Our backgrounds, skills and nationalities are pretty diverse, but it’s working with an experienced and multicultural team that attracts and retains our staff at PLAUT.  Leaders in their respective fields, our team each have diverse interests and points of view. In this interview -  the first in a regular series  with the individuals who make up our team - we talk to Plaut Delivery and Support Manager for Corporate Express and NSW Team Lead, Leah Page.

Leah, a Cambodian adoptee, shares with us the personal journey of self discovery as she searches for her birth family and talks about her new role on the board of National Adoption Awareness Week (NAAW) and working with Deborra-lee Furness.

Leah with son Joshua and Deborra-lee Furness

What is your role at PLAUT?
I began my career working with Plaut as an FICO Senior Consultant in April 2007 and my roles have included:
• Team Lead for Cemex SAP Upgrade: 3.1I to ECC6.0
• Delivery of HR Training course for SAP
• Project Manager of Variant Configuration Solution for Daikin
• NSW Team Lead for Plaut
• Fixed Asset Migration Project at Nycomed
 My current role is as the Delivery & Support Manager for Corporate Express and NSW Team Lead.

How do you fit it all in? Work, mother of three, Director of NAAW?                                                                              
Fortunately, I am an extremely organised and methodical person – which, as a working mother of three, I need to be.   Plaut has assisted by encouraging my transition from working full time to working part time (3 days a week).  In fact they have not only supported me in my professional career, but they have also lent their support to my personal community based project by donating end of lease laptops to NAAW.  My involvement with various groups within the adoption community and being an adult adoptee lead to my appointment on the board of NAAW.  Overall, thanks largely to the people within the company and the clients that we work with, Plaut provides a lovely working environment.

What prompted you now,  at this stage of your life,  to embark on the process of finding you birth family?
For many years I have wanted to search for my birth family, but it was having my own children that eventually provided the catalyst that encouraged me to do this.  In the same way that adoptive children ask questions of their adoptive parents in regard to birth family, country and culture,  my eldest daughter  asked those questions of me.  Not being able to provide answers was the main reason why I  chose to embark on a birth family search, as well as a cultural discovery of the country I was born in, but knew very little about.  Through my involvement with NAAW I have been able to utilise their resources to facilitate this search and in 2011 I plan to return to Cambodia for the first time since leaving as a baby in the early 70’s.

National Adoption Awareness Week (NAAW) is a series of community based events exploring the process of adoption, and the journeys of all people touched by adoption, locally and internationally.  http://www.adoptionawarenessweek.com.au/