Blazing a trail, closing the gap

Finding community at UTS

Despite her professional standing today, as a young person, Kristal didn’t even consider pursuing a career in business. Instead, she enrolled in the UTS Bachelor of Adult Education in early 2002.

At the time, the degree was designed specifically for Indigenous students. Finding herself surrounded by other people like her was a revelation.

“I was 20 years old and I met all these blackfellas from all across Australia,” she says.

“One of the things that experience opened up for me was just the diversity that existed across Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. I’d never left my community in western Sydney before, so that was a really enriching experience.”

As an Aboriginal woman, Kristal had always known she was part of something much larger than herself. UTS was where she began to see how she fit into the bigger picture.  

After finishing her studies, Kristal was determined to work with and for her community. She landed a role at Supply Nation (then called the Australian Indigenous Minority Supply Council), Australia’s leading Indigenous business directory.

It was her first real exposure to Indigenous business in action. It also planted the seed for her own business career.

“I’d never seen blackfellas in business before,” she says.

“That gave me a lot of inspiration. I thought, ‘If they can do it, then so can I’.”

Writing the book on Indigenous business  

Supply Nation taught Kristal the fundamentals of supplier diversity or better known as Indigenous procurement, including how organisations make purchasing decisions and what they look for in prospective suppliers. While it was interesting, the opportunities felt limited; lucrative government contracts for Indigenous-led businesses were still rare.

Over the next few years, Kristal moved away from supplier diversity and into coaching, training and facilitation roles, drawing on her UTS skills to teach and inspire others. She later launched her own company, and for a while, her professional pathway seemed clear.  

But when the Federal Government introduced an Indigenous procurement policy in 2015, Kristal saw an opportunity.

“More had to be done to educate government around how they could do business with Indigenous organisations and so that corporates could follow suit,” she says.  

“I decided to learn everything about the policy and help to educate other Indigenous businesses so they could benefit from it.”

Kristal threw herself into the research and writing of what eventually became Supplier Diversity How. It was the first book in Australia to map out how governments and businesses can increase the diversity of their procurement processes.

When Supplier Diversity How came out in 2019, it shone a light on Kristal’s broader body of work, positioning her not only as a procurement expert but an emerging Indigenous business leader with the skills to help others like her.

“The goal was to ensure that what I was going to put out through the book and through my work was going to open doors and pave the way for Indigenous businesses,” she says.

Sowing the seeds of collective success

In the last seven years, Kristal has done exactly that, helping government, not-for-profit and private sector organisations to build diverse supplier networks, robust reconciliation action plans and other projects that support the advancement of Indigenous people and businesses.

She also shares her expertise with Indigenous businesses, and has helped more than 100 Indigenous-owned businesses align their goals with their cultural needs and responsibilities. Through her workshops, she also teaches owners how to demonstrate the value of their approach to prospective clients.

“One program that comes to mind is the Strong Women Strong Business program for Indigenous business Australia,” she says.

“Our program was about supporting Aboriginal women who were trying to navigate the experience of running a business while also being Blak women with responsibilities to their families and communities.”

Kristal’s achievements have been recognised across the business sector. She’s a former NSW Telstra Best of Business Awards Finalist in the Indigenous Excellence Category (2023), Women’s Agenda Setter of the Year (2022), AFR 100 Women of Influence (2019), Indigenous Defence Leader of the Year (2019), NSW Aboriginal Woman of the Year (2017) and Supplier Diversity Advocate of the Year (2017).

She has also been a board member, non-executive director and member of some of the most influential organisations in Australia, including the Woolworths’ Group First Nations Advisory Board, the National Indigenous Australians Agency Co Design on a Voice to Parliament, the National Aboriginal Sporting Chance Academy, and the NSW Council for Women’s Economic Opportunity.

These efforts have led to success after success for Indigenous-owned businesses. During her tenure with the Woolworths’ Group First Nations Advisory Board, the Group reported a procurement spend of more than $54 million across 51 Indigenous businesses in FY25-26.

Anchored to the past, reimagining the future 

But even as her career climbs to ever-increasing heights, Kristal remains firmly tethered to her roots. More than 20 years later, she retains a strong and fruitful connection to UTS, as well as to the friends and professional networks she’s built since.

Every single one has been instrumental in getting here to where she is today and to where she’ll take her career and community next.