About Me

My name is Gili Inbar and I am a 4th year Bachelor of Commerce / Laws (Finance) student at Deakin University Burwood. I appreciate the opportunity to apply for the prestigious Deakin University Hallmark Leadership Award and hope you enjoy navigating through my digital portfolio. In order to best present my achievements as a Deakin University student, I found it best to organise them year by year, please find these below:

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2018

 

In 2018 I began my studies knowing that I would have to get involved in University life in order to grow my social circles as I did not have any friends come and study with me from high school. I joined the Deakin Commerce Society as a First-Year Representative and was a Mentee in the Faculty of Business and Law Peer Mentor Program. This involvement in university life set me up well for the remainder of my degree. I started to notice early on that having involvement in University was important. I met many older students who to this day are my best friends. The knowledge I had from my involvement meant that I was more well-equipped for the years to come. I wanted to provide new students with exactly that. Being a First-Year Representative on the Commerce Society involved more work than I had imagined, but not directly through the society. As a student representative, my fellow students looked to me for advice and support on a variety of questions that they had. I would relay a lot of their concerns to the committee and would try to help as much as possible. To me, an element of leadership is helping others, which was a key aspect of the first year of my studies. 

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"Gili’s consistent desire to create change, engaging and providing an opportunity for students is what I believe not only embodies that of a recipient of the Deakin Leadership Hallmark but as a role model for fellow first-generation immigrants." - Bachelor of Commerce Laws (Accounting) Student - Mr Anirudh Prakash

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2019

 

I began 2019 in India representing the BL Faculty on a study tour. Upon my return, I was offered to join the Deakin International Affairs Society as the Secretary on the Executive. The society had been managed quite loosely in the years before and I made it my mission to reinvigorate the society. I spearheaded and coordinated all the events that were run that year, including a 120 ticket sell-out event with Mr Julian Burnside. By rebranding the society from one only available for International studies students, to one open to any student with an interest in international affairs, I was able to boost membership numbers from around 30 to 150, and present Deakin students from Geelong, Burwood and Cloud with the opportunity to further explore their interests and passions. The events were focused on interests, rather than studies, and I found that it made a lot more students feel welcome to join. Other events that were successful were Eurovision Night and Trivia Night. Leaders create a vision and inspire others to part-take in this vision. My vision was for the International Affairs Society to grow into a well-known and well-run organisation. It was a pleasure to be a leader in this society and help it come back to life.

 

I also took the opportunity to give back to the Faculty and signed up to be a Faculty Mentor. I mentored 10 students, some of whom I remained in touch with the whole year. Throughout the program, I assisted them with settling in, provided them with study tips and ensured they had the tools of success that were available to me when I was a mentee. It was positive to see my mentees begin to feel comfortable in their surroundings, some of them successfully receive jobs and perform strongly in their first semester at University. I knew that when I had started, I was startled and anxious, but I was fortunate to have a great Mentor, and so I wanted to provide these students with the same opportunity. Bill Gates said that leaders "are those who empower others", a statement which I believe is 100% true. By empowering my mentees to step out of their comfort zone at university, I was able to see them grow into well-rounded students. 

 

I furthered my involvement in student leadership by running to be elected in the Deakin University Student Association elections. I was fortunately elected and therefore represented students as a Councillor on the board.

 

Lastly, I was asked by a former Unit Chair to join Deakin’s Charter of Financial Analyst Research Competition representing Deakin University. After getting to know the rest of the team, I was honoured to be voted Team Captain. Countless nights in the university library was spent with the team drafting and creating a report analysing an ASX listed stock, which we were to present to a panel. We attended seminars from different influential figures in the finance industry, along with the other competitors from Monash, RMIT, Melbourne Uni, and some universities in South Australia. Ultimately, after months of research and work, our team came 2nd in the region. Leading this team did not come without its challenges. Team Deakin was by far the youngest team, made up of three 2nd year students and one 3rd year student. We were the only team studying a Bachelor degree, as every other team was made up of students currently undertaking their Master's. Our inexperience meant that we were less familiar with what was expected of us, however, myself and the team managed to leverage our age and strengths to produce a report which went against the grain. For example, my team and I team conducted a survey in public in order to provide data to prove our hypothesis, instead of spending hours upon hours scrambling through journals and research papers, which is what would generally be expected of analysts conducting research reports. Leading my group was a meaningful experience.

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"It is refreshing to see a student not only so actively involved in the betterment of his peers, but also so switched on and aware of his own career pathways" - Executive Dean, Mr Mike Ewing

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2020

 

2020 was the start of a whirlwind, as COVID became a real issue that the whole country needed to learn to handle. I was offered to re-join the Deakin Commerce Society as the Head of Economics and Finance, as the previous Head had resigned from her position very early on in the year. At this stage of my studies, I had decided that I wanted to focus on my career and quickly noticed that my career interests (being Finance and Economics) did not have set pathways or events of substance, despite being so popular within the student cohort. Therefore, I made it a goal of mine to improve the events and knowledge surrounding these career paths for both myself and all other students at Deakin. In my capacity as the Head of Finance and Economics, I got to work with 3 of my directors. I explained very early on that I want 2020 to be the best year for our division that its ever had. Through my role on the Commerce Society, I initiated and implemented the Division’s first-ever student newsletter, ‘Finconomics’. Finconomics allowed the committee and general members of the student public to write short articles about interesting aspects of current finance news that interested them, and was compiled into a newsletter. I was proud that this project had dozens of submissions and was read by thousands of students. I was also fortunate to have my 3 directors work tirelessly on this project every week and got to see our hard work pay off.

 

With the assistance of my directors, my division organised for Deakin students to compete in three separate case study competitions (ESSA, CFA and Bowater Challenge). This allowed for Deakin students to gain more exposure in realistic real-life scenarios, and develop their public speaking and communication skills. It was a pleasure to be involved in these processes and see Deakin students grow as their competitions went on. I was proud of the work that my team inserted into these projects, as these competitions were not regularly known about by students. By using our platform to advertise these roles, and then interviewing and selecting teams, we were able to amplify students who originally would have never had these opportunities.

 

In 2020 I had also signed up and completed training to be a Faculty Ambassador, however, due to COVID, did not have much involvement as the events held were very limited.

 

Following on from my desire to improve the processes and programs relating to Finance and Economics, I learnt early on in the year about an organisation named the Financial Management Association of Australia (FMAA). The FMAA is a national organisation with 5500 student members from 5 universities around the country. The events they held, sponsors they presented and opportunities they provided were unparalleled to what was available to Deakin students at the time, and I was excited to sign up as a member. However, as they were not at Deakin, I was unable to do so. Knowing that Deakin students deserve as much of an opportunity to part-take in these events as Monash, Melbourne, UNSW and USYD students do, I got in touch with the Finance school to see what their opinion was about bringing FMAA to Deakin.

 

After receiving support from the Faculty, I engaged in conversations with the Chair of the Board of the FMAA, to discuss bringing the organisation to Deakin. This was a tough process that involved the assistance of many different Faculty of Business and Law staff, but I knew that if I was able to bring the FMAA to Deakin, Deakin students would be provided with opportunities and education that was never provided to them beforehand. The culmination of many weekly Zooms with the Head of the Finance School, Senior Faculty Members and the Executive Dean of the Business and Law Faculty resulted in a very thorough proposal which was put forth to the FMAA Board. Unfortunately, the proposal was rejected, however, it opened the door for future communications between the university and the FMAA, which would promote employability opportunities for thousands of Deakin students.

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"...the extensive research and administrative work that Gili had put into his proposal was unparalleled. Vision and desire are as important as the final result." - Head of Finance School - Mr Xiangkang Yin

 

2021

 

Due to my involvement with the Faculty trying to get FMAA to Deakin, I was recommended by the Head of the Finance School to sit on the Faculty of Business and Law Finance Advisory Board as a Student Member. Whilst the work that the board does is foreign to almost all students, I ensured to maintain my core values when coming into this role. My priority was to ensure that an active student voice was heard, representing actual happenings within the Finance School, so that the overall student experience would lift and students would find their studies even more fulfilling than they already did. Whilst I did not directly lead students, I feel that my capacity on the board indirectly leads the direction that the student body of the Finance school will be heading. As such, I am as active as possible in these meetings and ensure to provide the student view on almost all matters.

 

In my capacity as a Board Member, I have raised issues relating to employability, course material and exam preparation, specifically, on whether certain core units that are mandatory to students actually provide any professional development for students. I also raised issues with the relevance and employability of certain Finance Major units, and provided justified alternatives for these units.

 

Recently, I was asked to represent the faculty finance school at Deakin’s 2021 Open Day. Despite this being virtually, I was able to communicate with parents and students eager to learn about the wonderful work that Deakin is doing to further their opportunities and degrees. I personally believe that social impact within university work is not only relevant to current students but also future, as the degree that students choose ultimately results in their career path and future.

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"I was very impressed by Gili’s leadership skills." - Senior Lecturer, Finance School - Mr Ruipeng Liu