Agent Of Change: Kristy Masella
The numbers are impressive: over 20 years, recruitment and training company Aboriginal Employment Strategy (AES) has secured 16,500 career placements and 1500 traineeships for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women. Kristy Masella, now in her seventh year as CEO, recently launched the Boss Lady program, designed to help Indigenous women improve their careers and lives.
Your job is about getting people into jobs. Did COVID stop you in your tracks?
Not at all. We just made sure we continued to secure great employment opportunities. One of the industries that kept going was construction, so we saw an opportunity to get more women into those roles – not just in the trades, but also as procurement managers, project managers, and it’s those roles that can be influential in getting other women to join the industry, too.
You launched the Boss Lady program last year. What’s that about?
As an Aboriginal woman, I want to make sure that young Aboriginal women think seriously about careers, not just jobs and that they get the support in training and development. I want to share some of the leadership lessons I have learnt and let them know that being a boss lady is not a title, it’s an attitude. It’s about empowering young women to be the architect of their destiny. There are multiple barriers in front of us and I want them to have the confidence to kick those barriers down.
What sort of support do you provide to your clients?
Some people need upfront support, certain skill-sets, or maybe what they actually need is help finding secure housing, so they can then handle a job. We also provide ongoing support once they have a job. If they hit a hiccup in the road, we are here to help. Some people lack confidence; they have found the process of attempting to get a job so daunting, so disempowering, that they have little faith in their ability to get a job. They don’t understand the skills and capabilities they already have so it’s our job to help them identify those and find a really great match. We also work with people who have been released from jail. Not everyone is willing to give a job to someone with a criminal history, but some people are.
Is there a lesson you learnt on your first job that you still draw on today?
My first job out of university was as a writer and researcher for the Queensland government’s submission to the Human Rights Inquiry into the Stolen Generations. I had responsibility for capturing the stories of local Aboriginal people as members of the Stolen Generation, and I had a great sense of responsibility to make sure their voices were appropriately represented in the governmental submissions. I had to learn how to build trust, for people to trust me to be able to tell their stories. And our success as an organisation today is built on the same thing – relationships. We have to build relationships with corporates, to get them onboard so they are willing to provide employment opportunities. We have to build relationships with community members to make sure they trust us to provide the right support, to help them navigate their journey.
What’s next on your agenda?
[To foster] a better understanding of mental health. One thing we see a lot of is the impact of trauma. It’s an area that needs much more investment. People who are struggling with trauma are not able to hold down a job. They need a huge amount of healing and support services.
Would you like to see more awareness of the work that organisations like yours are doing?
The media loves to cover issues like Aboriginal deaths in custody, but doesn’t give a lot of attention to the fantastic organisations designed and led by Aboriginal people that find solutions to some of the big issues. We have always been adaptive and flexible people. For 85,000 years we have had a very strong connection to each other and have had the responsibility to protect and care for each other. This is a natural flow-on. We can see what’s needed in our communities and we’re getting on with it. It would be nice to celebrate that.
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Interview _Ute Junker
Photo_ Supplied