Marianne Marchesi is the Managing Principal of Legalite, one of Australia’s most progressive commercial law firms, and the host of the Bold Ideas podcast. With over 15 years in the legal industry, she’s built her career around challenging the traditional model — bringing empathy, innovation, and humanity into spaces that don’t often make room for them.
In our chat, Marianne reflects on navigating IVF while leading her firm, how that experience reshaped her relationship with ambition and wellbeing, and why she decided to introduce one of the legal sector’s first reproductive health leave policies. She also talks about learning to lead with vulnerability, redefining productivity, and what it really takes to build a workplace that supports people through every stage of life.
You’ve spoken about going through IVF while running your own firm. How did that period reshape your relationship with work, ambition, and self-care?
My fertility and IVF experience have truly become part of my identity. It’s taught me so much about myself, from the need to be kind to myself, to my strength and resilience, to being accepting of others – no matter how much you know about them.
These very same traits carry over into my work and business life. Perhaps more than ever, I’ve realised that my work is not life and death, which has meant I’ve been able to balance my ambition with my personal and family priorities.
What does a typical day look like for you now — and how have you designed your routine to better support both your wellbeing and leadership?
My days start with getting the kids ready, doing daycare drop off and then I head into the work day. My work days are not very structured anymore as I juggle multiple priorities and now manage a larger team. As a result, I’ve had to unlearn being too routine-driven and go with the flow – something that’s difficult for type A personalities!
For me, wellbeing is anything that fills my cup – whether that’s spending time with my family, exercise or travel. One of the best outcomes of not being too structured has been, ironically, more time for wellbeing. I’ve had to build wellbeing into my day-to-day, rather than time-block my diary.
In terms of leadership, I’m always available to my team – I quite literally share the one private office with them (when we’re in-person) and they’re all saved as my ‘favourites’ in my phone. This proximity and availability has allowed me to be truly present as a leader.
Many founders feel pressure to appear endlessly resilient. How do you balance being open about challenges while still leading with confidence?
It’s not realistic or natural to be resilient 100% of the time. I believe that you need to ‘feel the feels’: don’t bottle up your emotions or put on a facade because you think you have to. I’m very open and vulnerable about the tough times, because I live by the mantra that “you win some, you lose some”. True resilience is knowing that, just like the tough times, even the good times don’t last forever. You need to take the learnings from the tough times, and enjoy the good times while they last.
What have you learned about creating space for recovery — whether physical, emotional, or mental — in a culture that often glorifies productivity?
I’ve learnt that the way you recover, whether physically, emotionally, or mentally, looks different for everyone. This means that the ‘space’ others have created themselves might not be right for you.
I love my work and I love being productive – but the key is that my definition of productivity is very different to the version we often see glorified.
Legalite’s reproductive health leave policy is groundbreaking. What did it take to move from personal experience to formal policy change? How has it shifted your team culture?
I always felt so unbelievably grateful that I had the freedom and flexibility to navigate my IVF journey because I was my own boss. I didn’t think it was fair that people who weren’t their own boss couldn’t enjoy the same, especially as you don’t get to choose your reproductive health. Once I started reading the stats on fertility and reproductive health, I knew I had to embed policy change into my business.
The shift has been really positive, but we’ve already got a great foundational culture to build from. I believe this is key for all workplaces: get the foundations right first, and then build on it with innovative policies that’ll make it even better.
If you could redesign the modern workplace from scratch, what principles or rhythms would you build in to make it truly reflect people’s lives?
I’d map out what the team might look like both now and into the future. Then I’d create real frameworks and policies that reflect these very real people.
