For most of us, death is something we think about only when we are forced to. For Janet Miller, it is her reality every day.

Janet is the CEO of Adelaide’s Centennial Park Cemetery, where she can combine her strengths of commerciality and compassion.

She’s heard all the jokes – it’s a dead end job, deathly boring – but since taking up the role two years ago, Janet says she has discovered a new perspective on life now that she is dealing with the business of death.

A qualified accountant, Janet held several senior corporate positions, including as chief operating officer and then CEO of Perks Group, and then heading a major law firm before discovering her calling at Centennial Park.

While she loved the thrill and challenge of the corporate life, and was clearly good at it, Janet felt something was missing, something with more meaningful.

“For me, I need to have a strong sense of commerciality, but I also need a job to be tempered by compassion and empathy – I need those in equal measures,” she says.

“There are two elements to this job, so I get all of the challenges and complexities of the business and then I get all the warmth because all of the people who are drawn to this industry have that warmth and compassion.

“We are a commercial enterprise – we have to be because we have 150,000 people buried or memorialised here and we’ve made a promise to those families that we will look after this park forever and to do that takes money.

“We are owned by local government so I’ve got that overlay, and we provide a community service, so I’ve got to balance all of those things.

“When I tell people I worked at a cemetery there is often silence and tumble weeds and I have to say, ‘it’s okay, it’s a great job and I love it’.”

Janet says there is a misconception that cemeteries are gloomy, creepy places but she describes Centennial Park as a beautiful space that feels like the Botanic Gardens.

Spread over 40ha, the park boasts 30 individually designed gardens and memorial areas, three chapels, the Jubilee Complex for functions and even a little island, Springbank Island, complete with frangipani trees, ducklings, birds and lush plant life.

Plans are also underway for a new café and a small playground.

“Funerals are becoming less sad and more of a celebration of life, so the days of people wearing black to funerals, we are seeing much less of that and often a family will want people to come in a certain bright colour as they pay tribute to the person’s life, remembering the good times and the fun things that person did,” she says.

However, Janet is realistic about a cemetery being a place of sadness and of saying goodbye to loved ones – but she emphasises it also needs to be an inviting, peaceful spot to linger, reflect and remember.

“Whilst we cater for people looking for a memorial or final resting place, we are here for the living,” she says.

“We cater for the deceased but we need to be a place where people want to come and feel really proud and happy that this is the place they’ve chosen for their loved one.”

When it comes to emotions about death, Janet says we don’t need to fear it, but understand it as a natural part of life.

One thing that has become clear since taking up her current role is how little people plan for their funeral.

“So few people communicate what they want for their funeral,” she says.

“We never know what is around the corner, and there is a superstition that if you talk about your funeral it will somehow bring on an early demise, but the more we can normalise the conversation, the better we are making inroads there.

“We are trying to make it as natural as possible because it’s such a natural element of life and it doesn’t need to be feared or hidden away or taboo. It is so important for people to be super clear with their family about what they want.

“We have a little book here called ‘My Life Book’, and it’s full of questions about you – it creates a record of what you would like your funeral service to look like.

“People hope they’re doing the right thing for their deceased loved one but they’re not really sure. We did some market research and 90% of people said the number one thing that is important about a funeral is not the cost, it was making sure they had captured the final wishes of the person who had passed away.

Janet says 70% of people choose cremation over burial, and Centennial Park also caters for a variety of cultures and ceremonies, including the Hindu community.

In their culture the eldest male in the family traditionally places the deceased loved one on to the funeral pyre.

To simulate this, the cemetery has a “load insertion button”, which can be pushed to gently load the coffin into the cremator.

“This role is absolutely fascinating and so different from my previous roles,” Janet says.

“I would never go back to the corporate world, this is just wonderful.”