Trailblazing businesswoman and philanthropist Susan ‘The Footy Lady’ Alberti AC was guest speaker at the annual Moonee Valley Women In Business lunch in March.
Trailblazing businesswoman and philanthropist Susan ‘The Footy Lady’ Alberti AC was guest speaker at the annual Moonee Valley Women In Business lunch in March.
The very definition of the word ‘resilience’ famed Western Bulldogs supporter, patron and Vice President, Alberti, has endured more than her fair share of tragedy during her 70 years.
Alberti’s husband, successful construction and development business owner Angelo Alberti, was killed in a road accident in Melbourne in 1995.
Then, in 2001, her daughter Danielle died in her arms on a flight from New York to Melbourne after suffering a heart attack due to type 1 diabetes-related kidney failure.
Rather than allowing the challenges she’s experienced to define her, Alberti explained to lunch attendees how she has used them to propel her to achieve success in the business world, and in her charitable pursuits.
Thrown into the deep end in the family business following Angelo’s death, and with 400-plus employees turning to her for leadership and reassurance that their jobs were secure, Alberti went back to school and qualified as Australia’s first female registered builder.
She worked 16-hour days to keep the business running for more than 12 years, and when she wound the business down she ensured her employees had time to find themselves alternative employment.
Following Danielle’s death aged 32, Susan has made it her mission to help find a cure for type 1 diabetes saying: “My motto is to give back no matter what. My parents taught me that from a young age.”
Setting up the Susan Alberti Medical Research Foundation Alberti, who believes health is everything, has since has raised tens of millions of dollars for type 1 diabetes research in hope of one day unlocking a cure.
Alberti, who counts Mary Tyler Moore among her great mentors, says she naturally gravitates to “men and women I feels are smarter than me, and absorb as much knowledge from them as I can.”
Her message to Moonee Valley Women In Business lunch attendees was to “never give up".
“I’ve had plenty of doors slammed in my face, but I’ve never taken ‘no’ for an answer,” she said.