Hundreds of Sydney children with hearing loss have learned how to hear and speak thanks to the care of Aleisha Davis whose achievements were rewarded with top honours at the 2016 Sydney City Business Awards.
Ms Davis is a certified listening and spoken language specialist and speech pathologist, and the recipient of the Business Leader category award as part of the NSW Business Chamber Business Awards.

The category award, sponsored by the City of Sydney, celebrates business people and professionals who have provided inspiration to a new generation of upcoming business leaders.

“I’m very lucky to have the greatest job in the world; I get to do amazing things like transform the lives of children by giving them a voice and helping them reach their full potential in life,” Ms Davis said.

“It’s my desire to provide an aspirational model for health professionals in the field, where there is a real need for using internal clinical evidence to guide future service development.”

In her role as general manager of clinical programs at The Shepherd Centre, Ms Davis has developed with the team the FICAP Confident Kids program that improves the esteem and social skills of children to help them with their friends and peers in social situations.

She is also the driver behind a program providing specialist team outreach services via video conferencing to families in rural and remote areas, and a tool tracking a child’s listening skills.

“When working with children with hearing loss, there is such a short, critical window while the children are learning language to get it right. An ‘OK’ job is not enough when talking about a child reaching their potential.

“That drives me to look at things in an ‘outside-of-the box’ way, to find ways to improve. If a new method or idea is showing promise, I feel strongly about being open to embracing the change so that every child and their family can benefit from it.

“Ultimately, this award goes beyond me and The Shepherd Centre – it acknowledges all those in the field who are passionate about providing for children with hearing loss and their families, and who are inspired to do the best they can for these children, every single day.”

The Shepherd Centre is a not-for-profit organisation teaching children with hearing loss in NSW, ACT and Tasmania to listen and speak. They offer a variety of family-centred critical services under one roof. Their head office is based in Newtown.

Lord Mayor Clover Moore said Ms Davis was among a talented pool of business leaders in the Sydney region that took home top honours at the recent business awards.

“These awards represent the diverse mix of businesses in our local government area, which at the last floor space and employment survey delivered 40 per cent of all jobs growth in metropolitan Sydney,” the Lord Mayor said.

“As a sponsor of the NSW Business Chamber Business Awards, these awards are about giving local businesses and the people behind them an opportunity to showcase their innovative ideas to the rest of the state and, while they’re at it, to learn from other business leaders.

“We look forward to celebrating their talents and capabilities on the state-wide stage this November.”

Nine businesses collected awards in the Sydney City regional awards program, judged and staged by the NSW Business Chamber and sponsored by the City.

Aleisha Davis will join an impressive list of Sydney-based businesses competing with businesses from across the state for top honours at the 2016 NSW Business Chamber Business Awards on 25 November.

The City is a proud sponsor of the state-wide Excellence in Small Business category award, and has recently boosted its sponsorship of the NSW Business Chamber Business Awards to create an expanded regional awards program.

The expansion will allow all local businesses from 2017 to enter the Sydney City Regional Business Awards whether or not they are members of a local chamber.

The Sydney City Regional Business Awards are held each year, with applications for the 2017 Awards opening in May and the finalists announced in July.