Building a Career in Australia
A candid panel discussion exploring real migration journeys, career progression, and what truly enables successful integration into South Australia’s tech and business landscape.
Member $0.00
Member-Concessional $0.00
Non-Member $15.00
Contact Event Organiser
About this event
Wondering how successful professionals built their careers after migrating, established networks, and navigated challenges along the way?
Join us for an engaging evening featuring three accomplished industry leaders who have successfully built careers and leadership pathways in Australia after migrating.
Through honest conversation and real-world experience, our panelists will share:
• How they secured their first opportunities and built professional networks
• The challenges they encountered and how they overcame them
• The importance of mentorship, community, and resilience
• Adapting to Australian workplace culture and industry expectations
• Lessons they wish they had known earlier in their journey
• Practical advice for students, graduates, and emerging professionals seeking to build successful careers in Australia
This is not a discussion about migration policy. It is a conversation about people, careers, opportunity, and the realities of starting again in a new country.
Whether you are an international student, recent graduate, skilled migrant, or early-career professional, this event will provide valuable insights, practical guidance, and the opportunity to connect with professionals who have successfully navigated the journey themselves.
Event Schedule
5:30pm – 6:00pm | Registration and Networking
6:00pm – 7:15pm | Panel Discussion and Audience Q&A
7:15pm – 8:00pm | Networking and Refreshments
This free in-person event (ACS Members) offers a unique opportunity to learn from experienced leaders, ask questions, expand your professional network, and gain insights that could help shape your own career journey.
Places are limited. Register now and join us for an evening of insight, connection, and practical career advice.
Speakers
Seshnie Taylor is the Founder of Vocare, an Australian-owned CareTech company using AI and ML to help culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) professionals communicate with clarity and confidence in the workplace.
Speaking five languages (six if you count toddler), Seshnie is on a mission to make Australian workplaces more inclusive - one confident conversation at a time. She is particularly interested in the gap between what skilled migrants are currently doing and what they are truly capable of contributing when communication confidence is no longer a barrier.
With a background spanning education, startups, and her own lived experience as a migrant, Seshnie combines pedagogy with technology to build practical, measurable solutions. Vocare leverages proprietary datasets and locally stored Australian AI models to deliver speech clarity insights, terminology uplift, and measurable communication outcomes - particularly across regulated sectors such as Aged Care and NDIS. The impact extends beyond pronunciation: improved audit readiness, stronger compliance outcomes, reduced safety incidents, and better staff retention.
Seshnie believes clear speech builds credibility, confidence fuels contribution, and inclusive communication is a competitive advantage - not just a cultural aspiration.
When she’s not developing AI-driven pronunciation tools or delivering tailored workshops, spending time with her young family enjoying all the South Australia has to offer, chasing her “fluffy son" Alfie and quietly reshaping how Australia thinks about voice, talent, and belonging.
A chartered accountant by training, she never set out to build an organisation. She set out to protect her child. In 2019, after navigating the pain of trying to find dignified, culturally safe disability support for her daughter, Madeeha made a quiet but powerful decision. If the system could not offer what her family needed, she would help reshape it.
That decision became Care Assure.
What started as one mother’s resolve has grown into an award winning, values led movement in disability care across South Australia and Tasmania. Madeeha is widely recognised for reimagining what support can look like when people, culture, and compassion are placed at the centre. Her work has earned her recognition as Citizen of the Year, not simply for what she has built, but for how she has built it.
Originally from Pakistan, Madeeha’s story is also a powerful example of what becomes possible when migration is supported and embraced. Together with her husband, she has built businesses that not only deliver exceptional care outcomes but also create meaningful employment opportunities for local Australians and skilled migrants alike.
Madeeha’s impact also extends into migration and workforce development. Through Care Assure, she actively supports skilled migrants through the DAMA (Designated Area Migration Agreement) pathway, helping address critical workforce shortages in disability care. As an approved sponsor, she has created real opportunities for migrant professionals to build stable lives in Australia, while strengthening local communities and expanding culturally responsive support services.
Madeeha is a natural mentor and thought leader. She is known for lifting others as she rises, creating spaces where women, migrants, and people from diverse cultural backgrounds are not only included but empowered. Her teams reflect the world she believes in, one where care is personal, dignity is non-negotiable, and leadership is rooted in service.
That common experience of values driven leadership, systems thinking, and service beyond self has created a deep sense of alignment and mutual respect.
Grounded, generous, and visionary, Madeeha leads with empathy and courage. She is not just changing systems, she is shaping futures, reminding us that real leadership begins with care and grows through purpose.
Specialising in the delivery of diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEIB) workforce solutions to corporate and government clients across Australia. Her organisation was brought to life in life in 2016, driven by the purpose to solve the unacceptable unemployment rates among newly arrived refugees and migrants in Australia. Since then, she has led the customised design and delivery of employer-led recruitment, workforce development, and organisational capability solutions that strengthen inclusive workforce participation, improve employee retention, and support long-term workforce sustainability.
Operating in the niche space of corporate social responsibility, she specialises in cultural inclusion. She is widely recognised as a leading multicultural workforce and community development expert, creating economic and social impact solutions through partnerships with the corporate sector that maximise employment and skilling opportunities for refugees and migrants. This unique integrated service model combines workforce strategy, recruitment, learning and development, and organisational change to deliver measurable commercial, workforce, and social outcomes.
As the Founder and CEO, Carmen not only brought over 25 years’ experience working in refugee resettlement, training and employment but the passion from witnessing the firsthand experience of her mother, a migrant from the Philippines who was unable to pursue her profession due to a lack of overseas qualifications recognition. This is where her mantra “work lies at the core of human dignity” originated.
Carmen was awarded a Member of the Order of Australia in the 2024 Australia Day Honours List for her significant service to the multicultural community through diversity and inclusion advocacy and programs. She was also the first female appointed as the current Philippine Honorary Consul in South Australia in 2022, to not only serve her community but lead the facilitation of new international trade and economic partnerships.
This female social entrepreneur’s experience working in refugee and migrant resettlement, migration, community development, training and workforce strategy across the public, private and community sectors led her strong advocacy to lead a national first with the establishment of the SA Skilled Migrant Job Support Centre in Adelaide in March 2025, to date together with her team they have broken the ceiling for many skilled migrants to pursue their passion for their profession including in the ICT industry.
Carmen is currently appointed as a Board Member of the Australian Children’s Education and Care Quality Authority. She was listed on the 2023 Women’s Honour Roll in SA and received the Women in Innovation Award for Social Impact (2021), SA Governor’s Multicultural Award for Individual Outstanding Achievement (2020) and was listed as one of the Top 50 Small Business Leaders in Australia by Inside Business (2021). She continues to serve as a judge on the solstice Media 40Under40 Entrepreneurs and Business Leaders Awards having won the inaugural award for State Contribution in 2018 to mentor emerging business leaders. She says her most Important role is however ‘Life Manager’ for daughter Ashlee and son Cooper.
She has an MBA and a Bachelor of Arts Degree (International Studies: Public Policy and Languages). For more on Carmen Garcia visit her on LinkedIn.
Event Location
Event Terms & Conditions
Registration
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- To avoid disappointment, ensure you pay for your booking(s) before the registration closing date. Anyone that has not received a confirmation email will not be on the event attendance list and therefore will not be admitted to the event.
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Cancellation and Refund
All cancellations must be processed through the website, a refund will only be considered if it is at least 3 working days prior to the event.
Disclaimer
- ACS reserves the right to change the program at any time. Every effort will be made to ensure a program of equivalent standard and members are updated with changes.
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- If an attendee is displaying flu or cold like symptoms in the days leading up to the event and therefore is not able to attend, ACS will refund the registration fee.
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