Thinking outside the box

How The Helen Lynch AM Leadership Award is helping social entrepreneur Luke Terry break new ground. 

 

In the year since social entrepreneur Luke Terry was chosen from 830 Westpac Scholars to receive the second annual Helen Lynch AM Leadership Award, he’s learned many new lessons, but one has stood out from the rest. Now, he is keen to share it with emerging leaders in his field: “Remember to make time to lift your gaze – get out of the weeds and look beyond the landscape you’re operating in today, so you can see what is possible tomorrow.” This, he says, is exactly what winning the award has enabled him to do.

 

Established in 2023 in honour of Helen Lynch AM – a founding director of the Westpac Scholars Trust, Australia’s first female bank manager, and a long-time advocate for diversity and inclusion – the award recognises individuals who demonstrate collaboration and impact in leadership. At the time Luke was selected for the award, Helen said the accolade reflected his “immense commitment” to creating a more inclusive Australia and praised his direction of White Box Enterprises, an organisation that has, to date, enabled the creation of more than 1000 jobs for people experiencing disadvantage.

 

Luke, who was also awarded a Westpac Social Change Fellowship in 2017, co-founded White Box Enterprises and has led it since 2019. The organisation has raised more than $59 million to develop large-scale jobs-focused social enterprises and lead job creation initiatives, like Australia’s first payment-by-outcomes trial for social enterprises.

 

The seed for White Box Enterprises took root for Luke (who’d previously founded social enterprise Vanguard Laundry) during his study tour as part of his Westpac Social Change Fellowship. He designed the enterprise’s model to address major constraints that he and many other social entrepreneurs routinely confronted – chiefly, access to catalytic capital and affordable working spaces.

 

Fittingly, the seeds for White Box’s next era were planted on a trip to France that was only possible thanks to The Helen Lynch AM Leadership Award. “I wanted to see where innovation existed beyond what we were already doing. I knew I needed new sources of inspiration if we’re to keep advancing jobs-focused social enterprise in Australia. Winning this award gave me the opportunity for a second wave of exploration in other markets.”

 

Recipients of The Helen Lynch AM Leadership Award, chosen from the alumni of Westpac Scholars which grows by 100 scholars each year, receive a bespoke leadership development experience valued at up to $10,000. With that money, Luke was able to fund a trip to France to meet with leading jobs-focused enterprises, including Groupe Vitamine T, Résilience and Groupe SOS, to understand more about scaling social enterprises.

 

“I learned a lot about what Australia can take from France’s approach to supporting the social enterprise sector. France has a government program worth around $2.5 billion AUD that funds things like training, transition and wraparound support for job seekers. Through this program, an incredible 350,000 people were connected to jobs-focused social enterprises in 2024. I now really understand that scaling our own sector here in Australia will depend on substantial government support. The French model is now our North Star.”

 

It’s an ambitious goal, but one built on a foundation of proven success. To date, the businesses created by White Box Enterprises have included professional data services firm Australian Spatial Analytics, commercial laundry enterprise Beacon Laundry, and infrastructure services enterprise Civik – each of which are contributing to an overarching goal to create 5,000 jobs by 2030 for people who face complex barriers to work.

 

White Box has also spearheaded a first-of-its-kind, three-year $3.8 million Payment By Outcomes trial in partnership with the federal government’s Department of Social Services; recently hosted the Social Enterprise Jobs Summit, Australia's first conference for and about jobs-focused social enterprises; and helped launch the Social Enterprise Loan Fund (SELF) to bridge the gap between purpose-driven businesses and social impact investors.

 

And undoubtedly there’s more to come, with inspiration from Helen Lynch AM herself. “Every time I sit down with Helen, I walk away identifying another leadership quality I want to adopt,” says Luke. “She is the kind of person who still carries cash so that she can help someone on the street if they need it. She is generous, grounded and instinctively kind. Even in retirement, Helen’s energy is remarkable. I always leave our catch-ups feeling inspired to lift my own pace to match hers.”