00-operation with men, for she considers them as leaders. Femininity and a smart appearance she considers are two of the great factors of a woman’s success. The Development of Art. Several years ago a shop window at King’s Cross created great interest. In it was a message which read: “ If a man can build a better house, preach a better sermon, or make a better mouse trap than his neighbour, though he build his house in the woods, the whole world will make a beaten path to his door.” This and nothing else remained in the window for a week, and the following week Miss Margaret Jaye opened with a display of unusual articles of home decoration. It was not her debut in Sydney. Her career in Australia began when'in the course of a world tour she asked the price of a lampshade in Melbourne and' was offered a job at two guineas a week; Work to her was rather a joke, and she accepted the job as such, cancelling her passage home. That was 10 years ago. An Englishwoman who had spent her life in the big cities of Europe, speaking French, Italian, and German, and, strangely enough, English last, art and culture was the air she breathed, and she could see in Australia wonderful opportunities for the advancement of modern decoration in homes, shops, and offices. She came to Sydney, and with 10 shillings bought ■ packing cases and black crepe, with which she fitted out her first tiny shop at King’s Cross. At first she made, only lampshades, but a contract from a city store to make hundreds of stars for a Christmas display gave her confidence, and she moved to larger premises. Here she engaged a small staff, and now with her present shop, where most modem and unusual window displays invariably cause people to stop and admire, she runs in conjunction a large workroom and employs many people. Some of Sydney’s loveliest homes and some of the most modern shops and offices have been decorated by Miss Jaye. She is a noted importer of exclusive fabrics, ornaments, and glassware—and has a business connection which extends to all the States, Singapore, and Java—and yet she says ske is only just beginning, 1