A few good women

Jeff Roberts sits down with Waterfront's only female development employees to discuss the disparity between the numbers of men and women in the Middle East's building industry.

What is your current position?

Lisa Kolinac: At the moment, I look after about 300 hectares in the AED 8 billion Veneto project of the Waterfront development. My responsibilities include planning space for residences, schools, mosques and parks, as well as marina berths and all the relevant marine activity.

Kathy Cusack: I look at some of the detailed masterplanning, but most of the time my responsibility is the 11,000 hectares of land that has yet to be masterplanned at Waterfront.

At the moment, I'm working on broad urban structure layouts, including primary and secondary road networks, city centres, residential areas and water features.

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I'd come from the biggest city in Australia where things were very dense and five hectares was a decent size site and 20 hectares was huge. When I found out that there were 14,000 hectares and some of it was still being reclaimed, it was a bit jarring.

But, it was the sort of project to which one cannot say 'no' because it's such a great career opportunity.

This is a field that often impinges on personal time. How does that affect your family relationships?

Kolinac: I don't have children but if I did, it'd be very difficult to balance. I don't particularly like working long hours so I'd prefer to work more efficiently, thereby allowing for a much shorter day if I can.

But, like everyone, we're quite under-resourced at the moment and I definitely couldn't work the hours I do if I had kids.

Cusack: I think there's always more pressure on the mother. I think we put it on ourselves. There's that element of guilt that you feel when you're not home with the family.

I justify that by telling myself that this period where I'm very committed to work, will allow me to spend more time with my family in later years.

I believe in live/work balance. Although I do bring work home and I do work on weekends and I have missed holidays, I still make sure I'm home at a reasonable hour at least two days per week to ensure I've got time with the family.

Also, I've got live-in help in my home. If we didn't have that help, it would be very difficult.

That helps me to focus on work when I'm at work and focus on family when I'm at home.
 

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