Leading our culture

In our continuing series of profiling our leaders, meet Cara Benoit, yourtown's Head of People and Culture.

GETTING THE MOST OUT OF PEOPLE

Cara’s first job in management was leading a team of people in a 24/7 call centre where the significant focus on people led her into a new career pathway in Human Resources. At the same time, Cara balanced being a foster parent to teenagers upon their release from Melbourne’s youth detention centre.

Finding herself as a working single mum with a young son (Joel), Cara strived to get the balance right, and with great family support, has continued to develop herself in the corporate world.

Following several HR leadership roles in the commercial sector, Cara was seeking a position in a values-based organisation and found her place at yourtown (formally BoysTown) in January 2008.

Growing up in Logan, Cara was proud to join an organisation committed to working with young people not only from her home town, but all over Australia.

Cara is motivated to continue to build capability in teams, and believes every young person should have the opportunity to grow; she mentors people to believe in themselves and build their career path.

Since joining yourtown, Cara has made a significant impact in partnering with the business in best practice people management. She leads her team to understand that as a business support service, they must provide their customers (internal and external) with a high quality service that adds value.

I’m impressed every day with our people who are passionate about making a difference in the lives of young people. Young people are our future, and we all have a responsibility to create opportunities for them to reach their full potential. Cara Benoit

In her time here, Cara has led the negotiations for the first Enterprise Agreement, managed the project to unpack our Lasallian Values and develop our Core Behaviours, and has partnered with the Lasallian Mission Council to launch the annual Lasallian Leadership Conference.

Cara is excited about the future with our recent organisational changes and, with the launch of our strategic framework, is looking forward to developing strategic measures to deliver positive people and cultural results.

It's not all work for Cara though, she loves travelling, spending time with friends and family (and Lily the Beagle!) as well as exploring more creative pursuits. Most recently, that's been wheel thrown pottery!

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