National Reconciliation Week: Indigenous Business Leadership

National Reconciliation Week 2021 @FBE-MBS

MORE THAN A WORD. RECONCILIATION TAKES ACTION.

Hosted by the Deputy Dean Professor Paul Jensen , this event features Dr Michelle Evans and Ash Franciso and their roles in the newly established Centre for Indigenous Business Leadership and how the Centre will positively impact Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. In addition, researchers from the Faculty of Business and Economics will also discuss their research experience working with Indigenous businesses.

Event speakers include:

• Ash Francisco is a Wiradjuri woman born on Wurundjeri Country in Naarm, Melbourne. She is the newly appointed Lecturer Indigenous communities at Dilin Duwa Centre for Indigenous Business Leadership and her interests span from historically guided restorative justice to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander leadership and entrepreneurship. She recently completed a PhD in Aboriginal History at the University of Newcastle and is based on Taungurung Country in North Central Victoria. Ash has an ongoing interest in rural/regional capacity development through decolonising the centrality of knowledge institutions to bring information and resources to where people need them for practical application.

• Dr Cain Polidano is a Senior Research Fellow with the Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research. Cain’s research is centred on using big data and statistical methods to measure causal relationships that can inform policy. A current focus is on integrating and developing administrative data to describe and quantify the Indigenous business sector and to understand the impacts of Indigenous preferential procurement policies.

• Dr Michal Carrington is a Senior Lecturer in Marketing in the Faculty of Business and Economics, University of Melbourne. She engages with Indigenous Entrepreneurs through her teaching activities within the National Native Title Council ‘Native Title Operations and Management Training Program’ and the MBS Murra Program. Michal is also currently collaborating with Indigenous Entrepreneurs through her research to understand how Indigenous businesses engage and navigate consumer markets.

• Dr Michelle Evans holds an Associate Professorship in Leadership at the Faculty of Business and Economics at the University of Melbourne, specialising in the areas of Indigenous leadership and entrepreneurship. Dr Evans has been awarded three Australian Research Council competitive grants and a Fulbright Scholarship and is widely published in this space. She teaches predominantly at senior executive and postgraduate levels. She is co-Founder and Program Director of the award-winning MURRA Indigenous Business Masterclass Program, based at Melbourne Business School where she completed her PhD. In addition to establishing MURRA, Dr Evans has also established other initiatives designed to support Indigenous entrepreneurship including Walan Mayingu Indigenous entrepreneurship pop-up Hub, Indigenous Business Month and collaborated on the Native Title Operations and Management Training Program with the National Native Title Council and Meereeng50 a First Australian procurement accelerator with Kinaway and PwC Indigenous Consulting.