Young Leader of the Year

Awarded to a young leader who has made a difference to the public sector through demonstrating best practice and fostering other young professionals.

Focus
Significant personal contribution to service delivery and to others over recent years.

Open to

• Individuals only.
• Aged 35 years or less.
• Currently working in the public sector in Queensland, or having worked in the sector during the preceding financial year.

Nominated by
Self or third party

Criteria
Nominees must show how they have made a difference as a young leader by demonstrating:

C1 Excellence in public administration and management over recent years.
C2 Active use of best practice in their role(s).
C3 Demonstrated active support and fostering of other young leaders.
C4 Improved service delivery to their local community or to Queensland.

Download Documents:
Please use the following format when saving your nomination documents:
nomination title - your first name - your last name

Young Leader Nomination Template
Supporting Document Template

2011 Winner of Young Leader of the Year

Glenn Walker, Department of Community Safety.

 Glenn Walker has a long history with the Department of Community Safety spanning 10 years. He possesses an unwavering commitment to the department’s operational needs and strategic objectives being enabled through the delivery of high quality Information and Communication Technology. Glenn’s skills in strategic decision making, staff development and implementing and maintaining the department’s critical ICT systems resulted in his appointment to Chief Information Officer (CIO) in early 2010. This was a significant achievement with Glenn being the youngest CIO ever appointed in Queensland Government history. The Department of Community Safety is responsible for keeping the Queensland Community safe through the ability to respond to medical emergencies, fire and rescue situations, large scale disaster response and safe from criminal offenders.  All these operational requirements have an underlying dependency upon functional, resilient and highly available ICT systems and services under Glenn’s leadership.

 Glenn delivers innovative strategies in response to the department’s dynamic organisational environment. His leadership and vision is instrumental in the implementation of information management and ICT policies that support the Department’s key goals and strategies, particularly in the areas of front line service delivery including Triple 000 Communications, Disaster Management, Offender rehabilitation and in-field operations conducted by first responders. Although considered young, Glenn delivers knowledge and vision well beyond his years. He is an inspiration to his 300+ staff and possesses the qualities of an exceptional leader being humility, honesty and integrity. Glenn looks forward to the future and continuing to develop and implement Government capabilities that directly benefit the Queensland community.

2010 WINNER of Young Leader of the Year

Aisha Damali, from the Department of Communities

Aisha Damali has delivered and managed services in the public sector for six years. The past five months have seen Aisha move into a role of managing The Outlook, Training and Resource Centre. The Outlook provides direct service delivery to vulnerable and disadvantaged communities, through adventure based learning programs. As well as this, The Outlook provides training within a capacity-building framework to staff across government and community agencies. The role of manager includes managing an appropriation budget of $1.3 million, a revenue budget of $300,000 and 20 staff. Her short time as manager has seen her undergo a change management process of shifting a service with four units to a service with a single unit focus. 

A major strength Aisha has brought to the role is her passion and commitment to improving relationships between the government and non-government sector. She sees the continuing potential for better outcomes for clients as these cross-agency relationships are improved.  In particular she has improved the partnership arrangements between government services and government funded agencies. From a public administration perspective, she has both increased and improved range and quality of partnership agreements, resulting in increased participation and training of non-government staff to deliver adventure based learning programs. From a client perspective this has resulted in an increase in service delivery to disadvantaged communities.   

As a young leader Aisha acknowledges that she has much learning and growing ahead. She is a person who is making outstanding leadership contributions within the Department of Communities, the human services sector and vulnerable and disadvantaged communities across South East Queensland.
 

2009 WINNER of Young Leader of the Year

Tara Waller, From Brisbane City Council

The judging panel felt Tara Waller led in all four criteria for this Award providing strong leadership and innovation in the difficult area of career counselling and retaining young people in the public sector.

Tara’s work was notable for the breadth of the projects undertaken with the focus across both blue and white collar sectors. The multiple projects she has driven are impressive with strong innovation to meet the needs of young employees. The objective assessment of this work hasn’t been overlooked however with monitoring and measurement of performance in place.

Clearly, Tara is making a valuable contribution by leading and mentoring among her own constituency, fostering and developing the young staff of the Brisbane City Council.