Two very different housing chiefs win at 2014 Telstra Australian Business Women's Awards

Susan Lloyd-Hurwitz, chief executive and managing director of ASX listed developer Mirvac, took out the Private & Corporate Award at the Telstra Australian Business Women's Awards.

But she wasn't the only housing sector boss to win at the awards. The other was Andrea Galloway, the chief executive of Evolve Housing, a community housing provider which has provided accommodation for 9,500 people who have experienced homelessness or housing stress.

Galloway received a joint award for Business Innovation. The award recognized Evolve Housing's "Journey Home" program, which supports the progression from social housing to supported home ownership via affordable housing and private rentals.

The program aims to help provide stability for communities, improving health and employment outcomes through the provision of secure housing.

"In leading a community housing provider and operating within a sector of uncertainty, one of my key roles is to constantly seek to elevate the needs and issues around homelessness and housing stress and the obstacles faced by not-for-profits in addressing these needs," said Galloway.

In her acceptance speech, she noted that over 105,000 Australians, including 16,000 children do not have a home.

"I passionately believe that everyone has a right to a home," she said.

She told the audience at the awards she had left home at the age of 16 due to personal circumstances and raised the systemic failures contributing to homelessness.

"The current system does not do enough to change the lives of people it does serve. We need an innovative system that provides people with a safety net when they need it.

"We need to give them a pathway to independence in cases where that is a realistic goal.

"This cannot be delivered by government alone, and requires strong partnerships to deliver outcomes around housing affordability, across the entire spectrum, whether it's relating to disability, social, affordable, or even shared equity arrangements."

Lloyd-Hurwitz has been the chief executive of Mirvac, where she is spearheading a growth strategy, since 2012. This year, Mirvac expects to release 2,700 apartments onto the market.

In her acceptance speech, Lloyd-Hurwitz likened careers to spiders' webs, rather than ladders: "Everybody here's got a different journey. You can go up it, round it, through it – down and up again. And there's plenty of room from others on the spider web, as opposed to the ladder."