From the Dance Floor to the Balcony: Seeing Leadership from a Higher View

How an Aboriginal entrepreneur is reshaping leadership through knowledge, language, and equity.

• Name: Matt Everitt
• Current Role: Co-Owner & Founder, DreamtimeArt Creative Consultancy
• Program: Senior Executive MBA, Melbourne Business School
• Cohort: 2024–2025

The View from Two Worlds

Matt Everitt has always moved between worlds. As the co-owner of DreamtimeArt Creative Consultancy, an Aboriginal-owned business, his work bridges the space between Indigenous knowledge systems and corporate and government organisational strategy - helping clients connect authentically with Aboriginal communities through design, governance, and behaviour change. “Much of what we do is about sense-checking,” Matt explains. “It’s making sure clients are actually onboard with the thinking - not just following directions.” It’s nuanced, high-trust work that demands perspective, and that same skill would soon define his journey at Melbourne Business School.

Why Melbourne Business School

Matt had been considering postgraduate study since 2017, but doubt, and timing, kept it on pause. The turning point came when a friend and MBS alumni called him out of the blue: “Matt, it’s time.” That conversation set off a chain reaction. “I’d already been connected to MBS through Murra, so I knew the environment,” he says. “You don’t feel isolated there, you bump into alumni and faculty who stop, chat, and help. It’s like family.” What drew him in was the School’s holistic approach - an education that doesn’t just sharpen business acumen but reshapes how leaders think, listen, and act.

Inside the MBA Experience

The Senior Executive MBA was, in his words, “transformational - and hard.” The modular, residential format brought moments of exhilaration and exhaustion. “I underrated the impact on my family,” he admits. “I’m grateful for their generosity and and to provide me the space to complete the Senior Executive MBA”

Support came from his cohort, who became his sounding board through late nights, shared deadlines, and laughter. “There’s an unspoken contract in syndicate work, others rely on you, and you on them. That’s where you learn what kind of teammate and leader you really are.” He also credits the program’s ‘learner mindset’ focus for breaking old patterns. “When things got tough, it was about staying open.”

From the Dance Floor to the Balcony

As Matt reflects, one image defines his leadership shift: moving from the dance floor to the balcony. “Most of us spend our time reacting on the dance floor,” he says. “MBS helped me get onto the balcony - to see the system, the interconnections, and how to make better decisions.”

For Matt, transformation at Melbourne Business School was also about learning a new language of leadership.“We all get pulled into corporate jargon,” he says. “But the real shift for me was learning how to understand things properly, to speak in a way that connects people, not confuses them.” Through the Senior Executive MBA, he developed what he calls a toolkit of language and knowledge - one that helps him influence with confidence, challenge ideas with purpose, and move between being an advocate and a provocateur.

That shift came to life in subjects like Governance, where he learned the power of entering “the right rooms with the right language.”

The program also reframed how he thinks about business itself. “It helped me see how we can do things differently, how to define our value proposition in ways that actually resonate with people, not just sounding clever.”

For Dreamtime Art Creative Consultancy, that clarity has opened up new opportunities with underserved and unmet markets, clients seeking more than a transactional relationship. “MBS helped me see the spaces between, where the real potential lies,” Matt says. The result is a leader who doesn’t just operate on the dance floor, but one who knows when to step up to the balcony, see the system, and shape the future from a higher view.

Building Systems of Change

Through Dreamtime Art Creative Consultancy, Matt has helped government, corporate, and not-for-profit clients embed Aboriginal perspectives into core systems - from procurement and governance to education and creative strategy.

His earlier work helped inform state-wide policies across Aboriginal business development, procurement, tourism, and employment. “It’s been rewarding to see ideas move from advocacy to action,” he says. That blend of cultural intelligence and strategic discipline has positioned Dreamtime Art Creative Consultancy as a bridge between two knowledge worlds - Aboriginal and Western - that can coexist and learn from one another.

For Future Students

Matt’s advice for anyone considering Melbourne Business School is simple - jump in and do it. “Don’t overthink it. Believe in yourself and take the leap,” he says. “The quicker you decide, the quicker you can start learning, and that’s where the real transformation happens.”

He knows what it’s like to hesitate. After years of wondering if it was the right time, he now sees that the greatest barrier was his own self-doubt.

“You have to be willing to walk past your own doubt. No one else can do that for you.”

Matt also encourages future students to treat the MBA as an investment in themselves, not just in their career. “Ask yourself, what can I get from this? What can I adopt and onboard that will make me more valuable - not just to my future organisation, but to my team and community right now?” For him, that mindset, curiosity over certainty, growth over comfort, is what defines the MBS experience.

Made. Not born. – Personal Interpretation

For Matt, Made. Not born. is more than a tagline, it’s a truth about choice and access.

He sees being made as a right, not a privilege - one grounded in equity, accessibility, and self-determination. “Being made means having the chance to shape your own path. To learn, grow, and lead in a way that’s autonomous and authentic.”

Matt is conscious of the unconscious biases that still exist in systems, and believes education has the power to shift them. “The ability to choose, to even have that choice, is something I never take for granted. I’m lucky to have had it, and I approach that with humility.”

For him, Made. Not born. is both an aspiration and an invitation, to build systems where everyone can access that same right to be made. “Because when opportunity is truly shared, that’s when we all rise.”