From graduates to leaders: Igniting your passion

In an ever-changing job market, the first step in your career can be crucial. For Kate Oswald and Melanie Treloar, the award-winning ANZ graduate program provided the perfect launchpad to kickstart their professional journeys.

Kate Oswald, Head of Climate Risk, began her ANZ journey as a Risk Graduate in 2008. The program allowed her to explore different banking areas, that aligned with her degree and values.

Her ANZ journey ultimately led her to her current role where she can live out her passion for Climate Risk and sustainability.

Similarly, Melanie Treloar started in 2002 as a Human Resources Graduate, thriving in roles across Human Resources, Retail Banking and Technology over two decades. She's now the General Manager of Group Capabilities and Transition at ANZ, a people and commercially focused role aligning core capabilities with the Bank’s strategic objectives.

For Kate and Melanie, they were influenced by the strong culture, diverse opportunities, and supportive environment the ANZ Graduate Program provided, which is why they continue to be strong advocates for this program.

Here we speak to Kate and Melanie about their paths from graduates to their current roles and hear how the ANZ graduate program contributed to their success.

Kate Oswald: Journey into Climate Risk

Kate Oswald, joined ANZ’s Risk Graduate program in 2008, having completed a Bachelor of Commerce / Bachelor of Science majoring in Finance and Mathematics.

After spending two years living and working overseas during university, Kate was eager to join a global bank with a graduate program that allowed her to explore different areas of banking that aligned with her degree.

“Cultural fit was particularly important to me as I was relocating interstate to Melbourne. ANZ stood out for its strong culture and highly regarded graduate program” says Kate.

Kate’s career path leading to her current role as Head of Climate Risk has not been linear. The graduate program gave her an opportunity to learn about different areas of risk, which served as an important foundation for her career.

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“At ANZ, I have been supported to move roles every few years to seek out new challenges, see different perspectives and feed my intellectual curiosity. 

Most of my career has been very customer centric, working in different roles in Institutional Banking in different sectors and across the credit value chain, covering relationship management, research and analysis and credit risk. I also spent a few years focused on strategic transformation and simplification in our Group Wholesale Credit function.” 

Having moved into the Climate Risk space around three years ago, Kate was appointed as the Head of Climate Risk in 2023, combining an area she is personally passionate about, along with the desire to make positive change.

“In this role, I get to work with great people across different teams to set and execute on our strategic priorities and integrate climate risk into our risk management framework. I genuinely believe the work I am doing is making a difference to our future.”

Speaking to the elements of the program that were particularly helpful for Kate, she says being challenged was a strong factor that led to growth.

“I recently heard someone say that confidence is found on the other side of doing something that challenges you, which really resonated with me. The graduate program provided a safe environment for me to push myself beyond my comfort zone and grow personally and professionally.”

Melanie Treloar: Building out a broad set of skills

Melanie joined the Graduate program in 2002, having completed a Bachelor of Business Administration, majoring in Human Resources.

In addition to ANZ being one of  the top graduate program in the country, Melanie was particularly drawn to the bank's focus on the community and its role in supporting customers' financial wellbeing.

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She didn't initially set out with a defined aspiration to work in the Strategy function. However, she did intentionally build a broad set of skills, allowing her to step into various roles.

Post the grad program, Melanie decided she needed to understand a bit more about how the bank worked, so moved from HR to the retail business, working with frontline teams to improve the home loan customer experience.

The following two decades has seen Melanie work on major technology programs and hold various HR Partnering and enterprise leadership roles leading large global teams. 

“ANZ operates in a constantly changing and dynamic context which has made all of my roles both challenging and rewarding!”

“The rotations of the Graduate program were particularly instrumental in experiencing different parts of ANZ before moving into a permanent role. These rotations ignited a curiosity in me to think more broadly about a career at the bank and I sought out roles that helped me better understand our products, services, and customers.”

Reflecting on her impressive tenure of 23 years, Melanie says the breadth of experiences and roles available in an organisation like ANZ and the ability to move across disciplines to broaden out her professional toolkit has been paramount.

“Most importantly, I have continued to connect with the purpose and values of the organisation and have had the opportunity to work for great leaders and lead awesome teams.

ANZ has supported my professional aspirations and importantly, the bank has been hugely supportive of me at each phase of my life, with lots of different flexible working options and benefits as I’ve grown my family.”

Nimaya Kodikara is Content Coordinator at ANZ.