Kim Watty
Co-Founder of The Main Act | Emeritus Professor | Life Design Advocate | Mentor
Kim Watty, PhD, GAICD, FCPA
Kim Watty is a 66-year-old trailblazer who transitioned from a 30-year career in higher education to co-founding The Main Act with her daughter, Prue, in 2024.
As an Emeritus Professor of Accounting, with a PhD, GAICD, and FCPA credentials, Kim held leadership roles at Deakin University, RMIT, and the University of Melbourne, specializing in management accounting and education research.
After stepping away from academia in 2019, she sought “something more,” leading to The Main Act—a venture empowering women 60+ to design purposeful post-career chapters using Stanford’s design-thinking principles, like the Dashboard and Life Log.
Kim’s Retirement by Design program, an 8-week course launching May 2025, fosters curiosity, community, and confidence through interactive masterclasses and accountability calls.
Passionate about mentoring, embracing uncertainty, and building cross-generational connections, Kim draws on her lifelong learning—evident in her embrace of mindfulness, Ikigai, and swimming Port Melbourne’s bay without a wetsuit—to inspire women to live intentionally.
