How has being part of Enactus influenced /impacted you personally?
Enactus gave me the opportunity to solve real-world problems in a tangible manner. Not only did I have practical exposure towards project management and social impact, but also the chance to nurture my passion for climate action.
How has being part of Enactus influenced / impacted you professionally?
Through learning about social entrepreneurship, I developed an appreciation for work that supports the public good. I realised my skills and interests lied in helping both governments and businesses navigate the complexities around our energy transition. Since graduating from UNSW in Renewable Energy Engineering, I found myself working as a consultant at enX – in this role, I am able to help stakeholders make sense of the technical and commercial barriers for distributed energy resources in Australia. Enactus definitely helped me understand which direction I wanted my early career to start off.
What skills and competencies did Enactus help you develop?
As project leader at Fortunate Food Co., I learnt a lot about leadership and project management – both of which were crucial to ensure strong team morale and direction towards greater social impact. Through leadership, I understood how to take calculated decisions and risks which benefit the project. Likewise, powerful methods like the ‘project pipeline’ have helped me learn the processes of a lean start-up, whereby we continuously prototype, validate, and iterate until the solution is right.
How would you describe the benefits of Enactus to someone who is considering joining a team?
Enactus teams are unlike those we encounter within the classroom. You have the opportunity to solve real-world problems in a multidisciplinary environment – not only are you able to put theory into practice, but also learn how to work with members coming from different schools of thought. This experience is very valuable because the real-world pushes you to work with a lot of different people to achieve a common goal; this is exactly what Enactus does best.
Please share some detail about a memorable experience / experiences you had whilst with Enactus.
In the latter half of my leadership tenure at Fortunate Food Co., my team decided to pivot and validate a subscription model for a variety of food products – before this, we were only selling our signature tomato chutney as a standalone offering. Over the course of 3-4 months, our team worked hard to prototype a spring collection box in tandem with our new e-commerce platform. In the end, our MVP launch was well received and led us to explore exciting avenues like re-branding and not-for-profit partnerships. The entire team was dedicated and worked around the clock to ensure no hiccups before the launch – this was a great memory of our team coming together behind a game-changing idea for the project.
Briefly outline your career journey.
Currently I am a Graduate Consultant at enX (Jan 2023 – Present) – engaging energy businesses by developing commercial and technical integration strategies amongst other things. Prior to that:
Junior Operations Engineer at Clipsal Solar (Aug 2022 – Oct 2022
Solar Engineer at YOYO Energy (Nov 2021 – Mar 2022)
Digital Marketing Intern at 20Cube Logistics (Aug 2018 – Dec 2018)