ELP welcomes Liandra Gaykamaŋu as co-CEO
Photo caption: Liandra Gaykamaŋu, co-CEO, Enterprise Learning Projects.
Photo credit: Yasmin Steele.
Anikunya,
I have exciting news to share with you, but it’s probably important for me to firstly introduce myself.
My name is Amanda Healy and I am the Board Chair at ELP. I am a Wonnarua woman from the Hunter Valley region in NSW but I have spent most of my life in Western Australia and I currently live on Whadjuk Noongar Country in Perth.
I officially joined the Enterprise Learning Projects board in October 2020, alongside three other incredible Aboriginal business leaders: Liandra Gaykamaŋu, Blair Strickland and Josh Gilbert.
ELP has been working with remote Aboriginal communities since 2010. We have achieved some great success so far, with the development of a few businesses, and are now looking to increase our impact a good deal more.
As many of you know, the past eighteen months have been a huge and exciting period of transition for ELP. Our Founder and Board Chair Laura Egan stepped out of the CEO position and we welcomed Alexie Seller to the role in March 2020. Laura contributed significantly to the development of ELP, and we wish her much success in her new ventures in a much cooler climate.
From her first days in the role, it was Alexie’s core focus to transition ELP to become an Indigenous-controlled organisation. She deftly led us through this important process, welcoming me and the new board just before she welcomed her first child late in the year. Alexie’s work has been integral and will continue to be so in the growth of ELP.
The second step of our board transition was finalised in April of this year, when Laura handed the board chair baton to me.
I am immensely proud to announce that, as a new team, we have taken our first big step and that the CEO position at ELP will now be jointly held by Liandra Gaykamaŋu and Alexie Seller. Liandra will also retain her position on our board.
Liandra is a Yolŋu woman from North-East Arnhem Land and the Founder and Creative Director of Liandra Swim. She is acutely aware of the power of business as a tool to authentically engage and connect with Australian Indigenous culture, the oldest continuous living culture on our planet. Economic empowerment is the way forward for our people, and an important step towards self-determination. Liandra is very aware of the need to develop these businesses to support this journey, and where better to start than with your own people on your own Country?
This is a huge moment for ELP and for the broader community. To see an Aboriginal business leader at the helm of an organisation that works to serve and support remote entrepreneurs will change the game forever.
Supported by the board, Liandra and Alexie will work together to achieve our grand plans for this new organisational phase of ELP, including the delivery of our new incubation program. We’re looking forward to sharing the details of our first cohort of enterprise partners in the coming weeks.
Enterprise Learning Projects believes that business is a crucial tool for remote entrepreneurs to share culture and achieve their aspirations, on their own terms, and on their own Country.
We also believe Australia—and the world—has so much to learn from an Indigenous approach to business, and to life. As an example, this year’s NAIDOC theme of ‘heal country’ will raise the bar for all Australians, in profiling the need for sustainable and earth-friendly behaviours, which Aboriginal people have practiced for thousands of years.
We are proud our board is now 100% Aboriginal and we are at a point of parity with two women and two men holding director roles. And ELP is currently staffed by a team of dynamic women—at this point in time, two Aboriginal women and two non-Aboriginal women—in Liandra, Alexie, marketing and brand business partner Frances Haysey and our administrative coordinator and Larrakia woman Mikaela Earnshaw.
No doubt, the composition of our board and team will change here and there but it’s important to celebrate this moment in time. We believe that true reconciliation will come from Indigenous Australia and non-Indigenous Australia working together. And our organisation now reflects that vision—we are committed to contributing to the education and connection of broader Australia to our culture.
These developments underline our sense of duty to effect real change for our community, while leveraging the fantastic work already done by ELP over the past decade.
We are excited by this next stage of our growth and look forward to sharing further progress with you soon!
