Jingeri. (Hello)

What I have built.

I have always been an entrepreneur. As a kid I ran a truck-washing business and paid the younger kids in pies and cans of Coke, because that is what they wanted. The instinct never went away: see a thing that needs doing, build something around it, bring other people in.

Some of what I built worked. I co-founded DHUWA Coffee, the first Indigenous-owned coffee brand stocked in a major Australian supermarket, now in more than 900 Woolworths stores nationally. During COVID, a business I chaired delivered 120 tonnes of hand sanitiser to Woolworths in a matter of weeks, which helped keep their stores open and their people safe. I built Indigicate, an Indigenous-owned outdoor education company that took thousands of young people onto Country and reached more than 60,000 people across six countries before it closed. I led the development of Victoria's First Peoples Renewable Energy Strategy inside government. I have helped develop children's conferences in Switzerland and led delegations of Aboriginal young people to international children's rights spaces.

Some of what I built failed. I am honest about that, because the building and the rebuilding are the same skill, and pretending otherwise would be a lie. I am a reformed gambling addiction. Earlier in my life, that addiction pulled apart businesses that had real promise. It took me four years of working on myself to come out the other side. I started again with twenty dollars. I talk openly about being strongest when you are at your weakest, because I have had to live it, not just say it.

The work.

My approach is grounded in First Nations ways of working, and it should be. First Nations Australians are talented, strong, and carry a beautiful and living culture. The deficit story told about us for generations was never the truth. It was a framing, repeated until people forgot it was a choice. My work is helping people see past it, and then do something with what they see. I have been brought into a lot of spaces where a hard conversation had to be had. What I have learned is that those conversations are not won by being the loudest or the cleverest person in the room. They are built on listening, on working alongside people, and on bringing them together to heal. That is the work. It is what I am taking forward now, in coaching, in leadership and communication training, in the writing, and in everything we are building under Be Brave, Feel Safe.