ABOUT RENÉE

I’ve always been interested in what sits beneath the surface.

Before business and investment, I trained in archaeology.

A discipline that understands what is visible rarely tells the whole story. You have to look at context. History. Relationships. The way individual pieces connect to a larger system.

That habit of thinking has never really left me.

Today, I apply it to the acquisition and long-term ownership of established Australian businesses.

EXPERIENCE

Close to how organisations actually work.

For more than 18 years, my career has spanned organisational strategy, business development, partnerships, communication, research and enterprise building.

I have worked with organisations operating in complex and regulated environments, developed commercial and institutional relationships and helped turn ideas into businesses, programs and partnerships.

The work has rarely been about one isolated problem.

It has been about understanding how people, incentives, information and systems interact — and finding the changes that make the whole organisation work better.

BUILDING A BUSINESS

Experience beyond the clean success story.

I also spent seven years building and leading a social enterprise.

During its first year, I secured more than $500,000 in capital and in-kind support and developed partnerships with major Australian corporate and institutional organisations.

There were periods of strong momentum. There were also setbacks, pressure and rebuilding.

Running an organisation teaches lessons that are difficult to absorb from the outside.

Cash deserves respect. Growth and progress are not the same thing. Good people are difficult to replace. Risk has a habit of becoming obvious after the fact. And complexity is not automatically sophistication.

I eventually stepped away, but only once the organisation had stabilised sufficiently for its next chapter.

The experience continues to shape how I assess businesses and think about ownership.

OWNERSHIP

Understand first. Preserve second. Improve third.

When I look at a business, I want to know more than what appears in the information memorandum.

  • Who do customers call when something goes wrong?

  • Which employee knows how everything fits together?

  • Where does the owner remain essential?

  • Why have customers stayed?

  • Which processes genuinely protect the business?

  • Which ones are simply habits?

  • Where does knowledge live?

  • What value is actually being delivered?

  • What would be damaged by changing too quickly?

Those questions are not separate from due diligence. They are part of understanding the asset.

Because I am not interested in change for the sake of proving that a new owner has arrived. I am interested in better ownership.