p U g n i k l Ta 10 Years
By Elisabeth Silvester TalkHQ co-owners Jenna Mottin, Julie Sexton, Alex Hartley
A small North Queensland business has emerged as leaders of the pack by removing the barrier of distance and creating a family orientated mindset. It is a story of courage for speech pathology clinic TalkHQ Speech Pathology which was started by speech pathologist Julie Sexton a decade ago. After Julie migrated back from Ireland to Australia with just a suitcase in her hand and the clothes on her back in 2012, she was determined to build a business empire to help people.
“Even when I opened our first clinic, I was strategising how to grow and open TalkHQ clinics all around North Queensland so that we could make it that no family would be disadvantaged just because they lived in a rural area.”
“I was able to borrow money from my Mum and Dad and use that money to buy the assessments and things that I needed to initially set up the practice,” she says.
The business is now proud to have clinics in Townsville, Ayr, Ingham and Mount Isa along with outreach programs on Palm Island, Hughenden, Middlemount and Dysart.
“I then rented a room from my dad, who had a dental surgery in Ayr and in those days, the best way to announce a new business was to put advertisements in the local newspaper, so I borrowed more money from Mum and Dad and did that.”
With the growth of TalkHQ came the need to develop a plan to help sustainably expand the company for longevity.
TalkHQ helps children close communication gaps with therapy services to improve their talking, listening, reading, and writing skills by using play to help make the learning fun. Julie says after growing up in Ayr she understood the barriers for families to access vital health services. “I was aware of the lengths people had to go to, to be able to access speech pathology if you were in the country versus a city,” she says.
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“The unfairness of it all really drove me to start the practice, but I did not want to stop with one clinic.
Julie says she attributes the expansion of TalkHQ to the team's commitment to building a strong organisational culture. “The growth of TalkHQ has always been about increasing access to quality speech pathology and that is what we still strive and pride ourselves on today,” she says. “We were very aware that in order for us to achieve our mission we needed a team of likeminded people and in order to attract the right team members, we needed to consciously focus on team culture.
