Courage through Collaboration
QI founders recognised as emerging leaders in Queensland Education and Training
21 September 2022 I The Queensland Institute
The speakers from The Women in Investment Forum
Co-Director Fiona Wiebusch joined the Women in Investment forum on stage last month, hosted by Treasury Queensland.
In an inspirational and collaborative experience, the women-led businesses, entrepreneurs, and trade and investment leaders in Queensland shared their knowledge and valuable insights.
The Honourable Cameron Dick MP said, “Today, we’ll hear from Fiona Wiebusch from The Queensland Institute. At the height of the pandemic, Fiona and her co-Founder, Philippa Coleman, had the foresight to identify an opportunity that would evolve to benefit millions around the world. In December 2020, when the world was still in lockdown, they had the courage to launch a new business. Using their expertise, they set about supporting and inspiring global educators. And so, The Queensland Institute was born. Fiona and Philippa are a great example of Queensland’s entrepreneurial spirit. They identified a gap in the market and responded with a smart solution at a difficult time. To paraphrase our State’s Chief Entrepreneur, Wayne Gerard, Fiona and Philippa saw a problem, found a solution and started a business.”
Asked to share their success story; Fiona explained that “The Queensland Institute represents new business and investment opportunities in the international and education training sector. The Queensland Institute helps schools and universities to facilitate professional development for teachers in international education - all fully online.”
Fiona explained that QI supported schools and universities here in Australia “but much of our work is with universities overseas, such as Taiwan, Chile, Hong Kong, Mexico, Vietnam and the Central Pacific. All of these opportunities have come through online delivery and working in the digital era. All of the teachers that we teach have students on a pathway to further study, hopefully in Australia.”
To learn more about the story of launching QI click here.
Fiona has summarised some of her key messages that she shared in the Women in Investment forum:
Recognising the opportunity
As the world transitioned online, we recognised the opportunity to continue to support teachers who were making a really difficult transition into the work that we were doing. We were fortunate to have the skills and expertise. We could help and provide a solution to teachers who may have been struggling.
We are always learning
We continue to learn everyday. Coming to forums such as the Women in Investment forum and accessing the government learning tools has been invaluable in our learning journey. Two key resources we accessed early on included the Business Mentors program at Brisbane Business Hub and the Queensland Business Launchpad. Developing knowledge capital has been our greatest investment to date. We’re grateful for the support we’ve received from Trade and Investment Queensland here in Australia and around the world.
Courage through collaboration
Whenever we reach out to seek support or a learning opportunity with other people in business that know more than us, it gives us confidence. This has been powerful for us and has given us continued courage. The fear doesn’t go away but you just keep adding to your skill set and knowledge base. We are also very fortunate to share the learning experience with a great team. In my experience, courage comes from collaboration.
Listen to more of remarks from the Honorable Cameron Dick MP (09:45mins) and Fiona Wiebusch (42:00mins).
To watch The Women in Investment Forum click here.
If you would like to find out more about our services and how we can help, please get in touch, we’d love to hear from you.
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