Consider this trajectory.

Her pharmacy at Charnwood was in March named best in Australia. And now she has become ACT Telstra Business Woman of the Year.

Absolutely doing something right.

Meeting her provides an immediate clue to her success – stacks of enthusiasm and passion, the type that drives her to be the best she can and, importantly, the type that imbues others to follow her aim to kick goals.

So, what's her secret?

At a coffee shop near her Capital Chemist, she reflects on growing up in Canberra before her parents moved to the south coast where she went to high school.

Her first job, at 14 years old, was in a pharmacy. "I was the junior who got to empty the garbage bin, for six months, but I just fell in love with pharmacy," she says.

Her interest in healthcare was inspired by her parents, both nurses, and her community-minded grandparents, whom she keeps in mind during her working day.

"A big percentage of the people who come into a community pharmacy are older people and I often think, when things are not going so well for them, what would work well for my grandparents," she says. "If the client is having trouble understanding their medication or if they can't get into see their doctor, I know the impact it would have on their lives."

But back to the start – she was a high school student who wanted to have a career in healthcare, but others didn't see it that way.

"When I was 15, my career adviser at school told me I was not smart enough to be a vet and that meant that I wasn't smart enough to be a pharmacist or a doctor," Kourtis says. "So I gave up on all that and came back to Canberra and studied biochemistry and molecular biology at ANU."

And, of course, she worked part-time in a pharmacy during the three-year degree.

"I got to the end of my science degree and realised I didn't want to spend the rest of my life working in a lab and I was completely lost," she says.

"Then one day at work, my boss at the pharmacy said to me: 'you should go do pharmacy because you're great with the customers, you've got a real interest for their healthcare'. It was like a light-bulb moment – I thought, 'that would be a great idea', and I applied to study pharmacy at CSU in Wagga.

"The university was great, the country lifestyle was great, the community was fantastic.

Back then she had to do the full four years of the pharmacy degree, whereas now science graduates can do a two-year masters in pharmacy.

But she had some credits from her science degree and used the opportunity to take additional subjects, in fields such as pain management and disease management.

She returned to Canberra where her boyfriend was living. They are now married, with three children under 10.

She worked in a pharmacy on the south side and dropped back to part-time to have children.

"I always had fantastic employers who were really supportive of raising a family and of breastfeeding-friendly workplaces," she says.

"It's a perfect job opportunity for women with families.

As a young pharmacist she aspired to owning her own business. That is hard to achieve because of the huge cost of goodwill that goes with a successful business.

"When I was having my babies, a lot of my peers from university had aligned themselves with older owners, to eventually be brought into the business, so I missed out on a lot of opportunities," she says.

Only pharmacists can own pharmacies and her opportunity came early last year, when she became managing partner at Capital Chemist Charnwood, with the majority shareholding.

Her pharmacy is the only one in Canberra – and one of the few in Australia – with high level expertise on compression garments for people suffering severe circulatory problems.

Kourtis' mother died of breast cancerat 51 and now many of her clients are women who have had surgery or radiation or chemotherapy – or all three – to treat breast cancer.

"Women being treated for breast cancer often have their lymph nodes removed which means their arm is compromised for the rest of their life," she says.

The affected limb must be encased in a specialised compression garment, like a sleeve, to prevent swelling which would become permanent.

"Lymphoedema is a largely unpublicised condition that affects a lot of Australians and the quality of life for those people is severely affected," Kourtis says.

"It might be 40 degrees in summer and they have to wear this thick compression garment every day to keep fluid circulating.

On her phone, she displays disturbing photographs of sufferers, with huge arms or legs, like the Michelin Man.

To treat patients with lymphoedema, her pharmacy has established a clinic - a private examination room with a bariatric bed and stock of compression garments worth about $40,000.

The patients have to be referred by the lymphoedema clinic at Calvary Hospital. "So we don't just say, 'come on in and we will put you in a stocking', we need to know they have had the right tests done with their circulation system.," she says.

Other clients have ulcers on their legs, sometimes untreated for years, but are being fitted with a newly developed, two-layer compression bandage.

"Sometimes they're embarrassed about it and sometimes they don't think it's a problem," Kourtis says. "A lot of these chronic wounds are vascular ulcers and it does not matter what dressing you put on them, the only way they will heal is if you put them in medical compression.

"They probably would've had some compression bandaging but the patient can't do it themselves, they can't take them off to have a shower and put them back on.

"But the compression garments have developed a lot in the last two years. You couldn't traditionally put a compression stocking over an ulcer because it would rip the dressing off.

"Now companies have developed two-layered stockings where there is a silk liner you can put on easily over the dressing and then the compression layer goes on.

"So we are getting patients out of the public healthcare system, reducing the nursing burden, speeding up the healing process and making people happy because they can have showers.

Even before these customers, Kourtis had seen a lot of wounds.

"I remember when I was little, Dad used to take me to the nursing home [where he nursed] and I would see wounds, it was something that fascinated me," she says.

When she was a student, she joined the ACT branch of the Australian Wound Association to keep her knowledge up to date.

Kourtis asks every new employee at the pharmacy to list their goals in life and discuss how the job will help them achieve those aims.

"There are so many opportunities in healthcare to do some training, it future-proofs their careers and makes them employable," Kourtis says.

Given the enthusiasm and drive of the boss, it's not surprising to hear four of her staff are finalists in the ACT pharmacy assistant of the year awards.

"They want to be winners, they want to be the best they can be in the job even if they are studying Japanese at the university and are just working for me on the weekends, they want to be the best they can be in the position.

"So I make them champions because if they are happy and kicking goals, then my business is succeeding because they want to be there."

Kourtis points out that while 70 per cent of registered pharmacists are women, less than 30 per cent have a share in a business and less than 20 per cent are in leadership roles in the industry. "They are not involved in policy and they are not involved in developing businesses."

However, the Telstra award gives her a new platform. "I am hoping I can inspire more women to stand up and take on those roles."

*The national winner of the Telstra Business Woman of the Year award will be announced on November 26.

Twitter: @rosspeakeCT