From the United Nations to Australian Fashion Week: the thrill of a non-linear career path

Call me a typical millennial, but just over a decade into my career I’ve changed tack twice - moving from my initial field of psychology into international relations, and now inclusive fashion - and I couldn’t be happier or more fulfilled!

But let’s start at the beginning: when I was 13, I decided that I wanted to become an adolescent clinical psychologist. These days, I’m a little fuzzy on how I came to adopt this specific career objective at a relatively young age, but nonetheless, I felt my career trajectory was set.

Following high school, I pursued a Bachelor of Psychology degree at Griffith University and passed the first ‘stage gate’: making it into the Honours program. This is when the best laid plans faltered. While out on field placement, I was hit with the realisation that a career as a clinician wasn’t the right fit for me.

I am thankful not only that I had the self-awareness to recognise this, but also that Griffith incorporated ‘free choice’ electives into the undergraduate psychology program. As such, I had already developed a passion for politics and international relations and was able to reorient my Honours thesis to the niche field of political psychology.

This, along with my subsequent Master of International Relations degree, also from Griffith University, positioned me well for a decade-long career in public and foreign policy. During this time, I worked across state, federal and international policy settings, with a particular focus on multilateral diplomacy - I have been privileged to represent Australia’s interests at the United Nations in both New York and Vienna.

However, the ‘seven-year itch’ is not the exclusive purview of romantic relationships, and it was around this time that I began to yearn to take my career in a new direction. As a long-time fashion aficionado - fun fact: I worked as a fashion stylist to put myself through my undergraduate degree - I had a vague idea of creating something in the inclusive fashion industry. However, I felt I needed to first bolster my business acumen. Given I was now based in Sydney, I undertook my MBA at the University of Sydney, which helped me to develop the tangible skills necessary to radically change careers and in the process was fortunate to meet my business partner.

I balanced my full-time government job with the development of LeukBook, an online fashion marketplace specifically catering to the size 14+ market, throughout 2021. I managed to move into the business full-time shortly before we launched in the Australian market in February of this year.

As CEO and Co-Founder, my role runs the gamut of our strategic and operational functions. I am keenly involved in the company’s growth through increasing our stable of brands, growing our customer base, and securing investment. At the same time, I, along with my co-founder, manage our ever-growing team and set the agenda for our marketing direction and technical development.

While my career journey has been anything but linear, what I have found most interesting is how the knowledge and transferable skills from each of my degrees and career experiences to date inform my approach to running LeukBook.

Case in point: in creating LeukBook, my co-founder and I were mindful of not taking our personal experiences as customers in the size 14+ market as representative of others’. This meant that for the first six months of 2021 we just listened. We spoke to and observed the shopping behaviours of around 2,000 size 14+ women from around the country. Through this process, we came to understand the subpar experiences, and often overt discrimination and exclusion, that our target market was experiencing, and moreover how this was inextricably linked to our customers’ body image, and how confidently they were able to show up in the world.

It was through this process that we realised we weren’t just going to be selling garments, but wanted to create something far greater: the world’s best shopping experience for the size 14+ community, which centers their needs and addresses their greatest pain points when shopping online.

In addition, our eyes were opened to the general lack of diverse aesthetics available in mainstream, size 14+ shopping environments. Typically, pieces are floral, frilly and hyperfeminine - which has long been considered the most ‘flattering’ way for plus size women to show up in the world. But with 66% of Australian women fitting into this category, their preferences are not homogenous. Our focus on true inclusion has flowed through to LeukBook’s tagline - ‘come as you are’. This is a very simple message, but unfortunately one that needs to be stated.

With the business now live in the Australian market, it has been exciting to see how this message and our company’s values resonate with customers. I am optimistic that we are, indeed, on the path to creating a movement, and fundamentally changing the way the size 14+ community shops.

On the horizon for the current financial year are plans to expand internationally - with select North American and Indo-Pacific markets in our sights. My education and experience makes me well-positioned to evaluate the strategic opportunity and complexity of the various markets we are considering, and in due course to appreciate the nuanced needs of customers in these new markets.

As a new business, we have a long way to go in achieving our vision of revolutionising size 14+ fashion, but I am quietly confident that my non-linear career path has uniquely equipped me to rise to the challenge.

Top tips for pursuing a non-linear career path:

1. Be curious - this is my number one tip for life in general, and has certainly flowed through to my career. For instance, my initial introduction to the startup ecosystem came during my time working for ANSTO, a publicly funded research agency, which was home to a deep technology incubator. I asked plenty of questions - starting with 'what is deep technology?'  - sat in on workshops, and generally learnt as much as I could from colleagues. This gave me a strong, early inclination that I saw a career for myself in the startup space.
2. Come up with a game plan - career transitions don't happen overnight. My recent transition from government to a fashion-startup took three years and involved not only a MBA, but also a number of co-curricular opportunities, extensive research, and several early stage startup programs. While this can seem daunting, mapping out the process and having a tangible 'to do' list of skills/ knowledge/ experiences you can tick off is useful to help maintain focus.
3. Volunteer - throughout my career, volunteering has helped me quickly develop new skills and gain leadership experience. In my experience, organisations recruiting for volunteer roles are less focused on your track record and more about your passion and willingness to learn. For instance, for five and a half years, I served as COO of Young Australians in International Affairs. This equipped me with experience managing a team of 30+ people and developing organisational strategy early on in my career.
4. Lean into your transferable skills - these are the skills I apply on a daily basis, and prove much more valuable than my knowledge of statistics or political philosophy. For me, I feel my most valuable such skills are communication - both written and spoken. During my time at Griffith I was an active member of the debating society and represented the University at the World University Debating Championships. The ability to write and speak persuasively, and taking into account my audience, is incredibly beneficial. So too are my negotiation skills, which I have honed through both multilateral and bilateral diplomatic negotiations.
5. Consider a completely new field of study - embarking upon a MBA was particularly daunting and for the first semester I felt lost in the business parlance that seemed second nature to my classmate who came from the corporate sector. But having risen to the challenge, I can say that the MBA was an incredibly fulfilling experience that has equipped me for the next stage of my career journey.