Meet Rina Abbott-Jard and Michael
Rina and Michael run an Indigenous owned town planning and engineering firm built from their shared desire to create long lasting positive change in the communities where they live and work. With more than 20 years each in corporate roles, they decided to build a purpose driven organisation that reflects their values, empowers their team and contributes meaningfully to social and economic outcomes.
Read more about Rina’s business journey so far:
About their business
Our firm is a town planning and engineering company. We started it because we could see that there was a way for us to influence social issues in the areas where we live and work. Starting our own business gave us independence and the chance to focus on purpose driven projects. We are an Indigenous owned and female owned business and our values guide everything we do.
The growth of our business has been very organic. People we had previously worked with started reaching out, wanting to work with us or join the Modal team. That has been a wonderful encouragement. From the beginning, we designed the business to be empowering for the people who work in it. We took all the positive experiences we have had in other workplaces and translated those into our business model.
Our leadership approach is collaborative and inclusive. Every person in our team has ownership of their portfolio. We built in flexibility so people can design a work life balance that suits them. Everyone understands that we are a full purpose organisation.
We have a bonus structure based on performance to ensure that financial rewards go back to our employees quickly. We also structure our projects so that they have long term positive impacts in the communities we work in. Winning projects with strong commercial reward finances our probono and low bono services.
Our core capabilities are town planning, urban planning, environmental planning and transport planning, engineering and spatial analytics. We are RPEQ qualified and we also work as access consultants, reviewing public transport infrastructure to make sure it is accessible and inclusive.
We also run a separate business solutions arm. We specialise in procurement, organisational change and helping corporates build stronger cultural capability. As a First Nations business we can support organisations with Reconciliation Action Plans and those wanting to improve how they engage with Community, Indigenous businesses and supply chains.
We registered the business in August 2023 and started operating in May 2024.
Impact of the SBD Program
Even with more than 20 years of corporate experience each, starting a business was intimidating. In running a business, we are rookies, in the best and most exciting way. There is so much involved and we knew we needed a business coach or some kind of structured support.
Many Rivers was the right fit because our values align. Our business is designed to create positive impact, and Many Rivers works with organisations that contribute to the economy in meaningful ways. Other business coaching programs we explored were very profit driven and focused on fast growth, which did not align with our values. We were not looking to exploit people or follow the classic high margin model.
The flexibility of the Many Rivers program and the long-term three-year partnership was important for us. We want to be commercially sustainable, but in a way that matches our purpose driven approach. We also wanted help understanding our gaps and learning what to prioritise at each stage.
Having a coach encourages us to look at different areas of our business, even the ones we might overlook. Because Many Rivers works with many businesses, the advice comes with broad experience and benchmarks that we would never have access to on our own. It has been reassuring to know we are the right fit for the program and lovely to build this relationship.
The biggest impact has been reassurance. It gives us peace of mind knowing we are on the right track. It has built our confidence in areas where we had limited experience. We feel more structured, more intentional and more aware of our financial and operational health. It has also strengthened our business model and supported us through important decisions that will shape our long-term sustainability.
Thinking about your business growth, what services were you looking for from Many Rivers?
To be honest, we did not know what we did not know. Coming from procurement, I am used to analysing suppliers and identifying gaps in their capability, but doing that for our own business is much harder.
There are so many areas to consider legal, HR, finance, systems, profit and loss the list goes on. When you are first starting out your budget is very small and it takes a lot of knowledge to decide what to invest in and when.
Talking to Many Rivers gave us clarity. If we tried to set up everything perfectly from day one, we would have gone bust. We needed help pacing the growth of the business, managing cash flow and understanding which areas needed attention first.
Many Rivers could benchmark our Profit and Loss against similar small businesses and help us identify risks we might not see ourselves. They also helped us understand what we were doing well and what the consequences would be if we grew too fast. Having someone sense check our decisions and talk through scenarios has been extremely valuable. The health check was a great starting point. It helped us understand where we were strong and where we had gaps.
How have the Many Rivers planning workshops and business tools helped you?
We also realised there were policies we needed but had not yet created. When you do tenders, they expect you to have HR policies, domestic violence policies and more. It can’t all be done well, and at once, it’s a matter of priority, not just to write, but to implement and rollout across the business and team. Tito helped us pace these out so we knew what needed attention now and what could wait.
We have worked through business planning, strategy discussions, P and L reviews, and talked openly about problems we have faced. These conversations helped us reshape our business model when we needed to.
A major shift for us was moving from a commercial PTY Limited entity into an ORIC organisation under the Indigenous Corporations Act. This sets us up for the possibility of becoming a charity and being formally recognised as a purpose driven organisation. It is a complex transition and not many people understand it, so having a coach guide us through has been essential.
Did you get a loan through the SBD program? If yes, how was this experience for you? How has it impacted your business?
No, we didn’t get a loan from Many Rivers.
Do you have more employees now to support the business growth?
Uh, we do have employees. We’ve got the six of us in the team, plus a Cultural Advisor or, you know, an Elder in Residence, however you want to call it. That’s my dad and he has spent many years supporting community organisations as an active Board Member
Challenges and Future Goals
We are still working through the natural challenges of being at an early stage and growing steadily. Cash flow management, pacing our growth, and finding the right timing for new roles and functions are ongoing priorities. We also want to make sure that as we grow we do not lose the culture and values that are so important to us.
Our next steps are to continue strengthening our business structure, build our financial sustainability and expand our team slowly and intentionally. We also want to increase our community impact and grow our partnerships across the planning, engineering and business solutions sectors.
Recommendation to other Indigenous Business Owners
I would tell other Indigenous business owners that Many Rivers is an incredibly supportive and value aligned program. The coaching is flexible, long term and tailored to your business, not a one size fits all model. If you want to build a business that is both commercially sustainable and purpose driven, Many Rivers is a great partner to guide you.
Thank you Rina for sharing your business journey with us. We wish you the best of luck with future endeavours and business success.
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