We invite you to Cicada HealthTech Hub for a fun evening to learn the art of networking (yes, it's a skill that can be learnt!) while connecting with a fabulous mix of women working in the health and medical research ecosystem in Westmead and beyond.

Supercharge your networking skills

We are excited to bring you Julia Palmer, Relationship Strategist and CEO of Relatus, a renowned relationship-building expert with over 20 years of experience helping people forge connections that make a difference.

Networking is an important career skill, particularly for building cross-disciplinary collaborations, finding mentors, finding new job opportunities, and finding a support crew to navigate career hurdles. Even so, most of us find it hard to do. With the rapid expansion of the health campus in Westmead and surrounding suburbs, Cicada HealthTech Hub and Franklin Women thought it was the perfect time to bring together women working across the ecosystem, from basic research to clinical care, health policy, and innovation, to learn the skill of networking the fun way.

An evening of career connections and practical skills

Over the course of the evening, you will hear a bit from Cicada HealthTech Hub and Franklin Women teams on why networking in the health sector matters, especially for women. Julia will then share her top tips on building strategic networks and lead us through some practical activities to help create meaningful connections (without the awkwardness!)

This event is your chance to connect with women working in diverse roles, career levels, and organisations throughout the Westmead Health and Innovation District. As the district grows and welcomes more students, clinicians, entrepreneurs, researchers and beyond, we want to build the foundations for a supportive community where women can empower each other to achieve their goals.

This event will be centred around the unique experiences of people who identify as women. We also welcome allies of any gender who are committed to creating environments that are supportive of people who are typically underrepresented in the workplace and beyond.

Meet the Julia Palmer, Relationship Strategist and CEO of Relatus

Recently described as “A woman of her time”, Julia’s message is important now more than ever. The drastically changing global playing field, technology takeover and organisational shuffle (flattening of hierarchies) is leading to the rise of networks of teams and expanded connectivity. Julia works with all job titles in all industries to help them develop their soft, social and emotional skills to give them the human advantage.

As Chief Executive of Relatus, Julia Palmer and her team offer advisory and capability development to build new generation human capability. Clients from Fortune 500 to small business have experienced greater levels of success both personally and professionally.

About Franklin Women

Franklin Women is Australia’s only professional community dedicated to supporting women working in diverse disciplines, career levels and organisations across the health and medical research ecosystem. Our vision is for a health and medical research sector where women thrive.

About the Cicada HealthTech Hub

Located inside Westmead Health and Innovation District, The Cicada HealthTech Hub will be a home to early stage health companies, a space for collaboration and commercialisation activation, and a landing pad for industry seeking solutions to their research and business challenges. Helping to contribute to the vision of making Westmead a world-class innovation district in health and education. The Cicada HealthTech Hub is proudly supported by NSW Government and is part of the Westmead’s Health & Innovation District.

The district includes 4 major hospitals, 4 world-leading medical research institutes, 2 university campuses and the largest research-intensive pathology service in NSW. By 2036, the number of full-time staff will increase to more than 50,000 and the number of students will expand to more than 10,000. Among the first projects for development is a viral vector advanced manufacturing facility to provide ground-breaking trial therapies for infections, cancer and genetic diseases.

The Cicada Health Tech Hub delivers several new health-focused program alongside Australasia’s leading life science VC firm, Brandon Capital.