Family said I didn't have the aptitude for business. Five children, three degrees, five CEO roles, and a Grand Stevie Award later. Here's how it actually happened. The unedited version.
Not a straight line. Not a single mountain. A series of climbs, each one taller than the last, each one earned in the face of being told I wouldn't get there.
In one night at the Marriott Marquis in New York City, I won the Grand Stevie® Award for Women in Business, plus six more. It was, quite literally, the night that decided the ceiling was higher than they told me.
Sixteen years before that night, I was a registered nurse with two sets of twins in 26 months, doing a Master's at night because I refused to give up on the dream of being a businesswoman. People who loved me told me I didn't have the aptitude. I should focus on being a wife and a mother. I should stay in nursing where I was friendly and caring and safe.
I built Women's Biz Global from a spare room. Coached and mentored thousands of women across five continents over seventeen years. Wrote a book. Then helped other women write theirs. Authoring became publishing became a small house of women's stories that hit #1 on Amazon and collected Literary Titan Gold Awards.
I came home from New York and closed Women's Biz Global. My friends thought I was deranged. But the Grand Stevie wasn't an ending. It was a permission slip. Permission to climb a different mountain. The work was complete. The credential was earned. It was time to do something else.
What I do now, helping CEOs, boards and organisations navigate the AI transition without losing their authenticity and purpose, wouldn't exist without that night. The Stevies didn't make me a different person. They made me believe the person I'd already become was real.
During my tenure as CEO of Glaucoma Australia, we were honoured to secure His Excellency the Hon. David Hurley AC DSC (Retd), Governor-General of Australia, as Patron of the charity. We were received at Government House to mark the relationship.
Pictured (L–R) Kirk Pengilly (Glaucoma Australia Ambassador · co-founder, INXS) · His Excellency the Hon. David Hurley AC DSC (Retd), Governor-General of Australia · Annie Gibbins (CEO, Glaucoma Australia) · Dr Simon Skalicky (Royal Victorian Eye and Ear Hospital · University of Melbourne)
Family said I didn't have the aptitude for business. They strongly encouraged me to become a nurse because I was friendly and caring. So that's what I did. I trained as a Registered Nurse at the University of Technology Sydney, graduated in 1988, and started working at Royal North Shore Hospital. While I did enjoy nursing, I always quietly wished I could have been a businesswoman.
I married my childhood sweetheart James Gibbins in 1987. We're still happily married today. Two sets of twins arrived 26 months apart. Five children in total. A Registered Nurse qualification. And absolutely no business pedigree.
In 1997 I became a Nursing Teacher at TAFE. Got a Certificate IV in Workplace Assessment and Training. Then a Graduate Diploma of Adult Education. Then became Head Teacher of Nursing. I loved teaching. But the dream of becoming a businesswoman didn't go away. With five kids and no time or money for an MBA, I did a Master's of Adult Education instead, partly because I hoped it would get me into TAFE management, partly because it gave me a break from the kids on study nights.
In 2008, the Australian Orthopaedic Association advertised for a National Education Manager. They wanted a Registered Nurse with a Master's of Education to manage their surgical training program. Everyone I knew said I wouldn't get the job. I got it. I stayed three years. I learned everything I could from the surgeons I worked with: about clinical excellence, about national programmes, about the kind of manager I wanted to become.
In 2011, three years in, I saw a CEO role advertised at the Australasian Society for Ultrasound in Medicine. They wanted a Health Educationist who could become a CEO. I was so excited about this opportunity. Everyone I knew said I wouldn't get that one either. I got it. I stayed five years.
I worked for radiologists, obstetricians, emergency doctors and sonographers. Managed membership, CPD, education, conferences and events, the journal, new website builds. Helped them become a Registered Training Organisation. That Master's came in handy. I hosted a World Congress. I grew my leadership style to be more globally aware, flexible, agile. I sometimes wonder where I'd be today if I'd been born in a different era and done an MBA straight out of school.
In 2006, me being hyperactive overachieving me, I set up Women's Biz Global to coach and mentor women globally: to rise above other people's expectations and chase their own dreams. As my CEO career grew, more and more women asked me the obvious question: "How did YOU become a CEO?" As if I'd been lucky or something. I'd had the most ridiculous journey to C-Suite. If I could do it, others could too. They just needed a guide and a cheerleader. Over seventeen years I coached and mentored thousands of women across Australia, the UK, the US, Asia and beyond.
Then I wrote a book. Then I helped other women write theirs. Authoring became publishing. A small house of women's stories that hit #1 on Amazon multiple times and collected three Literary Titan Gold Awards. Twenty titles published or forthcoming. Becoming Annie: The Biography of a Curious Woman, written about my life by author Dawn Bates, sits on my own bookshelf. That one was strange and lovely. Sometimes the best way to help a woman rise is to put her name on a cover.
Sixteen years after the first "you can't," I stood on a stage in New York and won a Grand Stevie Award plus six others for Women in Business, for the body of work I'd built through Women's Biz Global. It felt like winning the Oscars.
Then I came home and closed Women's Biz Global. My friends thought I was deranged. But I wanted another mountain to climb. I love change. I love innovation. I love learning, growth, development. It's probably why I was an early adopter of AI. A technology that makes us more productive while producing better outcomes is a golden recipe for me.
Across 15+ years I've held five CEO roles: ASUM, the Australian Institute of Ultrasound, Glaucoma Australia, Women's Biz Global, and now the Australian Traditional Medicine Society. I host a national TV show on Ticker News. I co-founded two colleges with James. I'm Nanna to three granddaughters. I'm still happily married to him after nearly four decades.
I became the leader people said I could never become. The results, the energy, the heart. That's the truth. Everything I teach now is everything I wish someone had taught me earlier, about leadership, about AI, about how organisations actually transform.
Five CEO tenures across Australia's healthcare and education sectors. Two national colleges co-founded with my husband. Three degrees earned while raising five children. The structural transformations behind every credential.
Awards, magazine covers, and international honours, accumulated across a career built on the work, not the chase.
Long-form conversations with leaders doing the work. My new podcast, Lead with Annie, launches on Tuesday 2 February 2027. Every earlier interview stays free to watch on YouTube.
For leaders who want their organisations to be well governed, genuinely useful and built to last. Practical, evidence-based episodes with the people doing the work.
My national TV show on Ticker News, Australia's independent business news network. On-air interviews with the women running companies, boards, peak bodies and movements in Australia and around the world.
Hundreds of earlier conversations from the Women's Biz Podcast and AI with Heart. Still useful, still free.
I'm 58 years old. Still happily married to James, my childhood sweetheart from before any of this started. Nanna to three gorgeous granddaughters who keep me grounded in what actually matters.
I'm a lover of adventure travel and animals. I take leadership lessons from the road. The best ones come from being somewhere unfamiliar, doing something I haven't done before, watching how other cultures run their organisations and their families.
I read constantly. I write almost as much. I learn from everyone I meet. And I keep climbing the next mountain, because the win isn't the finish line. The next thing is always the point.
If you're looking for permission to stop apologising for the path that brought you here, consider this it.
Built from 15+ years inside Australia's peak bodies and not-for-profits, and kept up to date at Nexus Leadership.
My work runs across two connected paths. If you want me on a stage, that's keynotes and MC work. If you're a board, a founder, a practice owner, or a leadership team wanting the deeper work (governance, strategy, AI implementation and executive education), that's Nexus Leadership. Pick the door that fits where you are.