2023 State Winners - QLD

Footage: The recipient stands up and walks past tables of well-dressed people and onto the stage to accept their award. The footage cuts to show the recipient posing in front of a media wall with their award and certificate. 

Text: Accelerating Women Award QLD Winner. Struber.  

Audio – recipient:  Hello everyone, wow. I'm Julie Castle, the co-founder and Managing Director of Struber. I'm so happy to be up here amongst so many great people. I met fabulous people from this category and many others, but obviously the reason why Struber exists is to accelerate women, so I'm so happy about this result. 

I grew up on a building site listening to absolutely foul language by a bunch of blokes and I realised, what have they got over me? They might have testicles, but I've got chest-icles. 

Audio: the audience laughs. 

Audio – recipient: And I knew I had everything within me to be a rock star, and that's absolutely the culture we sponsor for our team. They are all rock stars and you all are too. We're a professional services consultancy, so we work in the infrastructure industry, and working on the billion dollar infrastructure projects and programs that move our nation. 

We're really proud of that. We work in the planning, positioning, procurement and delivery of these infrastructure projects and aim to shake it up every day through what we do. Our industry talks about a skills shortage, but I can tell you the only thing we've got is a gender shortage. We are not rocking equality enough and we want to be the change we want to see, and so our company dominates in the female space so that we can actually create that equality that we're missing in our industry.  

Look, you can't do it alone when it comes to business. I want to thank all of our amazing mentors and sponsors that have been along the way. There's actually been a lot of fabulous men, the believers, the ones that have shone the light on what we're doing. They've actually enabled us to have the energy to really glow in our work, and I'm very grateful for those guys.  

At Struber, we talk about excellence as a habit. There's been alumni at Struber that I'm so proud of and I will continue to cheer for, and I'm so grateful for my amazing team right now, and all the work we do to be brave enough to push to reach our full potential. 

We now have that great market reach and so many amazing employees that our brand is really able to take off, and I thank everyone for your hard work, particularly my executive team, because it takes a lot. I think everyone knows it's not an easy road in business, and I think that's a really important thing that you've got people cheering for you.  

I also want to touch on that equality starts at home, and my co-founder is my husband and someone I am eternally grateful for. That shows great leadership, not only to our two daughters growing up in a household where mum is allowed to be her best, and I thank you Dion for that every day.  

Thank you to Telstra. My phone bills started in 2000 and man, I just used to hustle to work to pay those bills off. Thank you for having better plans now, and we can afford to all be connected. 

Audio: the audience cheers and laughs. 

Audio – recipient: But it's that hustle and the need to be connected and to support each other and those connections that will help make our industry better all the time. 

Look, everybody in business, you're always 18 months off from greatness, so just keep going. All the women out there stand up, don't blend in, don't go quietly. Shout for what you believe in and we're here for you. Thank you so much. 

Footage: The video transitions to a blue end screen with the words ‘Best of Business Awards’ next to the Telstra logo.  

Audio – music: The Telstra jingle plays.  

Footage: Upbeat music plays as the video moves from a blue opening screen with the Telstra logo to the presenter for the Building Communities Award.  

Audio – presenter: The 2023 Telstra Best of Business Awards Queensland Building Communities Award winner is…Goodwill Projects. 

Audio – music: Upbeat music plays as the audience cheers and applauds.  

Footage: A table of well-dressed people is shown clapping with arms raised in the air. The recipient stands up from their table and walks up to the stage to receive their award. The footage cuts to show the recipient posing in front of a media wall with their award and certificate.  

Text: Building Communities Award QLD Winner. Goodwill Projects.  

Audio – recipient: Enormous thank you and sincere congratulations to everyone here this evening. It's a privilege to represent, in my own words, about 2,000 small businesses across southeast Queensland, and it's been a 17 year journey. If I can take 30 seconds to say where it came from, we're driving down the road essentially and noticing cardboard signs cut out and strapped on the front of street poles for many months, and a friend said, ‘Have you ever been to a market before, I wonder what they're like? Let's try one out.’  

And he ended up finding a site, and that became our first market at Nundah in 2006. And over the course of a few months, we realised that there was far more to this than just crates of produce and wily characters waking up at 2 o’clock in the morning. We saw an opportunity to support thousands of small start-ups around that small, very small micro-business sector which avoids the need to mortgage your house, go to a bank and secure six months to do a $150,000 fit out and sign a five-year lease. You could take a passion or a skill, be an ex-executive, a busy mother, a new migrant to Australia, if you had a dream and a skill, all you had to do is have anywhere between $20 - and at that stage, $40 - call us and you could sell your product or service and understand what the audience in the market could see, and what you could tell was a wonderful product, which becomes something more special. So it's a real privilege to be here in a time which is really exciting in southeast Queensland and it's only really made possible by an extraordinary group of people who I'm privileged to work with. 

And I might just note that if any of you have been to your local market, wherever it might be, there's a very strong chance that it's been set-up by someone who probably woke up around midnight or 1am. A lot of our markets start between 1am and 2:30am in the morning, and in that time in 17 years, we realise that markets are - there's a reason why they've been around for thousands of years and why we work with theatre set producers, artists, and why we focus so much on the community.  

Because while our business model, interestingly enough, is exactly like a Westfield, there’s three key differences. Number one is that we have no infrastructure, no building, no doors and no roof.  Number two, we're only open for six hours a week across the dozen sites in Queensland. And number three is we have no leases and contracts. And what that allows is these incredibly passionate, highly skilled people to remove all of their risk and come and meet their market, and we try to make it as easy as we can.  

And our job is to ensure that thousands of people see a genuine alternative to Westfield, Coles and Woolworths. Not that there's anything wrong with them, but an experience where you can come down and show off your brand-new French bulldog, or have your first date, or just meet your neighbours and pick up some fresh produce, and if you're not probably getting hit on by one of our banana growers or some really terrible dad joke by one of the farmers, then it's not quite the same experience is it. And that's why we foster that romance, and we call it a romance because you can never find that anywhere else. 

And that's something we never want to let go. That's what makes our communities special, and that's why the group of people that I work with, who I think are extraordinary and sacrifice their weekends and their late nights when they get calls from hundreds of vendors, have made the difference and why it's a pleasure to represent them. Across marketing, admin, finance, in what I would say is one of the few, if only, groups in Australia that have actually invested in an extraordinary group of people to make markets special in southeast Queensland. 

So on behalf of them, I want to thank you very much and the judges for your outstanding effort and hard work. And I hope everyone has a fantastic evening. Thank you. 

Footage: The video transitions to a blue end screen with the words ‘Best of Business Awards’ next to the Telstra logo.  

Audio – music: The Telstra jingle plays.  

Footage: Upbeat music plays as the video moves from a blue opening screen with the Telstra logo to the presenter for the Championing Health Award.  

Audio – presenter: The 2023 Telstra Best of Business Awards Queensland Championing Health Award winner is…1300 MEDICS. 

Audio – music: Upbeat music plays as the audience cheers and applauds.  

Footage: The recipient stands up from their table and walks past tables of well-dressed people and onto the stage to accept their award. The footage cuts to show the recipient posing in front of a media wall with their award certificate. 

Text: Championing Health Award QLD Winner. 1300 MEDICS.  

Audio – recipient: Firstly, a big thank you to Telstra for putting the awards on. This journey for me started when I was eight, as an ambulance cadet and I was delivering first aid to events. And my first event was down at Sunnybank Rugby Club on the south side of Brisbane, and from then I just developed this passion for delivering first aid to people where they were injured.  

It went from there, I became a paramedic, a nurse, and it was a bit of a hobby business to begin with. In 2016 I left my full-time job in nursing and paramedics and I pursued it full time. Now, at 2023, we look after 5,000 events a year. We see about 19,000 patients and we have over 500 staff spread across three states. I couldn't do it without them. But what we're really passionate about is delivering care, and reducing the impact on the community Ambulance, and hospitals and health services and finding alternative pathways for these people. 

Our health systems are overwhelmed and if we can do anything to reduce the burden on them and improve our patient outcomes, then that's a really positive thing. I'd just like to thank my team. We have flown back to Brisbane for the awards. We've been down in Sydney delivering care to Sydney WorldPride and we're going to Melbourne tomorrow, so it's been a big week.  

Audio: the audience applauds. 

Audio – recipient: Last thing I want to say is that 1300 MEDICS is built on genuine teamwork. We do some really big hours, we look after events and what people see when they turn up to events is only a very small part of it. And our team members start very early in the morning, they finish very late at night, and throughout that time they never lose their passion for helping people and delivering really good quality clinical care. 

So this award is for our 500 team members, who some of them are working tonight and over the next week will be looking after over half a million people around Australia. So, thank you to them. 

Footage: The video transitions to a blue end screen with the words ‘Best of Business Awards’ next to the Telstra logo.  

Audio – music: The Telstra jingle plays.  

Footage: Upbeat music plays as the video moves from a blue opening screen with the Telstra logo to the presenter for the Embracing Innovation Award.  

Audio – presenter: The 2023 Telstra Best of Business Awards Queensland Embracing Innovation Award winner is, drum roll please… 

Audio: the audience laughs. 

Audio – presenter: And the winner is…Abundance Global.  

Audio – music: Upbeat music plays as the audience cheers and applauds.  

Footage: The recipients rise from their table to cheer and congratulate each other. The footage cuts to show the recipients posing in front of a media wall with their award and certificate. 

Text: Embracing Innovation Award QLD Winner. Abundance Global.  

Audio – recipient:  Wow. Thank you, thank you. Thank you very much. I'm Dr. David Dugan, I'm the founder of Abundance Global. We're a business advisory and coaching company. We’ve worked with over 2,100 businesses since 2012. 

One of our favourite quotes is from Cicero in 48 BC, where he said that, “Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, it's actually a parent of all virtues.” And that is definitely how we feel today. 

It's been a pretty, pretty full on the last few years, and our work has been pretty intense. I can say when we started this business, I didn't think we'd actually be here. We go back in time. Back when I served in the Navy, I was deployed on a mission, a deployment to Banda Aceh when the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami hit. In that mission, nine of my shipmates were killed in a helicopter crash, and I was meant to be on that helicopter. It was just a sliding doors moment that I didn't hop on. 

And at that moment, I decided that I need to do something more with my life. I think, like anyone who's an entrepreneur, it starts out, you come out with that vision, that dream of something you can do. And I realised that there was one thing that really bugged me, and it was a statistic that of a hundred businesses that start, only four ever reach their 10th birthday. And out of that four only one have a revenue of over $1,000,000. I mean that, business is tough. It takes intelligence. It takes humility and it takes grit.  

So we decided that we're going to do something about that, and we're going to change that statistic. We don't believe that's the way it should be and we're doing a pretty good job at it. Our members have increased their profit by over 253% year on year, for the last eight years. They contribute over a quarter of a million dollars to this economy. They've employed more people in this last three years, particularly and beyond. And they do great for their local communities and also for the global community at large. In fact, with our GlobalGiving Initiative through B1G1, our partnership with them, our members have leveraged over 15 million impacts. How we do that is through the innovative way we look at the whole of business, not just a single product or a single item, but how do you approach that in this fast changing and fast world. 

It's part of the reason why we're so proud to be here and we have a huge amount of gratitude, to have the honour to serve those amazing people, but also big thanks to Telstra and to the incredible people that work at the Telstra Awards, they've been doing this since 1992. It's helped us to shape our business and putting these awards together, we really, really appreciate the incredible work that they do.  

We also want to say a massive thank you to, and congratulations to all the amazing finalists, the winners here, the fact that you're in business, the fact that you're here in this room, you're a damn god winner, and you’ve got to remember that. Yes, they get a round of applause. 

Audio: the audience applauds. 

Audio – recipient: It is hard. It is hard. But there is another way, there really is. And we know that people can do that. I want to say a massive thank you to the wonderful clients that we serve, we get to guide on their entrepreneurial path of genius. To the incredible team who, their commitment, their devotion, not just over the last ten years plus, but certainly in the last three years, is absolutely second to none. I absolutely love them. My leadership team, Fusun and Nick, have just been absolutely incredible helping me. 

They helped me to want to be an even better leader to them. So I want to thank them very much as well. To also the families, the families who support us, but also the families who support every business owner and their teams. Sometimes they're the unsung heroes, the people that don't get the credit that maybe they should. So to you, I'm saying a massive thank you. And last but not least, my absolutely beautiful wife over there, Kitty, who backed me when we started out, when sometimes no one else did. I love you, honey. Again, thank you very much. Have a wonderful, wonderful night. 

Footage: The video transitions to a blue end screen with the words ‘Best of Business Awards’ next to the Telstra logo.  

Audio – music: The Telstra jingle plays.  

Footage: Upbeat music plays as the video moves from a blue opening screen with the Telstra logo to the presenter for the Indigenous Excellence Award.   

Audio – presenter: The 2023 Telstra Best of Business Awards Queensland Indigenous Excellence Award winner is…oh, it's just like the Oscars, here we go…and the winner is Hillery Group. 

Audio – music: Upbeat music plays as the audience cheers and applauds.  

Footage: The recipients stand up from their table to hug and congratulate each other. The footage cuts to show the recipients posing in front of a media wall with their award certificate, with cameras flashing as photographers take their photo.  

Text: Indigenous Excellence Award QLD Winner. Hillery Group.  

Audio – recipient: Thank you. I'm not much of a talker, but I'll give it a crack. Just like business.  

Hi, I'm Luke Hillery, CEO and co-owner of Hillery Group, along with my brother Liam, a second generation civil construction and quarry company based in Bowen, North Queensland. 

We're extremely passionate and proud to create employment pathways for many young people in our community with a high regard for the young Indigenous. We believe in equal opportunity and that everybody deserves a chance. We are very humble and proud to even be considered for the state finals. 

Each business here should be extremely proud of what you have achieved. Business can be tough, but extremely rewarding on nights like this. Thank you to Telstra for putting on such a special event and taking us on this journey. 

It's not very often you get to step out of your business and reflect. That's exactly what this process does. You ask yourself and those around you, ‘Why? Why do we do what we do, and how, how have we ended up where we have?’ 

When I asked my father why he got into business, the answer was simple. Coming from not much, it was to create a better life for him and his family, to break the cycle of always being lower class. For Liam and myself, it was also family. At first it was to help and support our parents, but then it evolved into much more. To create a life for our own families, and a big thank you to our respective partners. You go through a lot for us.  

You'll hear me mention family a lot. That is because it is everything we are about. It is in our values and it is extremely important to us as a business. The Hillery Group family extends to everyone that has worked and does work within the Hillery Group. Each and every employee, past and present. Special mention and thank you to our senior leadership team who are here tonight. The support and guidance you provide us is invaluable for which we are extremely grateful. You never back down from a challenge or a goal that I set. You always help us find a way to grow and be better. 

I also have to thank Kelly and her team for entering us in the Telstra Awards and everybody that helped put the submission together. I remember when I was young, listening to my dad and his best mate over a couple of beers, and his mate saying, ‘Only you could make money out of dirt.’ 

Audio: the audience laughs. 

Audio – recipient: I've never forgotten this, and at first I thought it was just a smart way to, to have a dig at our chosen profession. But as I think about it and over time, I think it was his way of complimenting dad on his business skills and the life he was creating for our family. This, along with plenty of drive, the unwavering support and the willingness to take risks from mum, they certainly achieved what they set out to. Liam and I will be forever grateful for the mentoring you provided us, teaching us that everybody is equal and nobody is better than anyone else. Anything is possible. You provided us the platform to launch our own version of the business to what it is today. Creating opportunity for a large portion of our community, being now one of the largest privately owned employers in our area, something we are very proud of. Thank you. 

Footage: The video transitions to a blue end screen with the words ‘Best of Business Awards’ next to the Telstra logo.  

Audio – music: The Telstra jingle plays.  

Footage: Upbeat music plays as the video moves from a blue opening screen with the Telstra logo to the presenter for the Outstanding Growth Award.   

Audio – presenter: The 2023 Telstra Best of Business Awards Queensland Outstanding Growth Award winner is…Valenhold. 

Audio – music: Upbeat music plays as the audience cheers and applauds.  

Footage: The recipient stands up and walks past tables of well-dressed people and onto the stage to accept their award. The footage cuts to show the recipient posing in front of a media wall with their award and certificate. 

Text: Outstanding Growth Award QLD Winner. Valenhold.  

Audio – recipient: Good evening, everyone. I'm honoured to accept this award on behalf Valenhold. As a mining services company, we provide innovative solutions to the global mining industry. 

In 2015, I decided to quit my job, buy a laptop and I had a go at executing an idea I just couldn't let go of. We started working from a home, pushing 400 kilo pallets of mining parts down the driveway - wasn't my best idea - and using this to break into new markets. 

We now employ a team of 30 experts. We support operations across 14 countries and we use innovative technology to drive our growth. It's been a fantastic adventure with a bunch of great humans - thanks guys - who are the real difference in what we do and how we deliver. Winning the award for outstanding growth is truly a testament to the dedication and hard work of our team. I'm grateful to have such a talented, committed group of individuals working with me. 

It's been an amazing journey from the early days to the company that we are now, crossing all over the world. For me, despite our growth, we always keep our values close. At Valenhold, we believe that success is not just about the bottom line, but also creating a place where our people are empowered to make decisions, innovate and drive our futures forward. 

I'd like to take a moment to acknowledge all the exceptional finalists in this category. The fact we were chosen is amazing and congratulations to all of you. Business is tough. It's very rewarding, but it's, you know, it's an experience you've got to grind out. 

Thanks to Telstra and the judges for recognising our achievements, and also hosting such a great event. These awards are a celebration of the contributions that businesses make to our community and I'm proud to be a part of this. 

Once again, thanks to everyone who has supported us along this journey, our customers, our partners and, of course, our team. And a big shout out to our families who put up with the crazy hours of travel and all the rest of the shenanigans that go on with running a business. Without your hard work and dedication, none of this would have been possible. So, I thank you very much and thank you everyone and have a great night. 

Footage: The video transitions to a blue end screen with the words ‘Best of Business Awards’ next to the Telstra logo.  

Audio – music: The Telstra jingle plays.  

Footage: Upbeat music plays as the video moves from a blue opening screen with the Telstra logo to the presenter for the Promoting Sustainability Award.  

Audio – presenter: The 2023 Telstra Best of Business Awards Queensland Promoting Sustainability Award winner is - some suspense - Pleasant State. 

Audio – music: Upbeat music plays as the audience cheers and applauds.  

Footage: The recipients stand up from their table and walk past tables of well-dressed people and onto the stage to accept their award. The footage cuts to show the recipients posing in front of a media wall with their award certificate.  

Text: Promoting Sustainability Award QLD Winner. Pleasant State.  

Audio – recipient 1: Hi, I'm Sian and this is Ami, and we're the co-founders of Pleasant State. Wow. This award means so much to us. Now, more than ever, we are feeling the impacts of climate change, which means sustainability needs to be at the forefront of everything we do. Not just for brands like ours, but for all brands big and small. To be recognised as a sustainable leader in the state is a huge honour and it's also a responsibility we don't take lightly. 

Footage: Recipient 1 steps aside for recipient 2 to speak at the podium. 

Audio – recipient 2: Pleasant State is working towards a sparkling, clean world that's free of single use plastics and toxic cleaning chemicals. From day one, our mission has been to demonstrate that doing good is good for business by balancing people, planet and profit. And now, just two years since we began shipping our revolutionary products, being recognised with this award shows we're doing just that.  

The journey has been far from easy. As a female-founded bootstrapped start-up, the hurdles have been high and frequent. I'll take that loan, thank you very much.  

Footage: recipient 2 gestures off-screen to a hypothetical investor. 

Audio: the audience laughs. 

Audio – recipient 2: But in all honesty, the journey has been really worth it. Thanks to our community of over 20,000 customers, our really amazing small, but mighty team who are here with us today, our partners unwavering support and obviously our suppliers.  

Footage: Recipient 2 steps aside for recipient 1 to speak at the podium again. 

Audio – recipient 1: It's thanks to the support of this community that we've been able to stop over 130,000 single use plastic bottles from ever going to landfills, and we've been able to raise over $43,000 for our charity partners, including the amazing team at Take 3 For The Sea.  

We're also super proud to be Australia's very first B-Corp cleaning brand and a member of the 1% for the Planet. We're not slowing down any time soon. We have huge plans to make waves, not ripples, when it comes to social and environmental impacts. We're planning on using this momentum to keep growing, keep innovating and keep working in the present state to create a Pleasant State for people and planet. 

Audio: the audience applauds. 

Audio – recipient 2: A huge thank you to the Telstra Awards for amplifying our story. Congratulations to all the other finalists. You're doing really amazing and important work.  

And you can drop in to the revolution by going to pleasantstate.com or following us on socials at Pleasant State. Well done on lasting the night and thank you to everyone. 

Footage: The audience applauds and laughs as the video transitions to a blue end screen with the words ‘Best of Business Awards’ next to the Telstra logo.  

Audio – music: The Telstra jingle plays.