Jul 23, 2026 – 5.00amNisha Pradhan was born in India, went to school in Mackay in Queensland and then moved with her parents and younger sister to the NSW coastal city of Wollongong.Pradhan – who is acting chief development officer at mining company PanAust and is today recognised as one of this year’s BOSS Young Executives – remembers being at school watching her friends eat chip sandwiches and telling her mother, who migrated to Australia with her husband as skilled migrants and who wanted her children to fit in, that she wanted chip sandwiches too.Subscribe to gift this articleGift 5 articles to anyone you choose each month when you subscribe.Subscribe nowAlready a subscriber? Sally PattenBOSS editorSally Patten edits BOSS, and writes about workplace issues. She was the financial services editor and personal finance editor of the AFR, The Age and the Sydney Morning Herald. She edited business news for The Times of London.Fetching latest articles
BOSS Young Executives: This exec thought she’d be a hairdresser. Her first job? Macquarie
Nisha Pradhan, acting chief development officer at PanAust, grew up in Mackay and Wollongong. All the girls wanted to be hairdressers, but Pradhan loved maths.
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