#64 Wine seller to social entrepreneur, Jessica Macpherson OAM founder Blaze Your Trail

Award winning social entrepreneur Jessica Macpherson joins Purposely Podcast to share her founder story and how she swapped wine selling for life as a social entreprenuer.

Jessica has now started a number of successful social enterprises and is best known as the founder of St Kilda Mums, Geelong Mums and Eureka Mums, a much-loved organisation with thousands of volunteers supporting more than 20,000 babies and children each year across Victoria, Australia.

Jessica has also inspired and personally supported many other like-minded organisations across Australia and she has received several awards for her community work, including an Order of Australia Medal in 2019. She was inducted into the Victorian Honour Roll of Women in 2017, was an award winner in the Pro Bono Australia Impact 25, and the recipient of the coveted Golden Hoodie in 2020.

In April 2021 she established Blaze Your Trail she founded Blaze Your Trail was established in 2021 by Jessica Macphersons OAM, founder of St Kilda Mums, Geelong Mums and Eureka Mums. Since 2014 Jessica has personally supported more than 200 skilled migrants to secure their first job in Australia.

Blaze your Trail provides practical hands-on learning opportunities, mentoring and support to find pathways to employment for migrants, refugees and asylum seekers, who are also often parents trying to return to work, and people looking to change their career to technology roles. Without a level of training and support these people would most likely stay in casual and poor paying positions. Their main partner is SASS company Salesforce who Jessica talks highly of and she reminds everyone that they offer their free to small charities and enterprises.