Meet our Leaders…Marlene Dutta
Meet our leaders….Marlene Dutta
Good Return’s Pacific Regional Manager
BIO
L to R: Marlene, Georgina Paongo (Tonga Project Coordinator), Benigne du Parc (Program Director).
Innovative and critical thinking, respect and kindness are the cornerstones on which Marlene has built her career. She has extensive technical and management experience in the Business, NGO and Community Development Sectors across Fiji, Kiribati, Tuvalu, Vanuatu, Tonga, Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea.
A Pacific Islander at heart, she embraces every opportunity to bring sustainable and culturally appropriate solutions to improving lives and livelihoods in the region.
Q&A
We sat down with Marlene to talk about her career journey to date.
Tell us about a career highlight or a proud moment from your career
L to R: Micro entrepreneur from Fiji, Marlene, and Diana Tjoeng (Head of Asia and Impact Investments)
I have been blessed and privileged to have many proud moments over my career. From building the Western Union agent network to over 100 locations across Fiji, Tuvalu, Kiribati and Vanuatu; establishing a Corporate Foundation in PNG, draping the first ever red ribbon across the Reserve Bank of Fiji building for World AIDS Day; supporting MSMEs to diversify their revenue streams, to building solid partnerships to deliver Financial Capability training across Fiji, PNG, Solomon Islands and Tonga. Just to name a few!
However, my proudest moments are seeing the people I work with grow and move on to amazing careers, especially those who started their working lives under my guidance, and seeing where they are now. Earning their respect, nurturing their growth and supporting them to achieve their goals is and always will be my proudest moments.
Do you have a person who has inspired you in your career?
There are many people that have inspired my career and in completely different ways.
My mother’s work ethic, hustle mentality and commitment to the service of others (to this day) inspires me.
The two Directors at my first job in the Western Union agency. One was all heart and the other all brains. Alistair taught me that it is better to trust everyone and get burned occasionally than to go through life not trusting anyone. Navi taught me how to break down the most complex concepts into the simplest explanations. Maya - our office cleaner then, taught me that not being literate was no barrier to exceeding and I often joked that she was more successful than the rest of our team combined.
The award winners of the Pride of PNG Awards for Women, with whom I worked closely in PNG, were extraordinary.
More recently, I am inspired by the hundreds of women reached through our work at Good Return - their tenacity, their dedication and resilience in overcoming cultural, patriarchal and economic barriers to chase their business and financial goals are truly inspirational.
Can you share a humourous moment from your career to date?
Marlene presenting at the Good Return “Conversations for Change” event in Sydney in 2025
While working in PNG, I had the unpleasant task of letting a staff member go after a series of warnings, as he had been caught taking supplies and stocks from the warehouse on numerous occasions. The meeting was hard, but he accepted his fate. He said he understood the reasons and left.
The next day, I arrived at work and walked into my office as usual. Note that my office was a shared space with the Repair and Maintenance team, who were always out of the office, doing maintenance at the many store locations around Port Moresby. Our office was situated at the side of our main warehouse and away from all the admin and busy parts of the complex. It was pretty quiet and fairly isolated.
I was just settling into my work when a teammate barged into the office and locked the door behind him. I asked him what was going on, and he casually said, nothing much, but let’s just stay here because Joe (the guy I let go the previous day) was roaming the compound with a machete, looking for me. Ok - this was new. I asked if he had alerted security, and he said no - he explained that he rushed here to see if I had arrived yet. So I called the head of security, explained the situation and asked if the main gate guards could help find Joe and escort him to my office (but to please ensure that they confiscate his machete).
About 15 minutes later, security came to me to say all was well, Joe had left. I asked them what they meant - and they just shrugged and said, don’t worry, he’s gone - we chased him out of the gate. I explained that I had asked to see him, not to chase him out, as he may just return the next day or wait for me outside the gate away from the guards, and I wanted a chance to hear him out, if he had unresolved issues.
They just laughed and said, “we looked at his machete and don’t worry, you're safe here. We told him not to come back and if he did, to bring a much bigger machete because his was small and not very sharp compared to ours.”
He must have listened, as he never showed up again, and after a day or two of looking over my shoulder, I was able to laugh it off as just another day of working in the land of the unexpected!