Industry Focus

CUSTOMER CONVERSATION Chat with Rachelle Towart As a proud Wonnarura woman, Rachelle Towart is using education to build the capacity of Indigenous leaders WORDS: MIHIRI UDABAGE A recent winner of a Westpac Community Leaders Award, Rachelle Towart, CEO of the Australian Indigenous Leadership Centre, shares her leadership lessons with Rose Stellino, Social Sector Banker from Westpac. They talk about forging new paths, corporate partnerships and authentic leadership. Tell us about your background in the community sector. I've been the CEO of the Australian Indigenous Leadership Centre (AILC) for the past six years, but have been with the organisation since 2004. Prior to joining the AILC, I was working with government departments, including Centrelink. What's your vision for Indigenous Australians? At AILC, we seek to transform the lives of Indigenous Australians by providing them with the skills, education and opportunities to realise their potential. We believe that effective Indigenous leadership is a positive way to overcome the disadvantages experienced by Indigenous people. How does your work support your vision? We develop and deliver accredited and non-accredited courses in Indigenous leadership. Through donations, grants, and partnerships, we can deliver these at no cost to our candidates. This means we facilitate access to high quality education so Indigenous people are graduating from courses with proficiencies in goal setting, communication, negotiation, etc—important skills to lead their communities to better economic and social outcomes. You've achieved a number of national firsts for your organisation. Why has that been important? Having an excellent reputation attracts both course participants and funding partners. We've built the first comprehensive education pathway for Indigenous leaders, which connects our participants with universities and workplaces. 16 Industry Focus LEFT: Rachelle believes in an equitable future for all Australians. What guides you? I'm guided by my commitment to equality for Indigenous people and the values of AILC. But before I set out to expand the program, I spent the first two years as CEO stabilising the finances and building a robust business plan to move the organisation forward. That was a fundamental pre-requisite to pursuing the strategic vision to grow the numbers of Indigenous leaders across Australia. How did you scale up your operations? We have secured partnerships worth millions of dollars with Westpac, Telstra, Virgin Australia and Rio Tinto. Earlier this year, the federal government committed $8.4 million in multi-year funding. Having a sustainable platform allows us to think big about bringing more opportunities to Indigenous people and allows us to undertake measurement and evaluation work so we can confidently state our outcomes to investors. How did you convince these big corporations to support AILC? I've been able to show them value. When we evaluated our programs, we uncovered some important facts: our graduates earn, on average, an additional $14,000 per year; increasing course revenue for an additional 200 graduates generates an additional $2.8 million in income for Indigenous leaders across the country. The multiplier effect means that income will be shared with families and communities across the nation. We have hundreds of testimonials from graduates who tell us their leadership education has been life-changing and has improved their productivity and wellbeing, which in turn, positively impacts their family and community. How does Westpac assist Not for Profits to maximise their social outcomes? Having a social sector banking specialist meant there was someone who could recognise our potential. AILC received three years of organisational mentoring—in planning, operations, strategic development, financial management and a host of other areas. The networks they have introduced us to have been so valuable. Westpac is also contributing its expertise to the financial education course we offer. We are a stronger, more effective organisation because of the support we received from Westpac.

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