Featured Member – Laura Kendall

Laura Kendall, Director of Marketing at Emmanuel Catholic College, Perth

1. How long have you been in your new position and where have you come from?
   
   I started at Emmanuel Catholic College at the beginning of the 2020 school year. My background is in marketing, community relations and engagement, across not-for-profit, government and more recently schools. Prior to Emmanuel, I was at Iona Presentation College for 6 years in their Community Relations Team.

2. What are you enjoying most about this position?
   
   The staff at Emmanuel is very supportive and welcoming. I have really enjoyed getting to know a new staff cohort and learning all their interesting stories. The passion and enthusiasm our staff put into their teaching is incredibly inspirational and to have the privilege of sharing those moments with our wider Emmanuel community certainly makes coming to work each day easy. I am also enjoying looking at the marketing and communications of the College from a more strategic point of view and finding to ways we can continually improve the journey our students and families undertake with us, from enrolment through to Alumni.

3. What has been your biggest challenge during COVID-19?
   
   Keeping connection and effective communication with our community was our priority during COVID-19. Navigating this, whilst only being a few weeks into the position, certainly provided for a quick learning path!

4. Who would you like to have lunch with and where?
   
   Jacinda Ardern, New Zealand Prime Minister seems to be so open, honest, positive and kind in her leadership of NZ. She doesn’t always take the easy path and is not afraid to speak her mind, she is very inspirational. I’m not hugely into politics, but I’d love to talk to her about all things communication, her empathetic leadership style and being a woman. As for location, I think it would be pretty powerful to be in the NZ Parliament Building to really get a feel for how Jacinda interacts with and commands respect from her peers.

5. Motto or person mantra?
   
   As a family with two young boys, our family values are Be Kind, Be Caring, Be Courageous, Be You.