For a woman who has modelled herself on characters such as James Bond and Atticus Finch, it’s hard not to be impressed by international barrister and academic, Magda Karagiannakis.

Keynote speaker at HACCI’s annual International Women’s Day event this week, Ms Karagiannakis had the crowd laughing and smiling, all while tackling big issues like genocide and war crimes.

Ms Karagiannakis’ resume reads like a lawyer’s dream. She prosecuted and convicted Radislav Krstic, the Major General during the Srebrenica genocide, and the case became the first to pass through the International Court of Justice with a conviction.

She’s swapped sides and defended war criminal and former President of Liberia Charles Taylor and acted as a senior legal advisor to the UN inquiry over political assassinations in Lebanon.

In between her teaching roles at La Trobe University, she travels between The Hague and New York advising, prosecuting and defending the names we see in the media.

Judging by the crowd filled with successful Greek businesswomen, many lawyers themselves, HACCI’s event was a great way to understand how to succeed as a woman in a male dominated workforce.

For Ms Karagiannakis, she defined her success as coming from networking, becoming the best academically and from demanding respect.
“It’s not enough to be excellent at what you do and wait for others to recognise that excellence,” she said.
“You will never be invited to the table like that.

“You have to ask for it, and that means putting yourself forward.”

Despite being extremely book-smart herself – she was one of the few graduates to achieve a perfect score of 100 for her thesis – her opportunities didn’t come from good marks. Rather, it was her uprooting her life from Melbourne and taking a post in The Hague that made a job into a career. She explained how her networking with professors and lawyers in The Hague opened up opportunities she had only dreamed about holding.

The high profile cases she took on were in fact jobs she had been told about by friends in high places.

Her confidence and charm opened doors, while her knowledge and assertiveness won cases.

She describes the best thing for female businesswomen in the world is to be respected.

“It’s important for female professionals to be liked, but it’s even more important to be respected,” she says.

“My advice to the female students is do not try to be one of the boys.

“We must be excellent at what we do so that we give others no choice but to consider us for the best positions.”

At the audience Q&A session, a great question posed to the Greek Australian lawyer showed her advice in practice.

Asked how Greek men view powerful women, Ms Karagiannakis answered with humour.

“Charm and humour go a long way to defuse resentment,” she said. “When all else fails tell a joke.”

The International Women’s Day event complements HACCI’s networking initiative that gives Greek Australians the chance to mingle with like minded people and give a chance for students to become acquainted with future job prospects.

Melbourne’s new Consul General of Greece, Christina Simantirakis, also took the time to address the audience about the problems women face today and touched on the illegal trafficking trade that destroys the lives of women and their families.