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Brad Cooke, a participant in the 2017 Indigenous Corporate Leadership Program, on secondment at CBA, Sydney.
Photo: CBA
For months, Jawun CEO Karyn Baylis collaborated
with key corporate partner organisations to make
something happen—not least because she felt ‘the
idea made such sense’. She explains:
As many CEOs will attest, reaching the top of an
organisation can be a lonely place to be. Now
consider, for a minute, those in charge of running
local Indigenous organisations, often in remote
and highly disadvantaged communities. These
Indigenous CEOs play a critical role in delivering
programs and services to local communities,
often in complex and politically charged
environments. Empowering these leaders with
the skills and resources to do their jobs better,
or providing alternative career paths so they
can orbit between their local communities and
the mainstream economy, is crucial and now
presenting itself as a reality.
In the pilot round, participants are being exposed
to broad management experience through a year
of immersive, accelerated learning in a corporate
environment. The program is designed to support
them build core skills in management, influencing
and negotiation, as well as ‘soft skills’ such as
flexibility, communication and resilience. It seeks to
give them ‘literacy’ in corporate and government
contexts, and a powerful set of new connections to
back this up. Overall, it aims to grow their leadership
capacity and confidence.
1. EMPOWERING INDIGENOUS LEADERSHIP 17