2025 Marchus Oldham Emerging Leaders, Brisbane Ekka.

FOLLOWING the success of this year’s Emerging Leaders Course at the Royal Queensland Show, the RNA Foundation will make the two-day intensive a feature of Ekka Beef Week next year.

The RNA Foundation is the charitable arm of the RNA, which was established to aid agricultural heritage preservation, agricultural education and agricultural awareness throughout Queensland.

This year the Foundation trialled an Emerging Leader’s course, run by Marcus Oldham College, where 25 young leaders in the ag sector were fully sponsored to take part.

“We asked the industry to identify young leaders in their businesses or networks who are starting to step up into more senior roles. We wanted to give them the tools and skills to confidently take on more people management in their operations,” said Julie McDonald, RNA Foundation Board Member.

“Agriculture is traditionally production focused, however as an industry we recognise the importance of investing in the next generation of leaders, and the RNA Foundation is keen to facilitate a program that does just that.

“The course was such a great success, and next year we would love to bring another 25 people from all four corners of the state to take part in the course.”

David Cornish is the Director for the Centre for Professional Development at Marcus Oldham College and was one of the facilitators at this year’s Emerging Leaders event at the Ekka.

He said the course focused on communication and learning styles, conflict resolution and how to create a team that can work well together

“The first part was all about understanding themselves – what makes them tick, what do they like and prefer in a workplace,” he said.

“Then we flipped that on its head to think about how others might take on information and communicate to see if we can change how we do it to get a better outcome.

“The ability to handle people will become more and more part of their success because if they can’t delegate well or can’t manage a team well, it doesn’t matter how well they can ride a horse or drive a tractor, they will have poor performance in their businesses.

“The cohort was really engaged, and the feedback has been fantastic.”