Nothing could have prepared me for how incredible, fulfilling, useful, and genuinely career-changing my experience with the Communicating the Arts Mentee Program has been. Alongside the genuine, lasting bonds I’ve formed with my fellow mentees (whom I first met at the Communicating the Arts conference in Amsterdam) I’ve also cultivated a powerful and truly enriching relationship with my mentor, Michele. I would like to thank Michele for her investment in me, her wise counsel and how she has provided me with an astounding toolkit of skills that I have been able to bring into my workplace, and has elevated my ways of working (professionally and personally in fact!). Thank you so much Michele.

I am relatively new to the arts industry. When I joined this program, I was entering my second year of fundraising for a theatre company in Sydney, having come from a corporate retail background. To be able to speak openly about my perspective on Australia’s creative sector with people from around the world who are in the exact same position as I am was remarkable. I discovered that, globally, arts workers and administrators are striving toward the same mission: to keep our industry alive at a time when the world needs it most. Being able to have these conversations on a global scale was truly incredible.

Even worldwide, our field of arts communicators feels small in numbers, yet its impact is astronomical. Meeting people who are driving the global representation of culture - those evolving it, advocating for it, or simply contributing to it - was inspiring. For the first time, I felt part of a global community that is both vast in vision and wonderfully small and accessible in spirit. That is completely due to the power of this program and Communicating The Arts.

The passion, the like-minded leadership, the evolving approaches within our sector - the experimentation, the reinvention, the pursuit of new audiences, and the search for sustainable, ethical funding models - all of this was explored throughout the program, and it has inspired me deeply. I am profoundly grateful for this experience. It has shaped me professionally by reinforcing the value of our work and the importance of evolving, adapting, and ensuring culture remains central to the public conversation.

On a personal level, the program has strengthened my passion for the vitality of culture and art. Having that passion recognised and encouraged by my peers has given me the confidence to pursue my mission with greater conviction. I have now met people from across the world who share that belief: art is essential to understanding who we are as humans. We must protect it.

I have come away with so many actions, ideas, new ways of thinking, new programs that could be implemented in my city, but most of all - real friends, and a global community of people who will ensure our global arts industry thrives.