This week we share Christine’s story.
Christine is a transformative leader who served as CEO at Multicultural Australia from 2020-2025. She’s made impactful contributions to human services and justice reform, with her diverse experience spanning the Queensland Government as Deputy Director-General across the Department of the Premier and Cabinet, and the Department of Housing and Public Works.
Christine currently holds a portfolio of leadership and advisory roles, including as Chair of the Australian Multicultural Council, Board Member of the Residential Tenancies Authority and Queensland Theatre. She also holds advisory roles focused on strengthening community, supporting the most vulnerable and helping shape an Australia that is fair, inclusive and confident in its diversity.
But Christine’s story began much earlier as a 15-year-old migrant from Malaysia thrust into an Australian high school and learning to survive, an experience that shaped her into a leader who sees what others miss. Her journey offers insights about resilience, belonging, and leading with heart.
In this story:
🌏 How a teenage migration experience shaped a unique leadership perspective.
🤱 Unexpected lessons from motherhood.
🏠 The difference between fitting in and truly belonging.
— Written by Sharon Brine and brought to you by Kintsugi Heroes and Women for Purpose.
Q: You migrated from Malaysia to Australia with your family when you were 15 years old. What was that experience like for you?
A: Fifteen is an interesting age to be uprooted. I went straight into grade 10, and I always say school really is the ultimate survival exercise. It's kind of a jungle—you have to very quickly find your strategies to survive and then work out how you're going to thrive.
Reflecting back now, I became very much a chameleon.
Constantly aware of my external environment and adjusting myself to become part of it, only showing myself when I want to be seen but also mastering the art of becoming part of the furniture.
That's hard work when you first arrive as a migrant, but it actually becomes a bit of a superpower as you get more integrated. I still scan every room I walk into for who else looks like me, how I fit in, what the environment is like, how I should conduct myself in that space.
Someone who's lived in the same country their whole life doesn't need to stop and assess the environment they're walking into. They don't have that developed capability of how to cope when you walk into somewhere surprising or foreign.
That's something you actively develop as a migrant.
Q: So migrants can master this art of fitting in, but what does it take to feel like you actually belong somewhere?
A: I've developed my thinking around this through my work at Multicultural Australia, where we did settlement support for refugees.
We talked to our clients about what belonging looks like, and how it's different from connection and inclusion. A client once said to us: "Connection is you connect me to the community, you introduce me to people. Inclusion is you make sure I'm getting the invitations to the parties or events. But belonging I have to feel in my heart. I have to feel something internal that I belong here."
That led us to ask: "How do you get there?" If it's an internal feeling, that person is the only one who can control it. But what can you do to enable that?
What we came up with was this notion of creating moments that matter.
Moments that create memories and points of connection to a place through the experiences you have there. By creating those anchors, you create belonging.
Q: What perspective do you bring to leadership that others might not have?
A: As someone whose childhood was in the country of my birth but who grew to adulthood in the country I now live in, I know what it feels like to walk in two worlds.
I'm always the one listening between the lines, understanding that the world is complex when others assume simplicity. This has taught me empathy and given me a heightened awareness of those around me.
It's also taught me how to lead without certainty and to be clear about my values as an anchor for when the path isn't clear and all the answers aren't there.
Q: Does motherhood drive your passion for the work you do in the not for profit sector?
A: Yes, having two daughters completely shifted my perspective. I find myself constantly thinking: what sort of world do I want to create and influence? What kind of world will they walk into?
I've raised two very powerful, strong women, which honestly sometimes makes my life interesting as their mother because they challenge everything I say.
But I watch them stride through the world with such confidence, and I'm determined to make that world as safe and welcoming as possible for them.
I want it to be open with opportunities so they can move forward with that same power and confidence.
I heard a phrase recently which really resonated, “The woman you are today is the woman your younger self would have run to for protection”. For me, becoming a mother didn't pull me away from my work. It anchored me in it and deepened my commitment to building a fairer, better world and to be there for those who need protection and a helping hand.
Q: What's a lesson you’ve learned from being a mum that you didn’t expect?
A: That you can achieve tremendous growth as a person if you learn to be comfortable with losing complete control of life.
I became a mother at 31, so I had a working life before that and had experienced a significant chunk of adulthood where you learn to structure and control everything.
Motherhood was a progressive letting go of control.
You have your organised ways of doing things then, suddenly, right from that very first moment of going into labour, you realise how much control you don't actually have.
It's like an introduction to a journey where you have to get used to constant surprises and learn to live without complete control or influence over which direction your life is going.
And from that you learn a new form of resilience.
Q: Speaking of resilience, how does that translate to your leadership approach?
A: I focus on building strength rather than just identifying what's wrong.
I work in the human services space and the demand always seems to exceed what you can respond to. And it can be tempting to say, “Well, we can’t risk trying to solve it because it comes with too many risks and hazards for us”.
But if you reframe it in terms of resilience, you start asking different questions like, "How can we build resilience in ourselves and our team to deal with the hazards that will inevitably come our way?"
You can never stop the problems from happening, but we also shouldn’t define our lives only by the problems that might happen.
We're not always going to succeed, but at least we can build our resilience to give us much more endurance as individuals and sustainability as an organisation.
It's even about mindset. When you think "the road ahead is filled with hazards," you get stuck in survival mode. But when you think "the road ahead will be challenging, and this is what I carry with me to meet those challenges," you're positioning yourself to move forward with ever increasing strength.
All of this may be simplifying a complex issue that has different layers, but to me it’s a much more constructive approach.
Q: Lastly, what do you hope readers take away from your story?
A: That I made people feel seen, made spaces for voices, helped make sense of things and led with clarity, conscience and heart.
Christine’s mission continues, and you can be part of it.
Connect with Christine on LinkedIn.
Support Christine’s mission:
Donate to Multicultural Australia.
Learn more:
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