BWA Podcast Show: From ROI to ROS: Why the Best Leaders Are Redefining Success Through Return on Self
What if the way we’ve been measuring success is fundamentally incomplete?
In corporate environments, we are trained from day one to focus on ROI, return on investment. It’s the metric that drives decisions, performance, and outcomes. We measure everything: revenue, growth, EBITDA, net profits, efficiency, productivity.
However, here’s the question we rarely ask:
Why do we find it so easy to measure ROI, yet so difficult to measure the one asset driving it all: ourselves?
In this powerful episode of the Business Women Australia Podcast Show hosted by Karina Seng, Roni Millard draws on over three decades of executive leadership and strategic marketing experience to challenge traditional definitions of performance and productivity.
From leading high-performing teams to navigating burnout and a life-changing cancer diagnosis, Roni shares the deeper story behind success and the hidden cost of operating in systems that prioritise output over the individual driving it.
This episode introduces Roni’s transformative concept developed as she began her healing journey after her breast cancer diagnosis:
Return on Self (ROS) – a concept which encourages an updated leadership lens that places wellbeing, energy, and inner alignment at the centre of sustainable performance.
The truth is simple and stark:
If you are not investing in yourself, your ROS will eventually suffer.
In this podcast, you’ll gain insight into:
- The hidden costs of high-performance cultures
- Why burnout is not just an individual issue, but a leadership and systems challenge
- How psychological safety underpins true performance
- Why and how we should be measuring return on self (ROS) so that the corporate ROIs will soar
- Practical ways to improve your own Return on Self and lead with clarity, energy and purpose
This is a conversation for leaders who want to succeed without sacrificing themselves in the process. It is for those who understand that performance is not just about what you produce but the condition you are in when you produce it.
Watch the episode here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhBm9c_dZy0
Meet Roni Millard
Founder, The Wellbeing Edge
Roni Millard is a wellbeing and performance consultant, speaker, author, and mentor. As Founder of The Wellbeing Edge, she brings more than 30 years’ experience in senior leadership roles across professional services and complex organisational environments. Roni is sought for both her commercial credibility and her deep human insights.
Roni partners with organisations to embed mental health and wellbeing as a
strategic priority rather than an afterthought. Through keynotes, workshops, and executive mentoring, she supports leaders to build compassionate, accountable, and high-performing cultures, where commercial success and human sustainability coexist. In boardroom settings, Roni is known for creating safe yet courageous spaces for meaningful dialogue, helping leaders balance commercial responsibility with conscious leadership.
Throughout her corporate career, Roni led large teams, managed national portfolios, drove strategic initiatives, and worked closely with executive leaders navigating growth, transformation, and performance pressure. She understands first-hand the commercial realities, accountability, and intensity faced by senior leaders, particularly those operating in high-stakes, results-driven sectors.
Roni’s work today is shaped not only by her executive background but by lived experience. After navigating cancer, fertility challenges, and multiple episodes of corporate burnout, Roni made a deliberate shift toward redefining performance, placing wellbeing, resilience, and sustainable leadership at the centre of business success. Years later, she describes herself as the healthiest and strongest she has ever been.
Roni is a leading member of the Business Women Australia community, NLP life coach, Women’s Resilience mentor and keynote motivational speaker.
About Karina Seng
Karina Seng is a transformation leader with over 20 years in financial and professional services, known for building capability that holds and embedding change that actually sticks. She’s led enterprise transformations, partnered with executive teams, and built organisational capability from the ground up – in how people work, lead, and show up every day.
Recognised as a Women in Finance Innovator of the Year finalist, she’s passionate about creating spaces where people thrive, and collaboration fuels results. As the founder of Work Besties, Karina helps professionals grow through genuine connection, career insights, and leadership conversations.
Karina believes leadership is about action, impact, and empowering others to rise.
About Business Women Australia
Business Women Australia is a community of bold, brilliant women from across the nation who are ready to support, inspire, and grow together. We bring together:
- Business Owners and Entrepreneurs
- Executives and Managers
- Professionals
- Women on Boards
- Emerging Leaders
Our focus areas include:
- Leadership Development – Lead Self, Lead Others
- Lifelong Learning
- Business Growth
- Personal and Professional Transformation
- Meaningful Connections
Join Business Women Australia Today
Head to https://businesswomenaustralia.com.au/membership/
Book a Meeting with Lyn to discuss: https://calendly.com/lyn-hawkins