Youth Leadership Academy Australia (YLAA)

I first became involved in YLAA in 2018 when my friend Wil Massara approached me for guidance in founding the company. Wil and I had met the previous year at the Magic Moments Foundation Youth Leadership and Business Summit in Sydney after I received a Telstra sponsored scholarship to attend.

 

Together we ran YLAA’s first leadership conference in Perth with 62 high school students from regional and metro WA in attendance. The day focused on educating and empowering young people on leadership and entrepreneurship skills. After this event I left the business to focus on my NAAUC commitments and then my law studies at Deakin. In 2020 Wil employed me as his Marketing and Events manager for the 2021 National Tour. He had successfully grown the business from the first single event we had run, to a national tour of seven single day conferences in capital cities across the country.

 

My job involved managing the logistics of the events and the schools in attendance. The 2021 tour sold out with 4,000 high school students in attendance. In addition to travelling with the core tour team and managing each event, I coordinated our volunteers and crew in each state, school groups in attendance and each event’s guest speakers.

 

The program for each conference included keynote speakers sharing their leadership experience, sessions on leadership & communication styles and a young changemakers panel showcasing entrepreneurial young Australians. I often participated in this panel, speaking about my leadership experience at UWA and NAAUC with a focus on balance and welfare in leadership.

 

At the conclusion of the national tour, Wil and I travelled through regional NSW and VIC to present school programs on leadership & community development. Having grown up in a regional community myself (Albury, NSW), during my time at YLAA I was a strong advocate for ensuring remote and regional students were given the same access and opportunity to leadership development as metro students. I am very proud of the programs we were able to deliver and tailer to these communities.

 

I finished at YLAA after completing the regional leadership tour to begin full time work at Maurice Blackburn Lawyers in Melbourne. Working for YLAA was one the most challenging yet rewarding experiences I have had. My experience at UWA and NAAUC gave me better time-management and communication skills and allowed me to excel in my role as event manager while travelling the country and studying law at Deakin.