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August 26, 2026THE ORANA WOMAN · EDITION 01 · CONNECTED PROFILE
Eliza Whiteley
It Wasn’t Some Grand Plan
A phone call. Forty-eight hours. Then another decision: medicine or the regional business she could not stop thinking about.
WOMEN WHO HUSTLE · REGIONAL BUSINESS · RURAL HEALTH
THE THREAD
Sometimes the opportunity chases you.
Eliza did not spend years planning to open an optometry practice. She did know regional eye care mattered — and when one service was about to disappear, she asked a different question.
THE PHONE CALL
It really wasn’t some grand plan.
At Women Who Hustle, Eliza told the room she was working with an ophthalmologist and involved in farming when a LinkedIn message asked whether she wanted to buy an optometry practice in Wellington. She thought it looked like a scam.
Curiosity won. When she returned the call, she discovered the corporate operator was consolidating regional practices. Her question became: what was happening to the Dubbo practice?
“It wasn’t some grand plan… it was just a phone call that I took one day.”
— Eliza Whiteley, Women Who Hustle Breakfast Panel
FORTY-EIGHT HOURS
The question was bigger than buying a business.
Eliza knew people were already travelling hundreds of kilometres into Dubbo for eye care. If the practice disappeared and patients were redirected to Mudgee, some would be travelling even further. So she asked whether she could buy the Dubbo practice instead.
The answer came back quickly: she had forty-eight hours to decide.
Sometimes backing yourself is not a feeling. It is a deadline.
THE OTHER YES
Then medicine said yes too.
Before the practice opportunity arrived, Eliza had sat the GAMSAT and applied to study medicine — revisiting something she had once told herself she was not clever enough to do.
Two weeks after deciding to pursue the practice, she learned she had also made it into medicine. She suddenly had two possibilities she had once believed were beyond her.
For about a month she wrestled with the choice. But while she could reason through both paths, she kept thinking about what the business could become.
She described choosing the “tiny little beat” in her chest that kept pulling her toward the business.
WHAT SHE BUILT
A regional practice with prevention at the centre.
Whiteley Optometry is now a locally owned Dubbo practice built around personalised and preventative eye care.
Eliza holds a Master of Optometry with distinction, ocular therapeutic qualifications and an Advanced Certificate in Children’s Vision. Her experience alongside ophthalmologists also shaped a strong interest in ocular pathology and preventative care.
COUNTRY ROOTS
Regional is not the setting around the story. It is part of the story.
Eliza grew up in the Central West and still keeps one foot firmly in rural life. Outside the practice she spends time on the family farm and has long been connected to the agricultural-show community.
In 2024 she represented Wellington and Zone 6 as a state finalist in The Land Sydney Royal AgShows NSW Young Woman competition.
She did not return to regional NSW simply to work here. She keeps choosing to build here.
KEEPING HEALTHCARE REGIONAL
The business story is also a workforce story.
Eliza regularly presents to Deakin Optometry students and first-year medical students at the University of Sydney’s School of Rural Health, encouraging future health professionals to see regional practice as a serious and rewarding choice.
In 2026 she also joined the rural and regional subcommittee for Early Career Optometrists within Optometry NSW/ACT, focused on helping early-career practitioners develop confidently in regional environments.
WHAT SHE IS DOING NOW
The optometrist is becoming a broader regional business voice too.
In 2026, Eliza is Junior Vice President of the Dubbo Business Chamber. Whiteley Optometry won the Chamber’s Outstanding New Business award in 2025 and is a 2026 Western NSW Business Awards finalist in the same category.
She has also stepped outside the optometry lane to speak about regional business, including a live national ABC television finance segment through the Chamber — something she publicly described as outside her comfort zone.
THE WOMEN WHO HUSTLE THREAD
Why her story belonged in that room.
Women Who Hustle was built around the parts of business that disappear from the polished profile: uncertainty, money, risk, confidence, timing, asking questions and making a choice before you can know how it ends.
A business does not need to begin with certainty to become something worth building.
THE RELATIONSHIP MAP
One decision connects health, business and place.
Eliza → Whiteley Optometry → regional patients + preventative eye care.
Eliza → rural health education + early-career optometry → future practitioners choosing regional careers.
Eliza → Dubbo Business Chamber + Women Who Hustle → regional women talking honestly about business, confidence and risk.
THE QUESTION TO CARRY
What if the path you did not plan is the one that keeps pulling you back?
You do not always need certainty. Sometimes you need to notice what you keep thinking about.
CONNECTED STORY
Women Who Hustle — Four Women. One Room. Real Stories.
Eliza joined Jacqui Martel, Felicity “Fliss” Haylock and Sharon Quill for a Commonwealth Bank-supported conversation about the wins, doubts, pivots, money stories and decisions behind regional business.