ALUMNI
Winter 2015 33
A CHAT WITH... LAURA MCMAHON HIGGINS Laura McMahon Higgins (Blechynden) 2002 has had a busy few years. Since acquiring her own business at the age of 27 Laura went on to be awarded Telstra WA Young Business Woman of the Year in October 2014 and subsequently was listed as one of WA’s 40 under 40 earlier this year. What have you been up to since graduating from Penrhos? I graduated from the University of Western Australia in 2008 with a double degree in Law and Arts. After taking a gap year to travel, I began my career at Minter Ellison Lawyers working in the corporate advisory team. I then moved to Gilbert and Tobin Lawyers to a more specialised role working in mergers and acquisitions. After Gilbert + Tobin, I accepted a position with Bathurst Resources Limited as their Company Secretary & Legal Counsel, becoming one of a few people under 30 to hold a Company Secretary, Legal Counsel role in an ASX 200 company. I left Bathurst to pursue my dream of owning my own business. I acquired Questamon at the end of 2012. Now I own and run Questamon, a company which provides national training and consulting services to the building, construction and mining industry. Questamon runs a range of training courses specifically written and developed for industry participants who required to work with contracts but have no legal background. What has been your greatest achievement to date? Definitely, taking the risk. I left a secure, well-paying job to take a huge risk and borrow money to buy a business. Since taking over Questamon, I have expanded it from a Western Australian business to a national business and doubled its profitability. I have also been named as Telstra’s Western Australian Young Business Woman of the Year in 2014 and as one of WA Business News’ 40 under 40, the group of leading business entrepreneurs under the age of 40 in 2015. I am also very proud of the Indigenous Education Initiative that I launched in 2014. Questamon is committed to promoting education and training in the building, construction and mining industry. We have a particular focus on making our training accessible to all members of our community. Under our initiative, Indigenous people are welcome to come along to our general course at absolutely no cost. We hope that this initiative will provide employed people with additional qualifications so that they can progress to management positions and provide unemployed people with marketable and industry recognised qualifications to assist them in obtaining employment. What’s next for you? Questamon is keeping me very busy for the foreseeable future. The business took on a massive challenge expanding nationally, we have been received well in the Eastern States over the last year so my focus is definitely to solidify our presence there. What is your fondest memory of Penrhos? There are so many! School camps, Dramafest and our Year 12 common room were all highlights but the best thing about Penrhos is the lifelong friends you make.