In this episode of Leadership Language, Sheena Ireland, chats with Rachelle Towart OAM, Managing Director of Pipeline Talent, a 100% Indigenous owned recruitment company specialising in Indigenous appointments.. 

Rachelle is a proud Wonnarua woman and is recognised nationally in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander leadership, governance and education. Rachelle received her OAM in acknowledgement of her achievements in these areas. Prior to the evolution of her Indigenous recruitment company, Pipeline Talent, Rachelle was the CEO of the Australian Indigenous Leadership Centre, and trained thousands of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander leaders. Rachelle has been recognised with a wide range of awards, including the prestigious Westpac Community CEO of the Year (2014). She is also one of the Australian Financial Review's Australian Women of Influence.

Rachelle is passionate about supporting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to reach their leadership potential. She chats with Sheena about the sacrifices, the family juggle, the growth and the development of her leadership and her business.

It was while reading a magazine on a flight to Western Australia that the concept for Pipeline Talent was born. Rachelle was reading an article on women in the pipeline and how women were increasing their numbers in corporate, community and government positions, however there was still a long way to go. She then thought to herself, "What if I replaced the word 'women' with 'Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people', where would the numbers sit"...and the numbers were more than alarming. This was the decision maker for Rachelle; she wanted to start her own Indigenous recruitment business. She knew there were amazing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in the community who were more than capable of succeeding; so she started her own company to provide them with the leadership and support they needed to do so.  

In this episode Rachelle talks about the importance of learning and development in creating our future leaders. She says that critical to growing the next generation of leaders is having good role models who are doing great people leadership: "for me, it is absolutely key to getting people to the next level...having that people leadership; having great people who are not afraid to do good performance management".

Rachelle also discusses the need to be brave and have courageous and honest conversations in performance management. She says her biggest bug bear is around people's hesitation around providing feedback on work, particularly concerns about perceived racism when providing feedback to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, "we need to coach people to be the best they can".

Rachelle's ultimate goal, through her coaching and leadership role, is to ensure her clients have all the support and skills, and training and development to succeed; then they too will have the best opportunities to become leaders themselves.