Podcast transcript: EY Change Happens Podcast – Donna Hay

Intro: Change happens how we respond to change can make or break us and our careers. Join us for an intimate insight into how influential and authentic people lead through change. The good, the bad, and everything in between because whether we like it or not, change happens.

Jenelle: Hi, I’m Jenelle McMaster and welcome to Season Two of the Change Happens podcast where we continue to conversations with influential leaders on leading through change and the lesson learned along the way. Today I’ve asked world renowned food creator and publisher Donna Hay to join us to share with us her change journey as a ground breaker in the food publishing and beyond. Donna Hay is Australia’s leading food editor and a best selling cookbook author. Throughout her career, she has released a staggering 29 award winning cookbooks, each featuring her style driven approach to cooking and minimalist aesthetic. Ever the high achiever, she even put out a book in October 2020 during Covid called “Every day fresh meals in minutes”. From books to TV, with her series screening in over 17 countries, not to mention her own tableware and kitchenware ranges and supermarket best selling home baking product lines, Donna has well and truly cemented her name as Australia’s first lady of cooking. Now when Donna and I first spoke a few weeks ago, she said “oh I worry when speaking to business” and I asked her why she said that and she said “oh you all have a playbook, I don’t have a playbook, I’m always throwing the rules out the window”. Now not only did that make me want to interview her more, it also made me chuckle a bit because if there’s one thing I’m constantly saying in my own organisation is that we need to constantly think about how we reinvent, how we challenge the norms, stay curious, find new ways to looking at and solving things. So you know, I reckon we have plenty here to talk about and learn from Donna. So Donna, welcome.

Donna: Thanks Jenelle.

Jenelle: [laugh] I don’t know whether that made you feel a bit squeamish with the playbook comment but it did … that was the reaction I had. That’s all the more reason to chat.

Donna: Oh goodness. I don’t know the amount of times people have asked me what my one year, three year and five year plan is and I’ve just looked at them blankly … boy oh boy.

Jenelle: I’m feeling quite relieved that that’s not one of my questions [laugh] but where I do want to start is probably just in the context that we have all been finding ourselves in over the past year and that’s, you know, in Covid. Certainly Covid lockdowns have seen greater numbers of people, particularly families, take an interest in cooking at home. How has Covid changed your world and what sorts of things have you done in response to the circumstances that you found yourself in.

Donna: Wow! Lets go with the big question first because everything changed. My entire world changed. It was crazy. I mean we had the diehard DH fans really connecting with us and then we had this other group of people that we like to call now “the zero to sour dough tribe” who …

Jenelle: That’s definitely got its prospect of a next book title I reckon, from zero to sour dough.

Donna: [laugh] I think it does. So the zero to sour doughs finding themselves at home, not ordering uber eats, not going out for takeaway, they just really really embraced cooking for the first time and for me in my business, that was the silver lining, the golden opportunity to support this new tribe but they had taken an entire step out of the game and that’s the zero to sour dough was just incredible. They just left behind all the basics and they were just doing stuff that they wanted to tackle and you know, tackling huge recipes for the first time with limited skill base. We did a couple of things. I did of course do some corporate zoom cooking classes which were … some of them were really small and really intimate and it was the first time I’d been seriously connected with people in their kitchens and you know that’s quite an experience. For someone who runs a brand that does big series network stuff with everything from wardrobe to hair and makeup to a director telling you not to speak this way or make that mannerism or you know, highly polished, highly clipped series to going live. Here it is.

Jenelle: Yeah, what was that like to find yourself … I mean there’s an unbelievable level of intimacy that comes from being kind of right inside people’s kitchens, in their homes. What did that feel like for you.

Donna: Ultimately it was a little scary, I had to get over myself pretty quickly. I didn’t, you know, I bought a makeup mirror online and zhooshing myself up as best I could and I was just worried about people’s expectations I guess, coming from highly scripted world but I do have a good sense of humour and I’m quick witted so I just thought well if all fails, just make a joke of it. I guess I wasn’t ready for the emotional connection that was little kids holding frypans of food up to their dad’s laptops and it was pretty … it was pretty rough going for me. I had to leave the zoom screen with more than a few times, you know, parents in tears, like thank you so much and my goodness we’ve been, you know, been tearing our hair out with what to do and stay occupied, this has been amazing and it was really … it was full on. I was wasn’t ready for it, to be honest.

Jenelle: It makes me … it makes me think about shows like MasterChef and My Kitchen Rules and often, you know, the judge would ask the question of the contestant, you know, what does food mean to you and they inevitably … I know they changed the music in the background but they also … people inevitably end up crying and I always was like, “why are people crying when they’re talking about food” but it clearly … it’s a massive emotional connection between food and family and what do you put that down to. Why is there such a strong visceral and emotional connection. Like you’ve … I can hear it in your voice when you think about children holding up their frypan to camera. What is it about food that brings that about.

Donna: Well I kind of didn’t dig deep into this myself until a girl stopped me in the Woolworths carpark and she was in tears. We’re in the height of Covid and when you look at it, food is connected to so many family memories and she stopped me to tell me that they had been making this cake and it was her son’s christening and they’d made it on so many occasions she rattled off and so many different recipes of mine and it was really connected to their family history and their occasions, whether it was christening or weddings and so I, as a person, was deeply [laugh] you know, ingrained in their family history which is extremely humbling and is not something that I’ve really considered before Covid stopped me in my tracks and made me think about my business in that way.

Jenelle: What about that, do you think you will take forward. Is there anything you will take forward or is it circumstance or is it now that’s fundamentally shifted the gears with which I now look at my business and operate it.

Donna: No its definitely shifted the business. Its kind of was the wake up call I needed firstly, to be able to just jump on and do those zooms and get over my highly scripted self. Of what I’d been taught was the right thing to do on camera. So that’s been great and something I’ll definitely take forward. Its so much more fun and its more challenging for me and more entertaining definitely and then, just having those people and knowing how connected you are in their lives, understanding what … I know this sounds really MasterChef but what journey you can take them on and where … you know, what you can add to their lives, whether it’s a touch of wellness or you know, which I’m really into and making sure that recipes are well rounded. Sure, there’s room for treats anytime but what are we eating Monday to Friday, you know, how can I make your lives better, where are we going with this. We’ve had a, you know, we’re all a bit post traumatic, so how can we comfort everybody, make them well and weave all those things in together, whether it’s the environment and all sorts of things that foods impact on our worlds.

Jenelle: Such an interesting set of experiences and I think, you know, we’ve just mentioned MasterChef and other programmes like that even prior to Covid but certainly exacerbated by Covid. What I really felt was what we saw was a real elevation of that culinary world. You brought that “back of house” to the “front of house”, you know, its demystified a lot of things, you know, you talked about people wanting to go straight to the sour dough. Myself using words like “oh well maybe I’ll just make a croquembouche”. Okay I’ve never ever thought that I could make a croquembouche but certainly seem to simultaneously make things accessible and aspirational at the same time, you know. So you wanted to push harder and harder on that. What have … what does that mean for someone like you who has been doing the cooking at home mantra for decades now, its all kind of come to the fore, circumstances have made this be something that we all really want. Does that now mean kind of this next … another wave of, I don’t know, a renewal to what you do. Is there … are you sort of like “yes, this is what I’ve been banging on for years about” or is it like “okay, this now another step change”.

Donna: I mean, it’s a bit of both. I mean having that whole new tribe come over that any other time I would never had had the opportunity to just grab this whole new group of people but I think the overarching thing of being a recipe writer and an editor for home cooks is the rules applies. We’re still out of time and we still don’t love shopping. You know, the same rules apply but as you said, the MasterChef effect of “but I want to cook restaurant food at home but I’ll only give you 20 minutes of my time”. You know, [laugh] and there’s one of me, not ten staff. You know they’re all the rules that I have to play by and it does get harder and harder as people’s expectations rise. So yeah, I think its going to be an interesting year for me, a tough year as people’s expectations continue to grow but you know, one I’m always happy to take on. I guess people want their food to look exactly like it does in the pictures that I create as well. You know, they’re not happy, no I can’t tell you how many text messages I get now that I have people who are still working from home or have found a new love of cooking. I cook this of yours, doesn’t look exactly like the picture, tastes really yum. Yeah and I’m like, “you know what, that’s kind of … good on you, not really the point” but yeah, really obsessed with making it look like the picture.

Jenelle: You talked about, you know, expectations lifting, there are still rules that are kind of binding what we can do. This is a podcast about change, whether its how you’ve dealt with changes that happened to you or whether you’re driving the change itself. Is there something that you are seeking to change in broader society when it comes to food or cooking or lifestyle.

Donna: Yes, well I am the lover of change and as the leader of my little gang, I have to remind myself that not everyone loves change as fast as I do and general society even less so. So my thing that I practice at home is really more of a wellness attitude towards food, that encompasses everything from the environment to what kind of nutrients can I add together to make sure that your dinner is actually doing good for you as well because without getting on another tangent, food can be our medicine so having a balanced diet and understanding what that is. I don’t sprig on about it but in the background I really really try and have balanced recipes that are actually doing good for people and combining things that work together like vitamin A works really well with … I’m really going to bore you now …

Jenelle: Oh no, educate me [laugh].

Donna: … [laugh] there’s just certain groups of foods that work better together as far as vitamin absorption and things like that and in a society where we are too quick to go for a synthetic version of vitamins and minerals. You know, cooking fresh food, a really simple recipe is really where I’m heading and where my passion lies. How we can translate that over environmental issues and all sorts of things, we are, you know, food is touching all sorts of things in the community.

Jenelle: When you think about changes in the industry, whether its indigenous food, balanced nutritious meals, sustainable foods, farm to plate, vegan etc, how ready do you think, we as consumers are to embrace that kind of … those kind of changes.

Donna: Well there’s been a lot of people embrace meat free Monday and vegan [13.22] or whatever those kind of months that people are doing but [laugh] and you know, and the farm to plate tells a really good story. It gives people a really great appreciation of where their food comes but I still think we’ve got a really long way to go and until we have people in power that take climate change seriously, it does impact food and what we eat, yeah, we’re kind of totally behind the eight ball but we need some big changes. Until I can push through what I do well, so I’m kind of … I feel like I’m just in a holding pattern, like a 747 in the sky, just holding, holding till something else changes and when I travel … I used to travel overseas, you can just see countries like Germany that are just so far ahead of us as far as understanding what the food we eat, the impact it makes on our bodies and our planet. So yeah, we’re a little bit behind the eight ball. I do feel like I’m in a holding pattern until attitudes change but its an exciting change and one that can be super delicious and really easy to add into your lifestyle.

Jenelle: Where does your … you said you loved change, where does that love of change come from.

Donna: I think it comes from my creative background, I’m from publishing. You know as soon as you develop a recipe, its done, you photograph it and you’ve got to move on. So it teaches you from a really young age to change. You’re only as good as your last magazine cover. You’re only as good as last months sales. Its … you get use to change really quickly.

Jenelle: Now talking about moments of opportunity and huge change all rolled up into one, there was a point in your life when you got an offer to work for Martha Stewart and at the same time you got an offer to launch your own magazine, The Donna Hay Magazine. Tell me about that moment, you know, I can imagine feeling like quite the sliding doors moment in hindsight, how did you make that decision, what did you weigh up, how did you land the way that you did.

Donna: There was two … only two really big factors that I kind of considered. One was the ability to do my job properly in New York and how easy it is to do my job in Sydney because of our fresh produce and our availability and the beautiful life here. Its just, you know, our produce is second to none. I really feel like I’m cheating when I’m doing my job here in Australia rather than overseas and then I just went back to the reason why I had given up all of my previous magazine gigs, my freelance job at Murray Claire, at Murray Claire lifestyle. Why I had kind of pulled up stumps and why I was looking for a new thing and that was that I wanted to be really autonomous. I really wanted to own it so I just thought that stepping into Martha’s world, as much as I loved and admired her and was totally in awe of her, it wasn’t really on my game plan.

Jenelle: I’m interested in that, you know, I’ve heard you describe yourself growing up as shy. Given that, I’m wondering why you then choose to set up your business with your name and face as the brand. So at the forefront of the brand rather than calling it something else and maybe not being as synonymous with it. Was that a conscious decision and what have been the pros and cons of going with that path.

Donna: [laugh] oh if I tell you the real story.

Jenelle: You have to tell me the real story.

Donna: Oh it’s so bad.

Jenelle: No no no, we love that stuff.

Donna: It just goes to where my creative brain switches to. So I was given seven and a half weeks to get a magazine … a new staff together, a magazine off to deadline, off to print. Seven and a half weeks is nothing. So I had some mock-ups and it was called Seasons by Donna Hay. Tiny tiny by Donna Hay and I had my head down. I had a lot to prove. There was another magazine launching at exactly the same time in Australia which was Delicious, like a week apart from me and I was just concentrating on what I do best. You know, developing the mag that I always wanted and I remember going to a meeting showing the cover mock-ups and then there being some discussions of it being called Donna Hay and I said “I really don’t have time to sit here and argue this point” …

Jenelle: [laugh] okay.

Donna: … I don’t have a magazine yet and I am so close to print and I don’t think it should be called Donna Hay, I think its ridiculous. Now like people know you, they love you, it will be fine and I guess in my naivety, I was so obsessed with having the most amazing magazine, I just left the meeting and didn’t think more of it until I was coming home in a particularly stinky cab after the mag had launched and I saw a poster in a bus stop and I just thought “what have you done” and I was absolutely devastated. I thought who calls the magazine after themselves. Like who are … oh my god, I was so deeply embarrassed, I was devastated, I was in tears. I just couldn’t believe it. It was beautiful on the inside but why had I let that slip through. Why did I not consider that.

Jenelle: Okay. So an accidental thing, but then it kept going and then it spun off into TV series etc.

Donna: It kept going.

Jenelle: So was there any time, you’re like “okay now that I’ve got a bit more time than seven and a half weeks to think this through, maybe I’ll change it” or you were like “oh this happens to be …

Donna: I had the luxury of hiding behind the brand name for quite a few years, quite a few years which was great and then there came a point in the business where it wasn’t growing as fast as I loved and so yeah, then I jumped into TV land and then it became a little bit more about me rather than what I do. So that is a huge shift.

Jenelle: And what was that like. Tell me about it when it became about you, coming back especially to that point where maybe your natural inclination is towards shyness and the other side of things. Was that … what was that experience like.

Donna: Horrifying. I remember just being … I didn’t know I smiled through my whole first series. I think I was just so shy and worried and self-conscious. It was hard, even to this day though, someone will stop me and even grab my arm while I’m doing my supermarket shopping and I jump back looking like they are going to steal my handbag, like some sort of weirdo because I just forget. I really forget.

Jenelle: How do you switch between Donna Hay the brand and Donna Hay the mum and the person in the supermarket and you’re just hanging out with your friends and being a dag.

Donna: [laugh] really awkwardly [laugh]. I don’t know. I don’t think there … I think I am still the one person. I just do it really awkwardly. I’m not … I don’t know, it’s weird.

Jenelle: Does your family have to call you up at times and go “oh Mum, no no, that’s for the TV show, not for us”. Like do you feel them calling you out.

Donna: No, not really. I remember when they were younger and we would be, like you know, in a shopping centre and they’d start fighting and I’d just give them the look [laugh].

Jenelle: I’ve perfected one of those myself, my kids will tell you.

Donna: Yeah, look if you don’t have the death stare, then you know, you’re got to have that in your mother arsenal, don’t you.

Jenelle: Absolutely. There are many people who can cook beautifully and possibly style quite well. How did you work out how to be distinctive, like what did you think or know that you had that would set you apart.

Donna: I didn’t at the beginning. I didn’t know I had a style. I was looking for one. I wasn’t … at one point, I wasn’t … I was going to give up. I actually thought “wow, I really want to do this as my career, I wanted this to be my everyday job but I’m just sadly not good at it” and can I tell you my story about going to Paris!

Jenelle: Yes you can.

Donna: Okay. So I thought “wow, this is it, I’m really not good at this gig and I’m going to have to find something else to do and I have other skill. I’ve learnt nothing else, I’m going to end up being a receptionist in a doctor’s surgery”. I don’t know why I picked that to fixate on but that’s where I thought I was going. So at 24 I packed up and I went on my little European vacation which I had a gap year, hadn’t done anything. Feeling a bit dejected, I thought well I had better make the most of it. I’ll try and cut this story short but it’s a bit long winded and I spent my money having nice lunches. I was on my own, I always wanted to go with a friend who pulled out at the last minute. In hindsight, what a great thing. I didn’t have to consider anybody else’s travel wishes so I’d spend my money on lunch and then after I discovered some neighbourhoods in Paris, I would buy a crepe with lemon and sugar and I was buying it from the same guy first two nights and then I went to another guy and he folded the crepe a different way. The first guy had folded it in the typical fan triangle type way and then the next guy, he rolled it and put it in a cone and it was sticking up like bunny ears. So then I had this epiphany when I went to the third crepe guy who folded it into a square by folding the round corners in and it just opened up … something just clicked in my brain, like hugely clicked that there’s more than one way and food styling in those days had a very prescriptive way about it. You just followed suit, you did shake/rock the boat at all. There was no …

Jenelle: No playbook.

Donna: … no, no playbook. So that was my playbook. There was more than one way to fold a crepe and I just got so excited and my eyes opened up to all sorts of things and I just saw the world in a whole new creative way so I scampered home after my trip and started my career. The white on white thing that you were asking about just came from me being in a restaurant and doing a photoshoot … an advertising shoot for Crown Lager which was very ritzy beer back in the day.

Jenelle: Oh yeah fancy.

Donna: Yeah, if you drank a Crownie, you’d know you’d made it. So I was doing this big advertising for Crown Lager and I was thinking “why does this look so beautiful, its just a white tablecloth and a big white restaurant plate”. You can’t smell the food, no one can interact, it’s a picture and then it just occurred to me that actually the white on white set’s like a canvas and then our beautiful produce that we have here just bounces out so why would I be trying to stuff in all these napkins rings and napery and everything else when what I’ve got in front on me is really what I want to sell, then it started.

Jenelle: There’s something very brave, I think, about doing that, you know, if I translate it to my world in consulting in people who are, you know, listening who are users of consultants are probably, you know, laughed at themselves when I say this but often we can fall into the trap of putting lots and lots and lots and lots of words on slides and images and nice coloured templates and chevrons and boxes, not to dismiss any of those things that we do. They’re incredibly important Donna but you know, sometimes when you have to strip back those words and those chevrons and all of that and just speak to the very very simple message that we need to get across. That can be incredibly hard. Its harder to do that than it is to put more things on a page, more food on a plate. There’s vulnerability that comes with stripping out all the other noise and as they say in MasterChef “heroing the food”. Did you find that. Do you feel that you’ve had to be more vulnerable in the way … it opens up vulnerability because the spotlight is actually on the food.

Donna: Absolutely and it’s the same when you write a recipe for home cooks. There … people are expecting something they ate at a restaurant. Its not going to be that way. I can try my hardest to get it close with the eight or ten ingredients that you’re expecting me to put on the page but its not going to be that and that kind of makes my job harder than ever but you have to choose … its like a powerpoint presentation you’re talking about. Choose what you’re putting on the page carefully because everything has to work its socks off. So those combinations are really important. So yeah, its really raised the bar. I can write a recipe with twenty/thirty/forty ingredients no problem, just keep adding in those layers of flavours. You know when you’re in a commercial kitchen, you can just grab a little ladle of some bilje or whatever you’ve got simmering but it’s a home kitchen and we’re working with supermarket stock and all sorts of things, its tricky. So it does make … it does make the rules tighter and it does make you choose your weapons more wisely.

Jenelle: I’m sure it does. I heard you on an interview once with Whipper from a radio programme …

Donna: Oh goodness, this is nervous as well [laugh].

Jenelle: But amongst the hundred questions that he asked, one of them was “what motivated … and you were answering really fast, bang bang bang bang bang. It almost felt like you don’t have time to think, this is your gut reaction, maybe you did have but it came across as gut reaction. One of the questions he asked was “what motivates you more than anything else” and you said without skipping a beat “fear of failure”. I wanted to understand that more. Why is that and for someone who continues to take the path less travelled as you do, I’m sure failure and setbacks isn’t something that you’ve managed to avoid all these years. So tell me about a time when you have failed, what happened and has that now lessened your fear of failure moving forward.

Donna: I always try and pull the negative into the position. So fear of failure has been my motivator as well as still the fear that motivates me in … you know what I mean.

Jenelle: You don’t get catatonic about it, you use it to push you from it.

Donna: Yeah you’ve got to use it as a driver and for me, I don’t find it a negative. I find it as a positive, fear of failure. I just have turned it around. For some people its crippling and its negative. For me it’s a positive force. I’ve failed a lot of times. I try and fail small and quickly [laugh].

Jenelle: Tell me about one of those times that stands out in your mind.

Donna: Well in magazine world, you can think you’ve got a really great cover and it just doesn’t sell and you know the internals are fantastic. So that’s pretty … all that hard work in such a short …

Jenelle: What happens … I’m not going to say a dud magazine but what happens when your magazine …

Donna: You just have a dud cover usually.

Jenelle: Dud cover … it hasn’t quite sold, people have missed out on seeing the beauty of what's inside and the magnificence of the inside. How do you process that. What do you … what happens for you.

Donna: I just bank it in as a “don’t do that again” and get on with it. I mean you can … in the magazine world, you can take a safe win for the next month to pull your figures up which is always a wise move to do but yeah, as you try and reinvent and stand out on that limb and balance without falling, that’s just what you have to set your mind to do. Its not always going to work and I think if you go into it knowing that you are going to have some failures, that’s kind of where your heads got to be at and I always say to myself at the end of the year, “okay, if I didn’t make you know, how many failures did I have this year because if I haven’t made failures, it means that I’ve been too comfortable, I’m just doing the same thing again”. So for me, failure is positive and its means that I have my business on track.

Jenelle: I’m just thinking about your areas for failure where failure being a driver for you. In 2011 you were appointed by Tourism Australia as the Creative Director for Oprah Winfrey’s welcome to Sydney party for her and her 300 audience. You know, many of us remember that time. That moment has your name attached to it, just like your books, magazines, your TV shows, its your name and reputation every time. I cannot imagine the level of stress that that would have put on you at that time and the team working for you. What was it like.

Donna: Man, if there was ever a time fail [laugh] …

Jenelle: It feels like the stakes are pretty high.

Donna: They were really high and I was doing what I love to do, getting out of my comfort zone which sometimes foot trips me. Other times pays off. It was absolutely amazing. I did so many things I never had the opportunity to do or probably ever do again. I’ve been … it was incredible. I had lots to build from scratch. I was down near Lady Maguire’s chair, so we built everything. It was hot, it was raining, it was doing that Sydney thing where it was just unpredictable. I was asked to choreograph fireworks which I mean that’s laughable.

Jenelle: Not sure that pyrotechnics was in your bag at the time … your trick bag at the time.

Donna: It wasn’t in my bag [laugh]. It wasn’t in my bag. I did go back to Oprah’s style sheet, pulled out all the colours that she loved and that became my pyrotechnics playbook and that’s all I could do. I knew the colours she didn’t like so I took those out of the fireworks. There was just crazy things happening, minute by minute crazy things, had a really great team of event guys supporting me and yeah, I’d never worked so hard in my life. I’d never had so little sleep.

Jenelle: What did you learn about yourself and managing a team in high stress environments.

Donna: I learnt that I’m really calm under pressure, under extreme pressure I’m really calm and I’m quiet. So instead of yelling all over the site for help for moving chandeliers, getting you know, 25 chandeliers in a clear roof marque, it was more effective for me to put my hand up and when one of the boys was free, they would come to me and know that I needed their help and we rang a really really smooth site, just by laughing and working effectively. I just think I found my management style that I’m not loud, I laugh loudly and that’s fine, but I’m quite a quiet leader and I lead by example and I think that’s really powerful when you’re out in the elements and you’re working your butt off, that the whole team is with you because they can see how hard you work and how hard, like how much you want it to be perfect and there was this really amazing sense of Australian pride with me as well, with all the team. They really … they knew, you know, we have international media there watching us build the whole party and the three sets that made the party, yeah it was a pretty amazing yet humbling experience, was incredible.

Jenelle: I can’t even imagine.

Donna: Absolutely incredible.

Jenelle: Well congratulations to you. I know I’m saying this ten years later [laugh] for what it’s worth.

Donna: It feels like yesterday [laugh]

Jenelle: I bet it does. Now, amazing successes like that, also plenty of success in your Donna Hay magazine, which you know, huge trajectory in your career. How did you make the decision to stop publishing after seventeen years. Very often, you know, we can overstay our place or other things come up and we leave a bit early. How did you make that decision, what drove the timing and what did you factor in.

Donna: Oh lots of things came into play. I mean you’re right. I wanted to go out on a high. I always knew that I didn’t want to run the business into the ground and there was quite a few things, as a licence magazine, there was a lot of things out of my control, the advertising teams, the marketing teams, they all became just one pool so we’d lost our identity within the magazine work, in the marketing and the advertising sphere and I only could … was left with controlling the editorial which you know, I’m good at and I can do and my subscriptions were an all time high. My digital subscriptions were rocketing. We had great global footprint but there was just a few things that were really concerning and you know, as more and more soft drink fridges and confectionary goes onto the checkouts at supermarkets, there’s less magazines, there’s less spacings for me to even say “hey I’m here, why don’t you buy me”. There’s no news agents, you know, news agents are shutting at the rate of knots, so where are they going to find this beautiful magazine that I’m putting out. So I just thought “well 100 is a really great round number, probably before I run into the ground, time to go and do something else”.

Jenelle: So from there then, you made that, you know, move into digital content. How has that, well I guess it was happening in parallel but then you fully embraced it. How was that journey of content creation evolved for you.

Donna: Its been really exciting. I run a much smaller team. I’m much more hands on which I prefer. I can dip, you know, deeper into the creativity. I guess it satisfies more parts of my brain now being in a smaller team. You know, I can work with clients and work out their needs, whether its just pure “we need to sell more or we have a branding problem”. So I guess it kinds of … kind of ticking the boxes for me. Yes I can be creative and I can take a beautiful picture of whatever you’re trying to seel but how are we really going to motivate people into this and motivating people into action through food or through lifestyle is super exciting and it’s a challenge for me to work with clients, to make sure that I can get those runs on the board. So I guess in a smaller business, it’s just … I can be more flexible and back to what I love doing, you know, I’m back to crepe folding in a way, sort of, not really! I haven’t folded a crepe in a while but it’s kind of …

Jenelle: The metaphorical crepe!

Donna: … yes [laugh], just where I wanted to be. I didn’t want to be running a big team anymore. I didn’t want to be so far away from the creative and the things that I love and the things that make me happy.

Jenelle: So you talk about motivating people. You certainly inspire a new generation of chefs and food editors around the world. What's your piece of advice for the forth coming generations.

Donna: Wow, I don’t know. I look at my teenage sons …

Jenelle: They’re all leaning in right now, at this moment.

Donna: … great! I don’t know. I look at my teenage son and he’s so … I don’t know if its his age but he’s fearless and he’s full of hope and I feel like they’re off to a really good start. They’re … they want to change the world and I love that about him. He thinks that its going to be easy to change the world which I also love his naivety, but [laugh], his youth. I think they’re … I look at the youth of today and I feel excited. I feel a positive energy. I love their attitude. I love how they’ve grown up on social media and some of them just don’t give a damn, you know, they’re just … I just love that spirit about them. 

Jenelle: So you want them to channel their hope and their belief that they can make a change.

Donna: Absolutely. I want them to keep believing that they can make a change because they can and if they keep believing, they will and that’s what I believed. I believed I could have my own magazine and I did, you know, I’ve always said “be careful what you wish for” because you know, dreams do come true and I just think that that hope of the younger generation and that attitude, that sassy attitude, I just love it. I mean it does drive me crazy on Instagram but I just … on the other hand, I kind of love it as well, I embrace it. I love their brass openness. I love their kind of positive can-do and will-do.

Jenelle: I feel unbounded, like we get … as you get older, we get so cynical and tired and all of these obstacles that we see, nothing but obstacles, you know but they don’t have that. So holding onto that is exactly what we need.

Donna: Yeah yeah its great, its great. I’m fostering it in my house, to a certain degree [laugh].

Jenelle: Me too. What's the one thing you wish you knew now or when you first started out, when you were that age, that you now know that perhaps you didn’t know then.

Donna: I just wish that I would have backed myself a bit earlier and worried less.

Jenelle: Okay, you definitely seem to have done okay in backing yourself.

Donna: I have tortured myself and I think that’s what I envy about the young girls that I meet today, just how sassy they are and I just wish that I had even just a little cupful of that. When I was younger, I just doubted myself and you know, I guessed like the swimming duck, what's happening on the inside and what's happening on the outside are two different things.

Jenelle: I understand.

Donna: Yeah, but I just … yeah worry less, really worry a lot less.

The last three … three fast questions on change to finish the podcast.

Jenelle: What are you reading, watching or listening to right now.

Donna: I’ll make a list. I am watching “drive to survive”.

Jenelle: I didn’t even know about that, what is that.

Donna: Oh my goodness, I am not into formula one actually. I wish they wouldn’t burn all that fuel but the way that those drivers can lock in and work in that team, that is amazing. There’s just something going on in those heads that is just unlike anyone else. It just … it really inspires me.

Jenelle: Wow, did not see that coming. Okay!

Donna: I know, neither did I. One of my friends in my DIP club put me onto it and yes, I don’t have a book club, we have a DIP club because you can eat DIP …

Jenelle: Oh eat dip, I thought you were going to take a dip.

Donna: … and solve the world’s problems. No, we don’t pretend we’ve got time to read a book always so we get together as really good friends with no filter and we eat dip and we solve our problems and we have a really good laugh.

Jenelle: Sounds magnificent, love it. What is your super power, that can be something that is hugely additive to the world or it could be a useless party trick.

Donna: Oh gosh, if only I had … I don’t have useless party tricks because I’m always the one in the kitchen making everyone food.

Jenelle: Okay.

Donna: I think my super power is seeing the next creative thing coming.

Jenelle: Well that’s a pretty good power that you’ve put to good use. Now if you were going to put a quote up on a billboard, what would it be.

Donna: Oh my goodness, that’s a big one.

Jenelle: Do you know what I would say for …

Donna: What would you say …

Jenelle: No, I wont tell you … no I feel like …

Donna: This one has really caught me off guard.

Jenelle: I’ve written it down in my notes here that I reckon, just listening to you, if I was going to put your quote up … this is not what is meant to happen, by the way when I interview a guest. Its meant to be your quote but my quote for you would be “there’s more than one way to fold a crepe”.

Donna: That is perfect, why didn’t I think of that because … see I always think of the pictures first, the words second so the words things always trip me. There is more than one way to fold a crepe, yeah absolute right and thank you for helping me out.

Jenelle: You’re quite welcome. Now I have to ask, just because, what is your favourite recipe.

Donna: Oh goodness. I don’t know if I have one. I have recipes in time that mark certain occasions. There was a recipe in the first ever issue of my career. It was a … and it was cutting edge at the time. I thought I was so clever. It was a lime and balsamic grilled chicken breast and I can’t tell you, around the world, how many people commented on that recipe. It was just weird.

Jenelle: When would that have been. I mean that would have been way ahead of its time, balsamic - back in the day.

Donna: When was the first issue of my … I think they just told me, I don’t know, lets not even go there. A long time ago, a long long time ago, 25 years ago maybe but it was just this weird thing that kept popping up in my career. Didn’t matter if I was in London or where I was, people would go “oh my goodness, I made this amazing recipe of yours” and I got to the stage where I was saying … in my head, I was going “please don’t tell me it’s the lime balsamic chicken”, there it was!

Jenelle: [laugh] wow fantastic. Donna, I’ve really appreciated your time today. Whether people are diehard DH fans or your new tribes of zero to sour dough kind of people, I’m sure plenty who are listening have got so much out of the conversation. For me, I really like hearing, you know, the vulnerability that you’ve really leaned into with Covid and in fact, I think there’s a heap of vulnerability that you embrace in the way that you operate, whether its using your name as the brand, whether you call it accidental or not, I think that’s a massive thing to do and to own for decades on end, the way you have embraced white on white to really expose the quality of your food. I think the fact that you use fear as a driver for reinvention, constant reinvention is an amazing thing. I think you have a super power that lies in your … maybe its your inability to do things like everybody else and find where the power lies in that. So if you cant set napkins and you can’t, you know, work the table rings, what can you do instead and that is where the gift and the white space and the opportunity lies. I think you, you know, sound very much like somebody who leads quietly and laughs loudly and I think your advice about worrying less and channelling hope and optimism and sassiness to make change happen is something that we can all remember. Thank you so much for your time Donna.

Donna: Thanks Jenelle.

The ‘Change Happens Podcast’ from EY. A conversation on leading through change. Discover more where you get your podcasts.

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