Ten years after launching SharingStories, Founder and CEO Liz Thompson will step into a Creative Director role and pass the foundation’s leadership to Co-CEOs: Pitta Pitta woman and educational expert Sharon Williams, and experienced operations and program director Taz Miller.
While the Co-CEO model is not new, our organisation has embraced this less colonised approach to leadership working to work with our leaders’ diverse strengths and capabilities to build capacity in community and meet community aspirations in supporting cultural, language and storytelling programs.
As an organisation, one of our strongest values is the both-ways approach. We understand that by working together our diverse team can bring a range of attributes that can not only benefit our mission, but also our ability to create opportunities to strengthen cross-cultural understanding across Australian communities. Our Chairperson,
Tim Goodwin SharingStories Chair explained, “SharingStories Foundation is really excited to embrace the development of the positions of co-CEOs in our organisation to have as leaders of the organisation and two very proud and capable people, one indigenous and one non-Indigenous, to really put into practice what we preach about Both Ways learning and to show for the rest of the country a model for how leadership can work in this country between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people learning from each other growing as a result and using to the best of our capacity all of our skills to better the position of Indigenous peoples and as a result the entire nation.”
Incoming Co-CEO, Sharon Williams, said: “What a privilege it is to be in a position where both my passion for improving First Nations student educational outcomes and developing strong Community and School partnerships is an integral part of the work.”
Incoming Co-CEO, Taz Miller, said: “Over the past 9 years, I have had the privilege of being part of the SharingStories journey, learning from Elders and communities and guided by our founder Liz Thompson, the talented creatives and team that work so hard to support community goals. I am so excited for the learning journey that lies ahead and working alongside the amazing Sharon Williams in the Co-CEO role.”
Together, Sharon and Taz will take the organisation forward into its next decade to support the SharingStories mission, ‘Strong, connected First Nations young people and communities working together with all Australians to care for culture and Country.’
With the upcoming release of SharingStories’ new initiative ‘Jajoo Warrngara: The Culture Classroom’, Sharon and Taz will lead the innovative social enterprise, where First Nations communities can share authentic cultural knowledge and educational resources with teachers so the next generation can learn about and celebrate the world’s oldest living cultures.