Awards Magazine 2017

17 / 32

The Community Leader Awards
2015
17 7
Finalist - Professional Leader of the Year 2017
LEE-anne perry
Lee-Anne Perry: I try
in everything I do to
walk in the footsteps
of Jesus – to follow His
example.
2
0
1
7
What do you do in your community?
I’m the executive director of
which means I’m the advocate
for Catholic education on behalf of all the schools in
Queensland. I’ve come to this role having been a prin-
cipal of Catholic schools for more than 25 years, so
clearly that’s shaped a lot of who I am and what I bring
to this role.
education, so I’m more broadly involved through
higher education as well and of course I’m directly
involved in my own parish as a eucharistic minister at
St Michael’s, Dorrington.
How did you get started?
Well for me it was at the really formative time, when I
started as a teacher working at Catholic schools, work-
ing at St Patricks College in Townsville, and it was ac-
tually the first of three Mercy schools that I ended up
working in – two as principal, one as a teacher which I
did at St Pat’s. It was that experience that really formed
me as a teacher and as a person. It was the example
of the women who led that college and, as it turned
out, I worked in colleges across NSW and Queensland
which were run by religious women of all different
orders: Presentation, Mercy, Josephite, Franciscan.
And I’ve found them amazingly inspirational and that
really shaped my career as a teacher.
What do you love about your role?
My role is a leadership role and, as a woman, I’m able
to bring that perspective to leadership. Who could not
be passionate about being involved in education; it is
the most powerful force that we have for people? Edu-
cation is what gives people capacity to shape their own
lives – to make a difference in their own communities,
not only their faith community but in the broader
world, to be informed, critical, constructive citizens,
so I’m just really privileged to be in what I think is the
most important profession that there is.
Why is your faith important to you?
It’s really the touchstone, it’s part of who I am. You
can’t separate the two. So it’s the touchstone for me.
I try in everything I do to walk in the footsteps of
Jesus, to follow His example. As I said, I also followed
in the footsteps, or try and follow in the footsteps of
particularly religious women who have exemplified
in their lives a way of living the Gospel story, so I try
to exemplify those qualities I’ve seen in those women
and that one sees in Jesus, of courage, of inclusion,
of compassion, of acceptance, of challenge, of trying
to be a different voice in a society which is such a
consumerist, individualist, oppositional, society in
which we live.
What was your reaction when you
heard you were a finalist for The
Leaders?
When I was nominated for the awards I was surprised;
it was not something I was expecting. I was really
pleased that someone thought I was worthy of nomi-
nation. So I was very humbled by their endorsement
of me as someone who’s worthy of consideration.