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Professor Nareen Young is Associate Dean, Indigenous Engagement and Leadership at UTS Business School, and leads the Jumbunna Institute of Indigenous Education and Research.
She is one of Australia’s most respected workplace diversity practitioners and thinkers.
For 15 years, prior to UTS and Jumbunna, Nareen was the Director of PWC Indigenous Consulting, CEO of Diversity Council Australia and Director of the NSW Working Women’s Centre, and was nominated for an Australian Human Rights Award and Medal for her work during that time.
Nareen is influenced by both her Indigenous and culturally diverse heritages in all her work and has received numerous awards and acknowledgements, including the inaugural Westpac 100 Women of Influence honour for Diversity, and she commentates and publishes her work widely across media and academia.
I’m delighted to have the honour of speaking with her, enjoy the episode!
In this episode we discuss:
- What intersectionality is, and why it matters, and what it means to be ‘othered’.
- Why focusing on women on boards isn’t enough.
- Nareen’s work at Jumbunna Institute for Indigenous Education and Research.
- Introducing research into the work at Diversity Council of Australia, and bringing a First Nations lens to it at Jumbunna.
- Gari Yala Gendered Insights Report and the key themes: identity strain, cultural load, cultural safety, organisational authenticity and activity.
- The ongoing racism and microagressions faced by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders in the workplace.
- Reconciliation Action Planning in a way that has a real impact.
- The intersectional double bind of caring, and the care model within First Nations communities as a result of inter-generational trauma.
- Community responsibility and what workplaces can do.
- How the Gari Yala work has been used in organisations to make a difference.
- Focusing on high-impact activities, which includes network groups
- Her book recommendations Talking up to the White Woman, by Aileen Moreton-Robinson and Sister Girl, by Jackie Huggins
- Grasping opportunities, and being aware of the impact you can make.
About Professor Nareen Young
Nareen Young is Associate Dean (Indigenous Leadership and Engagement) at the University of Technology, Business School, Sydney. She also leads Jumbunna Indigenous Education and Research Institute’s Indigenous People and Work Research and Practice Hub which focuses on robust research and analysis, policy, practice, people and law reform and leads the National Indigenous employment sector.
Nareen is one of Australia’s leading and most respected workplace Diversity practitioners, thinkers and influencers and lead and managed two Diversity peak bodies (Diversity Council Australia and NSW Working Women’s Centre), with enormous impact and success, for nearly 15 years. Nareen devised and implemented the current Diversity Council Australia membership/employment diversity research model that has lead it to success and impact, reconstituted it and reformed the Board. The work that she did with Jane O’Leary in identifying the need for and establishing DCA’s rigorous, evidence-based industry diversity research in the Australian context has been seminal.
She was then Director and Employment Lead at a large Indigenous consulting firm for three years where she consulted extensively to business, government and the NGO sector around employment strategies for Indigenous people.
She is influenced by both her Indigenous and culturally diverse heritages in all her work and has received numerous awards and acknowledgements, including the inaugural Westpac 100 Women of Influence honour for Diversity, has commentated widely, presented both Nationally and internationally, and published.
Nareen has significant governance experience, spent a term as Director, Indigenous Business Australia, was a member of the BlakDance board for nine years and Diversity Arts Australia for three, and currently sits on the boards of Per Capita and PACT Theatre.
She reported very successfully to boards as an NFP CEO for nearly 15 years. Her record of excellence in NGO management and strategy is highly respected.
Nareen identifies employment diversity trends in the unique Australian context and is a significant collaborator in the diversity and employment sectors by bringing together people and organisations for the common good. She achieves practical, measurable outcomes utilising her ethical leadership style and, working with others, her thinking and concepts have had significant influence on employment diversity policy and practice. She is a committed, tenacious and active self-determinationist for all people and leads in developing understanding in the employment sector as to its importance.