Boardroom Conversations with Jessica Bulger

Season 2 Episode 8 – Jessica Bulger: First Nations perspectives on governance, balancing executive and board roles, benefits of a co-chair model

Jessica Bulger MAICD is the CEO of the Australian Indigenous Governance Institute and the Co-Chair of Outward Bound Australia. We talk about: First Nations peoples’ perspectives on governance, balancing executive and board roles, and the benefits of a co-chair model.

Transcript

BENNETT MASON

Hello and welcome to Boardroom Conversations, a podcast from the Australian Institute of Company Directors. My name is Bennett Mason. And thank you so much for joining us. In each episode, we'll have candid conversations with some of Australia's top directors, leaders and experts. We'll be delving into their background and discussing many of the key issues that boards our grappling with. Our guest this time is Jessica Bolger. She's the CEO of the Australian Indigenous Governance Institute and the co-chair of Outward Bound Australia. Jess, thanks so much for joining us on Boardroom Conversations. So, Jess, we like to begin these podcasts by speaking with our guests a little about their background and their careers. So, you started out as a schoolteacher. How did your path lead you then, to becoming chief executive of the Australian Indigenous Governance Institute? And why did you want that job?

JESSICA BULGER

Thanks for having me. I am a Wiradjuri. I grew up in a small country town, a little town called Tumut, which is not far from Brungle Mission, where my mum's family was. I'm really lucky to have growing up in a big, proud Aboriginal, family, on country and connected to culture. But you also grow up like many kids from regional areas with a really limited frame of reference. And I could see that I had two aunts who would become teachers, and that looked like a fulfilling career. I also could see that the kids of teachers on school excursions had more spending money, and that seemed to be, from that limited frame of reference that seemed to be a really stable career. I'd also been inspired by a few teachers that I had myself, so it seemed like a good thing to do.

BENNETT MASON

You've been in the top job at the Institute for a little while. What was it about the institute that that seemed to pay like and seemed interesting for you?

JESSICA BULGER

Yeah, I've been in this role now almost three years, and I had spent a long time in Not-for-profit years. I'd spent eight years at Career Trackers, an internship program for Aboriginal and Torres Islander University students. I got to see that organisation grow from, when I joined eight staff and 100 students in the program to when I left, 50 staff and 700 students in the program. And as you can imagine, through that rapid growth, you get to learn all of the business development stuff of a not-for-profits. Stuff like how to grow a team, keep a team when you bring things internal, when you keep them external, all of those sorts of things. I was interested in the job with AIGI because I've really grown up knowing that our communities and our community leaders, they have the skills and experience to lead. It's really a matter of building governance strength that is not just about learning the regulator and accreditation and the law, but also understanding that for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander organisations, we have an accountability to the nation that we serve, and their prioritise and their cultural protocols. Having grown up myself, witness to magnificent eldership and really effective community governance, it seemed like a really meaningful way for me to be able to contribute.

BENNETT MASON

So, can you tell us a little bit more about the AIGI? What is its goal? What's its mission? What are some of the major projects you and the team are working on now?

JESSICA BULGER

Yeah, we've been around now for 12 years, although our history is much longer than that. We are a non-government organisation. We're a not for profit. We are small but mighty. We were started by a group of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander leaders that could see, if you think back 12 years, keeping in mind that the reconciliation movement is sort of 20 plus years. This group of people were part of a research project that looked at what is unique and different, but also common about the way that Aboriginal and Torres Island organisations govern. IE, organise themselves towards a shared goal. And they could really see that there was a place for the Institute that is important to the reconciliation movement, but different as well. And so, started the institute 12 years ago. What we do is work with boards to strengthen governance. We do that in a couple of ways through the Indigenous Governance Toolkit, which we have the pleasure of maintaining and growing. We also do professional development workshops. Some advisory work and run mentoring programs. The goal is to strengthen governance based on the priorities of those organisations. So, it's not about coming in and simply saying this is the law according to the Corporations Act or the CATSI act. This is what you must do according to the regulator. That's all very important. But our research and our observations also shows that successful indigenous organisations are able to balance those two forms of accountability and serve their communities effectively.

BENNETT MASON

You talked about mentoring a moment ago. We know that's one of the many important roles that AIGI has. How the Institute tried to mentor, coach and support First Nations groups and individuals. How do you go about that?

JESSICA BULGER

Generally, and specifically in a couple of programs. But generally, what I'll say is that and this is, a generalisation, but I'm confident that it rings true across Australia. At least in my experience, the way that we learn is about trust and storytelling, it's relational. The way that we see success as a community or wellness as a community is as a whole community, not about the individual. And so, we're also really aware that and I guess this is the teacher in May as well. But it's not just about what you can learn in a classroom while looking at PowerPoint slides. Having somebody share their experience. It's also about the learning that happens by being on the job, and then sharing your lessons and challenges with another person who has more experience and can help you to contextualise those learnings and give some of the experience that they have got. Because I know myself in my mentoring experiences, when I come with a challenge and I've gone through this, I'm not sure how to approach this. You get that story of, well, when this happened to me, this is what I did, and you might not take that on exactly and act exactly as the mentor did, but it allows that relationship and that storytelling in that example. So, we come at it from that approach. We do it in, the way of our Emerging Directors program, which is about mentorship. There's some workshop elements for the education piece, but it's also about observer ship. So, in AIGI’s Emerging Directors Program, it's about culturally safe, culturally empowering, mentoring and observing. And the mentor will take their mentee on a couple of the board meetings that they attend, and then do some pre and post chat with them to contextualise what they've learned in the meeting. We also apply that culturally empowering mentoring concept to various partnerships. Currently a partnership with the AICD. And we'll do that more in the future with other partners as well.

BENNETT MASON

I want to get to a few governance issues in a moment but sticking with you and your career for a bit. As you said, you've been CEO now for three years. What do you think you've learned in that time about the organisation and about being a CEO?

JESSICA BULGER

I think that the relationship that you have with your chair and your board is really important, and you've got to be brave and cultivate that. I've got a very effective chair who has time for me, and she's kind and patient, and she will listen, and she will offer ideas and suggestions. But she's also very clear of her role in governance and setting the strategic direction of the organisation, but not poking around in the operational running of the organisation. I've also learnt the challenges of a really small organisation, in that we are 12 staff at the moment with around about $2 million in turnover. And so, what that means is that while I want to be very focussed on being the future-proofing CEO, that's focussed on revenue diversification, the security in our philanthropy, what's the right government relationship? Continuing to build our own source revenue capability. There will be times where you have to stop and pause and nurture individuals and get into the detail. The lesson of being a small, not for profit CEO is effectively balancing both of those things.

BENNETT MASON

And what do you want to accomplish in that role? What do you want your legacy to be?

JESSICA BULGER

Sustainability is really important. And I don't just mean financial sustainability, but sustainability of impact. It's really important to remember that AIGI is a community asset. It's not mine. It's not a big deal that I'm the CEO. I have the pleasure of guiding this organisation for this moment in time. But ultimately it exists for community. And I want to make sure that it has sustainability into the future, to continue doing the great work that it does for communities.

BENNETT MASON

You've spoken before in interviews about comparisons between First Nations peoples’ approaches to governance and Western systems of governance. How do you think those two systems are similar and how are they different?

JESSICA BULGER

Yeah, that's a really interesting question because - I'll start with a really important similarity in that we talk a lot in governance about accountability and transparency. First Nations organisations are inherently accountable and transparent because our shareholders are our communities. And we are only in the roles in these organisations because we wish for our communities to prosper. So, when we are dealing with how we might bring the community into our strategy or share information back to the community, we do those things because we would expect them if we were members, citizens of that community, not in leadership positions. So, when your shareholders are your community, accountability and transparency, key tenants of governance, are really very straightforward. What I will say as well is that what is special about indigenous governance is, as I mentioned before, two-way accountability as in can accountability to the wider governance environment as well as to the nation that you serve. But we're also focussed on cultural legitimacy. You can be as successful as possible according to doing everything right according to ORIC, ASIC, ACNC, understand the law to the letter. But the cultural legitimacy, if you are not aware of and engaged with the cultural protocols and the community priority of that nation that you serve, then you aren't really successful. And I think that that's a very commonly held belief across our communities.

BENNETT MASON

And how do you think those two systems can co-exist alongside each other?

JESSICA BULGER

Perhaps to think about it in lenses. So, when we're aware of our legal duties and the roles and responsibilities of being a CEO or a director in the very corporate western governance sense, you're then able to hold that knowledge and then work out how to ensure that you're also mind and your accountability to community and to cultural protocols. There are some really, sound simple, but also really profound examples. A really simple one is to think of organisations who have had their elders, and their community involved in writing their values, and then making sure that their values are part of the way that they organise meetings, the way that they share information and that that's written down in their strategy and that's communicated back to their community. So that there is community control in organisations where there are very specific member control. The regulator will talk all the time, and I appreciate how she speaks about this. About the integrity in member control. That organisation exists for the members and for the lives of those people to thrive. So, the directors have a responsibility to the members. And, of course, the CEO and staff has a responsibility to those directors.

BENNETT MASON

I wanted to ask you now about two-way learning, because we know that's an important concept. What do you think non-Indigenous directors can learn from First Nations board members and vice versa too?

JESSICA BULGER

Yeah, I think about this all the time. I think the first step is to appreciate that we're intellectual equals. It's not about having this approach to the world that is: “Well, we know everything over here. Let's educate them over there so they can work with us and work into our systems.” It's not about that at all. It's about appreciating that we have not survived generations and generations and generations without effective governance systems in place. When you look at there being hundreds of languages in place at the point of contact, that tells us that there were complex governance systems in place that were effective. There were, although this is more of a contemporary word, they were treaties in place because they had to be. Because the way that groups worked with each other, organised trade, organised ceremony, went through each other's land to get to other places. There were agreements in place. That's complex governance that was in place. Often organisations will come to us and say: “We need a First Nations director on our board.” And we say: “Why?” My advice is always: understand the business challenge that you have and work out what that solution is. It's not necessarily just representation on your board. It could be a discreet piece of work to engage an expert on. It could be an advisory group of some description that you ask specific questions of. It could be something in addition or different to representation. I think that we can also appreciate that, I'm sort of speaking as a young ish. I'm sort of I can stop claiming that pretty soon. But as a young Aboriginal woman, our leadership trajectories are generally accelerated because we are community minded, and we have grown up seeing our old people go through some serious struggles and overcome some serious struggles. And when we get to the end of high school and off to get that university degree, get that degree, work out where we want to be making an impact. Think very seriously about how to transform system settings. We are generally on accelerated leadership journeys. The young people in my team, for example, they're on several boards. They're on several committees. They've thought very seriously about how they want to have an impact. They've talked to their old people about how they want to have an impact and what matters to their communities, what the values of their old people are. And they're making sense of that for themselves in the career that they're building. But their journeys, are accelerated. So, there's extreme value in that. If you have the privilege of having a young indigenous person or an indigenous person on your board, they've probably got more life experience than you.

BENNETT MASON

Let's talk a little bit about representation. You mentioned earlier that one way for a board to get a First Nations perspective is to bring on a First Nations person to the board. But in some instances, that might not be the best approach. Organisations could also look at an advisory board, for example. What sort of mechanisms have you seen work well?

JESSICA BULGER

I think mechanisms work well when the organisation has done the necessary deep work to understand their intentions and to check their intentions. Sometimes very well-meaning organisations will have a situation with an indigenous person on their board, and they've not thought deeply about why or what the goal is, and they haven't done the necessary work themselves. Does cultural competency work need to be done? What's the environment that you're bringing this person into and are they respected for their skills and experience more broadly than their cultural experience? You will have young people on boards who are very savvy at communications and social media and connecting with various generations. You might have various different skills, that not just come with being a young person, but have been to university and gathered other skills. Being aware that that person brings much more than an indigenous lens, that might have been sought without the deep thinking first.

BENNETT MASON

Alongside that, we do know, though, that in many sectors, First Nations people, underrepresented. Why do you think that issue persists and what are some ways it could be addressed?

JESSICA BULGER

This takes me back to, I guess, if I give you a sort of picture of the environment from my lens of Career Trackers. This is the first generation of indigenous people that have gone to university in such numbers. There were about 20,000 indigenous people at university across all degree fields, at all levels. So, we're talking about part time PhDs, all of it. And that represents less than 1%, I haven't done the stats lightly. There's probably over a million people at university in Australia. So, if you think about that, we're talking about pursuing professional careers with tertiary education, that's a rather new phenomenon. And not to say that you must have a university degree to add value. I don't mean that at all. Many of the most intelligent people I've met, have not got university degrees. But it's also because I think that we're so focussed on seeing our communities thrive. I started out being a teacher. There are many indigenous people in the health sector. I think it's because it's very easy to see the gaps and want to participate in closing them. Of course, also, I've had students over the years who are mechanical engineers, who are designing drones that can survey land, and cultural sites during disasters and that sort of thing. That's not a very obvious way to the typical 16-year-old that's choosing a university pathway. But it is also a very profound way to contribute to community. So, I think that it's about momentum and building a generation after generation of strength in numbers and professionals. But it's also about, when we talk about underrepresentation, it kind of depends on which sectors you mean. You could say that we're underrepresented on the boards of non-Indigenous led organisations. We're certainly not on the boards of indigenous led organisations because that's where the focus has been.

BENNETT MASON

I wanted to ask you about, engagement now. We know that First Nations people are an important stakeholder group for Australian boards. But at the same time, First Nations people are, of course, not a homogenous group. There will be differing views across people throughout the sector. So how can Australian boards better engage with First Nations people? Do you have any advice on some of the techniques or methods that could be looking at?

JESSICA BULGER

I think it goes back to my point before around intention and of course, understanding the organisation's purpose and vision and doing the work to understand why you are engaging and the value of that engagement, and thinking really seriously about reciprocity in that it's not just about: “Oh gosh, would you like to come over here and offer some opinions?” But it's valuing that opinion and understanding how you can reciprocate when you benefit from the value that a First Nations group brings to your board or your organisation.

BENNETT MASON

Shifting to a slightly different area, the Australian Indigenous Governance Awards are coming up later this year. These awards are presented in partnership with your organisation, the Australian Indigenous Governance Institute, but also Reconciliation Australia and the BHP Foundation. Can you tell us a little bit more about the awards? Why are they important? And what's the purpose?

JESSICA BULGER

Yeah, the awards are really important. They're really exciting. What the awards essentially allow us to do is codify best practice and share stories of success in indigenous governance excellence. Organisations will nominate and then a panel of judges will visit those finalists and ask questions in order to determine those winners. And those who participate are also able to access professional development and the really wonderful opportunity to network with the other finalists. Because that is such rich learning, when we see the directors of those different finalists sit down with one another and say: “Oh wow, we had that challenge.” Or: “Wow, we did that. We did it this way. That might work for you.” That networking opportunity is really, really special as well.

BENNETT MASON

Sticking with that networking, who are some of the previous winners from the awards and what do you think can be learnt from a few of those specific organisations maybe?

JESSICA BULGER

Without naming them, organisations that have done a really good job of bringing what matters to their community into their governance model. I spoke before about the example of values. We also see organisations really effectively design their decision-making processes to take on the opinions of elders and be really respectful of who can speak for country. There might be corporations that have many different language groups that they represent. When we see organisations really effectively bring those knowledge holders together and take on the opinions and the ideas of those that have the authority to speak for their country, those decision-making mechanisms work. If I think of other examples, there's an organisation that was a previous winner who said to us that the recognition of winning the award brought them so much validity and credibility with government, that they were then able to secure additional funding because it gave them, it highlighted their success and they were able to really clearly say for themselves: “Yeah, we went through this process, we learned this about ourselves. We now can say confidently that we do this and this and this really well.” And so that recognition was a really positive part of their story to lead to future success.

BENNETT MASON

We talked a lot about the Indigenous Governance Institute, but I wanted to ask you also about another one of your roles. You're also the co-chair of Outward Bound Australia. I know what Outward Bound is, I've done a bunch of Outward Bound. But it might be useful if you just explain what the organisation is. And could you tell us why you wanted to become the chair at Outward Bound Australia?

JESSICA BULGER

Outward Bound is an outdoor education organisation. It's really the heart and heritage of, and I've stolen that line from our wonderful CEO. The heart and heritage of outdoor education in Australia. It has been in Australia for more than 60 years. It's about learning in the outdoors and learning through challenge and finding out who you are when you are part of an abseil or organising pulling your pack across the river, or those sorts of things. Takes hierarchy out of it. Or whoever's the kid at school that, it doesn't matter who you are at school, once you're out on those trips, you get to find out who you are. And you find your find yourself through a challenge. It's a really special organisation and important now more than ever. As we see the diverse challenges facing this generation's youth.

BENNETT MASON

Obviously the organisation has meaning to you. But why did you want to be on the board and then why did you want to be chair?

JESSICA BULGER

Yeah, it's a funny story. I think your questions of like, why did you want to be the chair? Why did you want to be the CEO? I don't think it's as direct as that. I was introduced to Outward Bound many, many years ago. Because at Career Trackers we've done a study to look at models in other parts of the world that were doing successful and similar things. To bring some of those learnings back to Australia. I actually met Outward Bound in Canada and was really inspired by the organisation. And then a little while later, back in Australia, it was presented to me as a career development opportunity to understand not-for-profit governance. I did a couple of interviews, and I could say that the other individuals on the board were very experienced, good people that I would learn from, and so I took it up really as a career development opportunity with an organisation I knew not very much about and have since fallen in love with what the organisation does. It's really interesting though, when you talk about, I've been on that board now seven years and in that time the organisation has seen extraordinary challenge. We were really struck by the bushfires that burned a large area that we would do an expedition in. And then of course, Covid, where kids couldn't go in school buses to go on camps. So that organisation has faced extraordinary challenge. But what is really special about the way that it is succeeding at the moment is that we've come through those challenges focussed on industry wide innovation. So, looking at how our competitors and other parts of the industry can come together to solve challenges that face the whole industry, because we really believe that it's not about competition, but it's about offering something important. We work with people of all ages, but particularly young people, because the challenges that are faced today, with sort of school refusal, addiction to devices, all of those sorts of things. What you can learn about yourself when you are in the outdoors is really special. So, this innovative approach across the industry is really a big part of our success post-bushfires and post-Covid. I wasn't the co-chair all along. I started as a board member. I said yes to the co-chair opportunity in the middle of those crises that I just mentioned, because what I could see was that we had a group of really good, effective people on the board that wanted to grow the organisation beyond these crises. And I care so much about the individuals that the organisation helps that I had spent the past sort of, previous four years before I was co-chair, learning the organisation, learning the possibilities and the highlights and challenges of that journey to date. And I thought I was well placed to have that leadership role, to see us through those challenges. The co-chair model is interesting because it allows us to collaborate, and it means that like every not-for-profit board, you've got some individuals on the board who also probably have big day jobs in their sectors and in their communities. And so, the co-chair role allows us to collaborate to lean on one another, to step in when necessary. But we're also really aware of our governance requirements. I've got a very close eye on our risk register, and we address it every single meeting. We've got the knowledge to make sure that our governance is in really good order, so that the co-chair model, in fact, it allows us to excel rather than is a hindrance. As you might assume. So, a lot of people say: “Oh, a co-chair model.” And then we explain how our processes and how important collaboration is and how important collective leadership is and the service that we feel to the community. And then people go: “Oh, wow, yeah, that's really cool.” Jess, you said a moment ago that you became chair at a time of crisis for the organisation. What was that like? It must have been extremely challenging.

JESSICA BULGER

It was, and it was also really at a difficult point in my day job at the time as well, because it was just before I changed jobs and Career Trackers was facing Covid and the way that people interact with university changing. So that internship model needed to be innovated as well. So, I had a really big focus on innovation and responding to change in my day job. And then this opportunity became available. But I think, maybe it sort of simplifies it too much, but it was an easy decision because the of the great people that are on the board with me, and we all are so very clear about the goal and very clear about working together and staying focussed on the vision of the organisation that there really isn't any, that really didn't make it difficult at all.

BENNETT MASON

You talked about the bushfires and then Covid. Look, hopefully we don't have another global pandemic any time soon, but there will be more difficult times and will be more crises. Do you think Outward Bound Australia is better prepared for the next big shock, whatever that may be?

JESSICA BULGER

Absolutely, absolutely. And when you get that opportunity to interrogate every element of the business, you rebuild it much, much differently. Down to asking the question of why we had one of those big, expensive rented photocopy machines in the office. Things like that.  Some things when you are an organisation that 60 years old, some things just hang on. Things like looking at the opportunities for the buildings onsite at our base in Tharwa and looking at how they could be repurposed and rejuvenated to do really interesting things like bushcraft workshops and other things like that. So being able to look at every detail of the organisation and also from a people perspective as well. Making sure that we look after our people and have them in arrangements with the organisation that allows career progression, those sorts of things. It's very rare that an organisation gets to really rebuild in the in the way that we have had to post-bushfires and Covid. So there comes really good opportunities with that to build security and sustainability as well.

BENNETT MASON

Thanks, Jess. I think there's some great lessons there for all organisations. I just wanted to ask you one final question around how you balance those two roles, how you find the time. A lot of people have executive roles, whilst at the same time being a chair or non-executive director. Is it tricky sometimes to jump from an executive position to a board role? And then, as I said, how do you find the time? How do you balance the diary?

JESSICA BULGER

Yeah, the really boring thing that I will say is have your calendars organised months and months and months in advance. Both my colleagues at Outward Bound and my board at AIGI, we have our governance calendar set in November-December for the following 12 months and things will have to change. But when you have a serious approach to scheduling like that, it shows respect to everybody that's involved. I don't think it's difficult to jump from CEO to chair, because as a chair, I'm able to understand what the CEO is dealing with and how their day might have gone and the range of different things that they're dealing with. So, when I ask them a question, I'm careful not to unnecessarily cause them more work. But at the same time, as a CEO, I also can see for the most part, I'm not perfect, but I reckon in most cases I can see the perspective my board is coming from because their focus is strategic direction, risk. They've got that hat on, as they should, when they ask me certain questions. In the early days, I’d think: “Oh, why you bothered about that detail?” Sometimes I'd sort of be bothered by the sort of requests coming from my board. But over time, that perspective that I've got, I'm learning every day. Not to say I've got it all worked out, but I'm getting better at using the perspective I have as a CEO to inform my work as a chair and the other way around as well.

BENNETT MASON

Great. Look, Jess, I realise you are short on time, so we'll leave it there. But thank you very much for sharing your insights on Boardroom Conversations.

JESSICA BULGER

Thanks for having me.