By Nghia Clulee
Before I ever sat across from a regulator or briefed a Minister’s office, I sat across from families rebuilding their lives after displacement. I worked with asylum seekers preparing for Federal Circuit Court hearings and refugee communities in Sydney trying to access education and services that weren’t always designed with them in mind. In some ways, their experiences resonated personally too, given my own family’s refugee story. It may not be the career path people expect behind a Chief of Staff or Director title. But it is where I learned some of the most important lessons about stakeholder engagement that I still carry with me today.
Trust must be earned before it becomes useful
In refugee work, trust isn’t a formality. It is the foundation.
People often had very good reasons to be cautious about institutions. You couldn't expect someone to share their story or work with you simply because your role said they should. Trust came from showing up consistently. Doing what you said you would do. Listening before offering solutions. And understanding what was at stake from their perspective.
Years later, working with government, regulators and Independent Monitors, I realised the principle hadn't changed. The environment was different. The stakes were different. But credibility was still built through consistency rather than a well-produced briefing pack.
Listen beyond the official version
Refugee and community work also taught me something about power.
The people with the least power in a system can sometimes have the clearest view of how that system is actually working.
Frontline organisations and the communities they supported often understood barriers that were much harder to see from inside an institution. I have seen the same dynamic in organisations. An Executive Leadership Team may have one understanding of a risk. The frontline may have another. Both perspectives matter, but ignoring the second can leave leaders with a very incomplete picture of what is actually happening. Stakeholder engagement isn't simply about communicating downwards or outwards. Sometimes its greatest value comes from allowing information to travel in the opposite direction.
Conviction needs evidence
I have always cared deeply about refugee rights. But I also learned that conviction alone rarely changes systems. If we wanted to influence policy, secure funding or demonstrate that a program was working, we needed evidence. Monitoring. Evaluation. Clear reporting. Outcomes that could withstand scrutiny from donors and government stakeholders. That lesson has stayed with me throughout my career.
Whether you are advocating for a community, briefing a Board or engaging with a regulator, a strongly held position becomes considerably more powerful when it is supported by evidence.
The strongest advocacy is the kind that can survive scrutiny.
Cultural competency is a technical capability
Working with diverse refugee communities, and later through experiences in places including Zambia and India, reinforced another lesson. Understanding context isn't something you add once the “real work” is finished.
Understanding context is part of the real work.
People interpret institutions, authority, risk and communication differently because their experiences are different. That applies whether you're working with a refugee family, a community negotiating water security, a government stakeholder or a Board navigating a suitability review. You cannot engage effectively with someone whose position you haven't genuinely tried to understand. That isn't simply empathy. It is a professional capability.
Leave capability behind
Perhaps the lesson that has stayed with me most is this:
A sustainable outcome should not depend indefinitely on the person who created it.
The projects I remain proudest of weren't necessarily those where I personally delivered the most. They were the ones where other people became more capable because I had been involved. I saw that in community development, including a library built alongside a Zambian community centre. And I have carried the same philosophy into organisational work. Whether it is a reporting regime, governance process or data framework, the real test is whether the organisation can continue using and improving it after the adviser or transformation team has gone.
Different rooms. Same fundamentals.
I don't often lead with the NGO chapter of my career when talking about government relations, governance or regulatory affairs. But increasingly, I recognise how much of my professional philosophy was formed there. The rooms have changed. The stakeholders have changed. And sometimes the consequences of the decisions have changed. But the fundamentals haven't.
Earn trust before expecting it.
Listen beyond the most powerful voices.
Ground advocacy in evidence.
Understand context before trying to influence it.
And leave people more capable than when you arrived.
Those principles worked in refugee resettlement and community development. They have worked in government, regulatory and Board environments. And I suspect they apply anywhere people need to work together across different interests, experiences and expectations. Because perhaps stakeholder engagement isn't really about managing stakeholders at all.
It's about understanding people well enough to build something with them.
Written by Nghia Clulee