Leading Ladies of Real Estate connect in Townsville

The sold-out event attracted 100 women from across the region, underpinning the need for a female-led community based initiative within the regional real estate community.

Over the past three years Leading Ladies has welcomed more than 3000 women to its in person events across Australia and New Zealand, and reached thousands more through its podcasts.

The event was headlined by three influential real estate women based in North Queensland. Allison Gough of Ray White Townsville, who’s one of the top two agents in the region was joined by Rebecca Logan, principal of Renting Here, a boutique property management business, and Leanne Druery of REMAX Mackay who’s the leading agent in the Mackay district.

The group tackled several topics concerning women in business and the intersection of their personal and professional lives.

Sally Patch, Chairperson of Leading Ladies Queensland, hosted the panel, and started the night reminding attendees that “everyone can be a leader”.

“Everyone has the ability to demonstrate leadership,” Sally said.

“It's not about having a leadership job title - it's about how we turn up, how we speak up and about not accepting mediocrity.”

Leanne from Remax Mackay said she’s learned being vulnerable in leadership has helped her to thrive.

“I lead with kindness,” Leanne said. Just because my leadership style is different, that doesn’t mean I’m not respected. People don’t walk over you if you lead with kindness, people actually want to help you achieve your goals.”

“Mentorship has allowed me to scale up and build my team,” she continued. “Building a team happened and had to happen fast with the circumstances I was under.”

Speaking on her experience with leadership, Allison said “the ability to deal with different personalities through my experience has helped me in my leadership style”.

“I want everyone to succeed,” she said.

“With my team, I’m invested in getting to know them. I want them to know they are supported. I want my team to feel like I’m invested in knowing them both personally and in business.”

Rebecca said her introduction to business ownership was a leap of faith. “I just did it,” she said.

Rebecca emphasised the value of community, underpinning the importance of community initiatives like Leading Ladies.

“My mentors are other local business owners,” she said. “Although we are meant to be competition, we help each other.”

All three ladies have built deep connections within their communities and the way they conduct their businesses exemplifies how genuinely important these connections are to them.

"The best relationships and connections are those that are genuine and authentic," Sally observed.

Paula Pool and Demelza Gardem, founders of the Fuel for Schools charity, also joined on the night to talk about the good work they’re doing, and how important it is for them to receive support from the community.

“Some children don’t have access to the basic items they need when starting school,” Ms Pool said.

“Fuel for Schools is committed to ensuring local Townsville school students have access to essential schooling items such as backpacks, lunch boxes, water bottles and new socks.”

“The program encourages children to attend school. The long-term benefit of education can determine the quality of an individual’s life and provides a foundation for equity in society.”

Leading Ladies and an event partner, Townsville Bulletin, donated prizes for a raffle that raised $1,500 for the Fuel For Schools charity.

Leading Ladies of Real Estate relies on important partnerships with local businesses and institutions. The event in Townsville was proudly sponsored by major sponsor Queensland Country Bank, and event partners Bellco Law, Townsville Bulletin and POA.

Leading Ladies of Real Estate is an industry-wide initiative - with communities in Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, Western Australia and New Zealand - focused on building a community that supports and inspires women in the industry to chase their potential - both personally and professionally. You can’t be what you can’t see, and the organisation believes in making strong, successful and ambitious women more visible. Leading Ladies seeks to do this through empowering incredible women in real estate to share their journeys with others.