Cape York Institute Leadership Academy (CYILA) recently held its first corporate Indigenous Leadership Development Program, welcoming close to 20 burgeoning Indigenous leaders from Woodside Energy and guiding them on a journey of self-discovery, leadership, and transformative change.
This program is CYILA’s first step into a corporate development model and follows through with the commitment to build First Nations talent across the nation.
The Woodside participants learned about themselves, their strengths, how to lead a team and how to lead change as well as hearing from select Indigenous leaders about their own journeys.
Cape York Institute for Policy and Leadership CEO Kirsty Davis reflected on the first corporate offering of the program and its success, helping achieve the goal of First Nations people leading and walking the line between community, corporate and government.
Our vision is to shape Indigenous leaders to take their place as community innovators and champions of change delivering outcomes that will shape our future
CYILA CEO Kirsty Davis
“The CYI Leadership Academy plays a crucial role in fostering First Nations talent, bridging the gap between Indigenous communities and Corporate Australia. By nurturing leadership skills and creating opportunities for collaboration, we are empowering the next generation of First Nations leaders to thrive in the corporate world and drive meaningful change across industries.”
“We delivered a bespoke ILDP to Woodside Energy, built from conversations that focussed on our shared commitment and vision of talent building. The program is delivered over three months and incorporates three key themes.
Ms Davis said each workshop incorporates a First Nations immersion, exposing the cohort to local leadership and an opportunity to hear of their journey.
“Seeing the growth in participants, the ownership of their development journey and the connection across sites to collaborate on key pieces for the company was a highlight,” she said.
Macy Altham learned a lot from the program and spoke about how the learnings will influence and improve her leadership journey.
“One of the highlights from the program would be jumpstarting my leadership journey… being a lot younger than a lot of the people in this program comes this a lot of self-doubt,” she said.
Now I know through the learnings of the program that I do have all the tools and I can build on them to go where I want
Macy Altham
Nikaya Farmer said the program gave her insight into things she can now bring up to her manager to further her career.
“It (the program) has given me confidence in my own abilities, key points to talk to my manager about around stuff I want to develop in my career and other things that I aspire to do,” she said.
The program closed in June with participants sharing a corporate lunch with Noel Pearson and Ben Wyatt, before connecting with the two Indigenous leaders as they joined facilitator Jim Davis in a Q&A session sharing their journey, learnings and further advice with the cohort.
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