Future business leaders fast-tracking social impact

There are so many incredible not-for-profits changing Australia for the better. But they don’t always have the time, funding and resources to create the biggest impact they can. 

At Three Chairs Consulting, one of our core values is positive impact and we’re committed to helping not-for-profits grow and thrive. So when Melbourne Business School (MBS) approached us to work with five talented MBA students as part of their inaugural Immersive Business Experience course, we immediately saw the benefits: a way to boost the strategic capacity of one our not-for-profit partners, the Trauma Recovery Network Australia (TRNA), as well as provide an invaluable real-world learning experience for the next generation of business leaders.

“As a former teacher, I’m passionate about providing up-and-coming professionals with the tools and opportunities to grow, develop and make a positive contribution to the world,” says Melanie Bois, Founder and Director at Three Chairs. 

“We’ve worked with MBA students from Melbourne Business School before and have seen the calibre of work they produce. Giving these students the opportunity to apply their unique skills and experience to help an impactful not-for-profit was a win-win.”

Building capacity of regional and rural communities to treat trauma.

Formed out of the 2019 bushfires, TRNA is a small, mostly volunteer-run organisation with a big mission: to build the capacity of regional and rural communities to treat trauma. 

For this project, MBA students Eugenio Symon, Megan Stone, Candice Coleman, Clarissa Ooi, and Jeff Liu worked alongside TRNA’s leadership team for five weeks to progress the organisation’s key goal: expanding the availability of EMDR therapy (an evidence-based trauma therapy) in disaster-affected areas of Australia.

With mentorship from Three Chairs, the MBA team conducted research and delivered insights to affirm the strategy and inform the 12-month business plan. The scope spanned market research, demand and capacity analysis, impact measurement methodology, community engagement, training and recommendations to improve the website. 

This unique partnership between Three Chairs, TRNA and the MBA students produced a number of outcomes that would not normally have been possible on a small not-for-profit budget in just five weeks. These include: 

  • Market insights into the demand for trauma treatment and the existing capacity for communities to treat trauma, informing an EMDR training roll out plan to increase capacity where we need it most
  • Affirming TRNA’s unique value proposition and position in the mental health landscape
  • A short-term and long-term plan to increase the number of EMDR-trained clinicians in regional and rural communities recovering from natural disasters
  • Protocols and tools to sensitively engage with communities affected by disaster
  • Recommendations to enhance the TRNA website strategy
  • A methodology and user-friendly tool to compute demand for EMDR therapy
  • A framework with multiple methodologies to assess TRNA’s impact over time.

It was also a fantastic opportunity for the students to put their MBA skills and knowledge to work for a social benefit. 

What the team had to say about their experience

As Eugenio puts it: “It was an incredibly worthwhile experience to get to work together with my MBA teammates and Three Chairs to help not-for-profit TRNA with such a purpose-driven and meaningful project.” 

“Applying our strategic and analytical skills from MBS, we were proud to deliver insightful recommendations to assist TRNA in their objectives to increase capacity to treat trauma and improve mental health in regional and rural communities,” he says.

Professor Geoff Martin from MBS explains how this experience plays a role in the students’ personal MBA journeys. 

“We are so pleased that Three Chairs and TRNA allowed our students to understand the impact that recently acquired MBA knowledge and skills can have on society and humanity. Their experience gives them confidence that their analysis and advice can positively change the course of an organisation’s future. In the case of TRNA, their impact is measured in terms of quality of life for thousands of human beings.”

Diversity of experience leads to success

Livia Cucuzza, who managed the project at Three Chairs, credits the diversity of experience in the MBA team for the ultimate success of the project. 

“Our team brought together expertise from commercial law, economics, finance and investment planning, with broader experience across engineering, governance, risk, and portfolio analysis. All of those individuals were able to take their lens of expertise and apply it to the problem at hand,” she says. 

“For example, Eugenio, an engineer, was able to create a way for us to calculate the demand for trauma therapists in different communities, using a range of inputs across relevant sources, from the latest census to various peak bodies and specialist health and social welfare institutions. Having someone on the project who was able to pull out the right data to give us a way to measure impact was really exciting.”

“There’s much to be learned from a diversity of thought and expertise. Bringing that together always bolsters any project.”

“We’re fortunate that this project has allowed us to work alongside such incredible professionals who are ready to take that next step in their career,” she says. 

Three Chairs would like to thank Melbourne Business School, the MBA team and TRNA for making this opportunity for positive impact possible. 

To find out more, contact us:

[email protected] 

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