Broadspectrum's chairman says she has been shocked by personal attacks on her arising from her company's involvement in asylum-seeker detention centres in Nauru and on Manus Island.
Diane Smith-Gander says that Broadspectrum does not own, operate or manage the centres, but merely maintains them, providing catering, cleaning and some welfare services.
Ms Smith-Gander says that when she has defended Broadspectrum's role in the detention centres, she has been attacked by activists opposing them, via social media.
"It really did take me aback to find some very unpleasant personal attacks about my personal integrity, my appearance, what I choose to do with my hair, whether I wear make-up or not, what suit...you know," Ms Smith-Gander told the Australian Financial Review Business Summit on Wednesday.
"This stuff was really quite frightening.
"I didn't feel that I had been attacked or discriminated against until the social media campaign that the activists started against me," Ms Smith-Gander, who is also president of women's advocacy group Chief Executive Women, said the campaign started when she stood up to defend Broadspectrum and its people.
She said she defended the company when the asylum centres became an issue among investors.
Ms Smith-Gander said she was a robust individual, but she didn't like it when her 14-year-old nephew and her 85-year-old mother asked what was going on.
She said it would be wrong to step away from the matter of the detention centres just because it was tough.
"Broadspectrum is an essential services provider," she said.
"If we stop providing services to our clients, if we say this all a bit tough, what are prospective clients going to think about our resilience as a business and our ability to support them in their essential services?"
Ms Smith-Gander said it would be unprofessional for Broadspectrum to step away from its contract, and that was something it would never do.
