Spy boss a self-confessed latecomer to feminism

Rachel Noble has had senior roles in the Department of Home Affairs, Department of Immigration and Border Protection, and Department of Defence. But it was not until the past few years that the director-general of the Australian Signals Directorate (ASD) says she came to appreciate the fierceness of her own mother’s resolve to forge her own path as a military nurse, and its feminist underpinnings.

“I think my mother had always been a feminist and it was something that my sister and I didn’t really feel that we could relate to,” Noble said of her mother, who was born in 1941 and who left home without her parents’ blessing to pursue the job of her dreams.