As a trained teacher, Jo has been lucky enough to have had transferrable skills that have enabled her to create, grow and activate her business, Pointer Remote.

Jo is an extremely passionate advocate of bringing businesses and people together with remote work, knowing that there are so many positive opportunities to explore in regional and remote Australia.

Jo believes that all organisations need to embrace doing work differently and adapt a diverse mindset which will in turn support change for the future, through recruitment, up skilling programs and a focus on decentralisation. 

Jo has challenged the status quo and made choices to challenge the stigma of women living and working in regional Australia.

Rachel wears many hats in her life as a CEO, mentor and community member to name a few and a proud advocate of the regions across Australia.

In her role as CEO of Regional Development Australia in the Riverina she has watched dynamic, resilient and innovative business people and community members putting their money where their mouth is to enable innovative ideas, take risks and step forward to activate change.

A key project that Rachel has been involved with is "Country Change" working with councils across the area to feature, promote and share the livability of the regions.

She feels that there are so many positives about the regions but they are constantly challenged to develop the workforce for the skills and placements need to be filled to really cultivate growth in the area.

Simone Novello is a partnership expert and truly understands the growth opportunities that the right partnerships enable often between small businesses and corporate organisations.

Simone shares the "3 Golden Rules" to creating meaningful partnerships that support in creating a sustainable organisation with values aligned partners.

With this month being focused on "Choosing to Challenge" in alignment with International Women's Day, Simone shares some of the ways that she has been challenging the status quo and disrupting traditional industries. 

Sarah Liu founded The Dream Collective - a global Diversity & Inclusion consultancy as a side hustle to ultimately solve a problem that she was faced with in her career. As a young, Asian woman, Sarah often faced the systemic barriers to succeed in her career and wanted to support in advancing women to more leadership positions.

Through realising it was no longer about "fixing women" but about "fixing the system", The Dream Collective enables businesses with creativity relating to hiring, training and promotion to challenge the status quo and challenge with a sense of urgency.

A key initiative that she is super excited about is the "Male Allies program" to equip more men to refuse to accept the status quo and equipping them with the knowledge of diverse thought relating to the future of leadership.

As a proud mumma of 3, Noa has spent the last 19 years in Australia (with Israeli origins) understanding, nurturing and evolving organisational behaviour within organisations.

Spark & Rumble was born out of Covid where Noa found an opportunity to support organisational thinking, design and creation. Through creating space that allows transformational change through sparking imagination to explore, discover and get down and dirty with curiosity.

Through Think Play, Noa unpacks topics like communication, politeness and constructive conflict to get to the heart and soul of an organisation to enable further growth.

As TradeSquare celebrates women from all over Australia this International Women's Day, we invite you to choose to challenge the status quo and design for good for our futures.

Rob is a person who loves numbers and in particular the stories behind the numbers.  

After spending many years supporting Australian businesses trade out of financial difficulties and identifying what went wrong, he joined The Davidson Institute founded by Westpac to support Australian businesses with financial education.  

2020 saw pivots, adjustments and growth of some organisations and saw many resilient and hopeful Australians plan for their future.  

Making positive decisions based on accurate numbers ensure businesses can really connect to the impact and sustainability of the organisation.  

Rob shares some extremely practical tips to create positive cash flow, something we know is a very relevant point of education for every Australian small and medium sized business. For more info on The Davidson Institute www.davidsoninstitute.education

Dianna grew up in Regional Australia in Wagga Wagga and ran away to join the navy to drive warships and had her sights on never returning to regional Australia. However when she did return, and fell in love with a farmer she began the journey of reinventing herself in a regional context.

She became involved in a number of new projects aligned to entrepreneurship and innovation to support in accelerating regional business.

The launch of Regional PitchFest came out of identifying a gap in the scene of entrepreneurship to recognise the talent in our regions and to put these great examples in front of people to tell that story and be that megafone back to the metro areas.

In 2017 she took a leap and led a program with Australia Post with 87 events across the country to promote opportunities in regional Australia. which led her to her role at Bridge Hub and the links between metro and regions to drive investment into the regions.

With hot topics in the Bridge Hub office being on carbon capture and water, Dianna is certainly flying the regional flag with a sustainable focus and environmental lens.

Following a stint in small business selling hot dogs in his University days, Bill has played in big and small businesses and now leads Small Business Australia to support small businesses on their growth journey and sustainable futures. 

Last year, Bill and the SBA team launched "Buy Local" to encourage customers to shop with local organisations and buy locally made products. In 2021 they have launched "The Digital Business Cadets" - a modern apprenticeship bringing younger digitally savvy people together with older small business owners to support one another with a trade of skills

They have teamed up with organisations like NAB, Telstra and Snap Design to further educate their small business customers with key resources to survive and thrive.

As a 28 year old Melbournian entrepreneur, Erin is passionate about creating more justice and supporting people who are facing barriers in their life through creative ways to enable change. 

Through the launch of Empty Esky - a national tourism movement of foodies and adventurers who are on a mission to support small businesses in regional Australia affected by the bushfires and covid, Erin and her co founder Elle have thought outside the box to create sustainable tourism and activating more Travel with Purpose. 

Knowing that community is the key combined with a deep desire for collaboration and supporting one another, regional communities have used creativity to re think the future.

Ben leads the Australian Made Campaign as the Chief Executive Officer which is a Not for Profit organisation on a mission to administer and promote the Country of Origin of Australian Made products. The Australian Made symbol is a highly recognised and trusted symbol underpinned by a strong criteria of credentials to ensure that this trust lives on.

Having this symbol really takes the hard work out for consumers who in 2020 really got behind Australian Made products in an effort to support local organisations to survive and thrive and having the confidence in the credibility of its origins.

Ben and the team at Australian Made witnessed incredible organisations leading their industry with innovation to transform, pivot, adopt more technology and enable their digital capabilities by diversifying their businesses to suit the needs of the world.

With a strong focus in Australia on Advanced Manufacturing, we can see this movement to support Australian Made will only be amplified further on the local and global stage.