You want Pearl Harbour with that?

Beverley Head
Friday, 17 February 2012 12:58

When Alison Rowe went for her first job on civvy street after leaving the Navy, she was asked whether - as a woman - she'd be able to handle driving a government car. Her polite, but firm response, was that she'd parked a warship in Pearl Harbour and felt she could manage a car.

Today as the global executive director for sustainability at Fujitsu Rowe prefers public transport - but she has the same can-do attitude, with a steely determination that whatever preconceptions others might hold, she can bring about change both within Fujitsu itself and for its clients. Asked why businesses should be investing in sustainability at a time when other economic issues may seem more pressing in the current global environment, Rowe is clear. 'If you don't have a sustainability plan you don't have a business plan.'

Although she's a committed greenie, buys clean energy at home, takes public transport, and makes one month a year a fly-free zone (the interview for this profile was conducted using telepresence) Rowe was as pleased as punch when Rod Vawdrey, the head of Fujitsu's global business and Rowe's boss asked recently 'Alison - you're not a greenie are you?'

It signalled that Fujitsu's commitment to sustainability was being fuelled not by slavish idealism, but economics. She is a greenie though - and even checked out her now-husband's attitude to climate change when they were dating. He clearly passed the test.

Rowe traces her interest in communities and the environment to her childhood in country Victoria, following her schoolteacher father around a series of country towns where summers were spent under backyard sprinklers.

Rowe is the oldest of three girls. Her father was a teacher and mother worked part time. Her career aspirations at the time were driven by country convention that girls would become hairdressers, teachers or nurses.

Enter Richard Gere.

An Officer and a Gentleman was a hit at the box office in Rowe's teenage years. 'I really liked the uniforms, so decided I wanted to join the Navy,' she says. While she never met a Richard Gere to sweep her off her feet, Rowe did join the Navy at 18 and spent seven and a half years originally in logistics, but later serving as a naval policewoman and what she describes as a 'specialist driver' on a frigate as it came back from the first Gulf War.