Across Australia’s cleaning and facilities management sector, a quiet transformation is underway, with women moving from operational roles into senior leadership positions, reshaping the way decisions are made and bringing frontline realities to boardrooms that have long been disconnected from the work on the ground.
The journey from mop to management is more than a career progression; it is a recalibration of leadership itself, anchored in the lived experience of performing physically demanding, detail-oriented and often undervalued work. From the cleaning of hospitals and offices to overseeing multimillion-dollar contracts, these women demonstrate that leadership grounded in operational expertise fosters credibility, trust and performance in ways textbooks and training alone cannot.
“I was raised by women who led by example, and I learned early that work is about standards, not shortcuts,” Cleanfocus COO Niki Trimboli says. “ My first and most defining influence was my yiayia [grandmother], a woman with high expectations of herself, still scrubbing the internals of her wheelie bins at 80. Those early observations shaped my respect for hands-on work and setting the standard without needing to say it. It’s a reminder that long before job titles, frontline experience can start on the homefront.”
Operational credibility as a leadership foundation
Leadership in cleaning and facilities services is most effective when it is informed by the realities of frontline work, as Crest Clean general manager training, safety and wellbeing Liezl Foxcroft explains through her career trajectory from entry-level roles to executive leadership. Her hands-on experience, whether issuing uniforms, conducting waste audits or cleaning alongside staff, has allowed her to understand systemic inefficiencies and operational challenges that remain invisible from office desks. “Policies, procedures and strategies succeed when they reflect the realities of work as done, not aspirational visions of work as imagined,” she observes, emphasising that credibility is earned by engagement, not merely by title.
Katja Stravs, South Australia state manager at Central Cleaning Supplies, echoes this view, noting that frontline immersion provided the confidence and clarity for her to lead effectively: “Starting again on the frontline gave me real credibility. I wasn’t leading from assumptions. I was leading from reality.” The operational knowledge these women carry equips them to design systems that are practical, fair and sustainable, ensuring both client satisfaction and workforce wellbeing.
Tennant head of operations Lisa Atherton reinforces that performance is grounded in the intersection of operational capability and commercial reality, where understanding how work is executed on the ground enables leaders to set achievable goals, avoid unrealistic expectations and build trust with both clients and teams. This perspective reframes operational experience as more than a mere stepping stone to leadership and more as a strategic asset that strengthens decision-making at all levels of the organisation.
Penny Tralau, founder and managing director of Mould Rescue, adds that operational experience also shapes the standards leaders set: “When you’ve worked in confined spaces, worn PPE [personal protective equipment] for hours and dealt with real-world time pressures, you quickly learn the difference between what looks good on paper and what is actually achievable, safe and effective on-site,” she says. Through these individual perspectives, one clear principle emerges: operational credibility is the foundation upon which sustainable, high-performing leadership is built.
Empathy, resilience and human-centred leadership
Beyond practical knowledge, frontline experience instils empathy, resilience and a nuanced understanding of team dynamics that women bring into leadership roles. Hannah Mills, owner of Luna Sage Professional Cleaning, observes that the physical and emotional rigour of operational work shapes leaders who prioritise care, accountability and support: “Operations is where you learn compassion, humility and what hard work really looks like. Those lessons shape leaders who listen, understand their teams and value people over processes.”
Real Clean founder and director Cleide Oliveira highlights the formative role of early work while navigating language barriers and cultural adaptation. “Being in that position gave me deep empathy for others and showed me the importance of consistency, responsibility and leading by example,” she says. These experiences create leaders who can recognise and respond to subtle risks, anticipate staff needs, and maintain morale under pressure, qualities that are often overlooked in conventional leadership models, but are critical in human-intensive industries such as cleaning.
This combination of empathy and resilience allows women to model leadership that balances accountability with care, a theme business coach and mentor Kathryn Groening underscores through her observations of grounded leaders.
She says, “Successful cleaning and FM organisations are built on respect for operational expertise, clear and consistent standards and leadership that genuinely understands the daily pressures faced by site teams.”
By recognising the physical and psychological challenges inherent in service roles, women leaders can design processes and structures that reduce burnout, prevent workplace incidents and improve workforce retention, translating frontline experience into organisational stability.
Translating operational insight into strategic impact
The move from frontline roles to strategic leadership positions equips women to bridge the gap between operational realities and business outcomes, particularly in client-facing, compliance-heavy environments. Liezl Foxcroft’s approach to training franchisees at the Master Cleaners Training Institute demonstrates that operational knowledge informs not only internal standards but also client-facing excellence: programs are designed around real-world application, not abstract theory.
Similarly, Central Cleaning Supplies’ Katja Stravs describes how frontline experience reshapes decision-making around contracts, resourcing and efficiency: “True efficiency isn’t about underquoting to win a contract. It’s about delivering a service that is sustainable for both the client and the workforce.” In her view, leaders with this perspective can justify operational requirements to clients while negotiating realistic scopes and implementing systems that balance cost, quality and safety.
Candice Cooke, head of marketing communications at Kärcher, extends this discussion into the sustainability and ESG domain, noting that operational insight enables businesses to align resource efficiency with staff wellbeing and financial performance. “A healthier, more reliable workforce is the ultimate competitive advantage,” she says. “It’s about moving the conversation with clients from ‘how much does it cost to clean’ to ‘how much value does a healthy building create’.”
The knowledge and lived experience of this cohort of dedicated women proves that leadership informed by frontline experience enables women to make strategic choices that consider human, financial and environmental dimensions simultaneously.
Atherton summarises: “Operational realities create the foundation for trust, both internally and externally by aligning customer expectations with what teams can realistically deliver. I empower people to perform confidently.”
Mentorship and empowering the next generation
A defining characteristic of women rising from frontline roles is their commitment to mentoring and supporting others to follow similar paths. Mould Rescue’s Tralau emphasises the importance of recognising and building confidence in women who may underestimate themselves despite technical skill and reliability, while Oliveira encourages persistence, self-belief and courage, noting, “Where you start does not define where you can go… doors do open, even when it doesn’t feel that way at the beginning.”
Mills adds that operational experience equips women to cultivate workplaces rooted in respect, empathy and human connection, fostering environments where people can thrive rather than simply survive.
Groening observes that these leadership qualities extend beyond internal teams to industry-wide impact, reinforcing standards, safety practices and culture through advisory work and association engagement. Women who rise through operational pathways bring not only practical insight but also a broader vision for how cleaning and FM organisations can drive positive social outcomes, workforce stability and sustainable growth. This dual focus – on people and performance – illustrates the transformative potential of leaders whose authority is grounded in lived experience rather than title alone.
Leadership grounded in lived experience
As these examples demonstrate, the rise of women from frontline cleaning roles into leadership positions is redefining what it means to lead in a service-intensive industry. Operational knowledge provides credibility, empathy nurtures human-centred decision-making, and experience-informed strategy ensures both commercial and workforce sustainability.
From airport contracts to boutique cleaning businesses, the stories of this strong female cohort reveal that leadership anchored in the realities of work on the ground drives results while cultivating trust, and enables organisations to perform at scale while remaining deeply connected to the people who make that performance possible.
In a sector where the stakes range from hygiene to safety, compliance to client reputation, the lesson is clear: the most effective leaders are those who have walked the floors, handled the tools, faced the fatigue and witnessed the challenges first-hand. By valuing operational experience as a core asset, the cleaning and facilities management industry can harness a wave of leaders who are resilient and empathetic, equipped to shape its future with authority, care and a clear vision of what’s to come.
