Commerce ‘worker bee’ creates hive of opportunity

ALWAYS reluctant to step into the limelight, the title of Great Woman doesn’t sit well with Commerce Ballarat CEO Jodie Gillett.

She’s more comfortable operating behind the scenes, facilitating the experts, a self-described “worker bee.”

“Commerce Ballarat is a team,” Ms Gillett said. “Whilst I’m the CEO and I’ve been here for a while, sometimes the concern with that is that it becomes more about me than the organisation and I don’t want that to be the case.

“We have an amazing team here and they make me look good, I say that all the time and it’s absolutely true. Then there’s our board, such a fantastic group of positive people who are doing lots of things as well.”

For the last 12 years Ms Gillett has led the region’s peak business advocacy, support and development organisation.

She’s been at the forefront of the drive to give businesses a reason to join Commerce, with the membership growing from 120 when she began to the current 550.

“For me, looking at it to start with, I couldn’t see a lot of value in being a member,” she said. “It’s been about building the value into why businesses need to become a member.

“I remember saying to the board, ‘you need to offer something for everybody. We do these networking things every second month’.

“The number one word I’ve used in this job for 12 years is we have to stay relevant. If we don’t stay relevant the members don’t stay with us, and that’s fair enough.”

That desire to offer a range of opportunities to members has grown into the program of events and activities Commerce Ballarat runs now.

In 2020 there’s the big ones; B31 Business Festival, the twice-yearly Business to Ballarat campaign, May’s Business Day Out and the Business Awards.

But there’s also the Biznet Breakfasts, Young Professionals Networking activities, along with ad-hoc events like next week’s tour of Inglenook Dairy or the Big Global Tourism Ideas function.

Sometimes Commerce Ballarat facilitates the activity, sometimes the organisation publicises opportunities provided by others. But always the focus is helping local business be better.

Just don’t call them all events.

“I often growl when people say events,” Ms Gillett said. “The Business Awards gala dinner is an event, the launch of the nominations is an event but a lot of what we do is important development work.

“It’s opportunities to grow skills, or to network. There are a lot of things happening and more every year.”

Behind it all that a desire to see local business flourishing. Healthy and successfully businesses means growth, jobs and opportunities.

It’s something Ms Gillett takes pride in and has a personal connection to.

“My dad was a builder and a sole trader, and he worked really hard,” she said. “I saw how difficult it was for him at different times with people not paying their bills or how just how hard it is for small business, or business of any size, there’s always challenges and new challenges coming in.

“Business is the foundation of our city. We need a healthy business community to employ our citizens.

“Over the next 20 to 30 years we’ve got massive challenges, huge growth is coming and we need to have huge growth in our business community as well, otherwise we’ll become a commuter city and people will be leaving everyday to go and work elsewhere.”

But Ms Gillett is more than just the backbone of Commerce Ballarat. She’s also a wife, mother and friend.

Before she arrived at Commerce, she had other different jobs including in retail, business administration and at the aquatic centre. She describes it as a “breadth of experience.”

It’s a long way for someone who left school in year 9.

“I’ve got some health issues and I’ve had them since I was 12,” Ms Gillett said. “I had five months of school at 15 and it was too hard to catch up.

“My maths teacher told me I’d never get a job and never amount to anything in front of the rest of the class, which was a little tough to take when you’ve been sick for five months. I wouldn’t mind getting the opportunity to introduce myself to him right now.”