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Kylie Ridding

Operations Management & Strategy
Team Collaboration
Transformational Leadership
Relationship Building

Skills:

  • Relationships-
  • Exit/Succession-
  • Governance-
  • Grants-
  • HR-
  • Marketing-
  • Management-

Industries:

  • Manufacturing-
  • Construction-
  • Rental, hiring and real estate services-
  • Health care and social assistance-

Spoken Languages:

  • English-

State: New South Wales

Primary Locations:

  • Family Business Association (FBA) voucher bookings only.-

Locations by request:

  • South & South West Sydney-
  • Sydney - Outer West & Blue Mountains-
  • Illawarra and South East NSW-

Mentoring available by:

  • In Person, Face to Face in (New South Wales) or by Phone and online

I can also deliver mentoring by phone and online

Current Occupation:

Company Director, SVSR Pty Ltd; & SVSR Mini Crane Hire Pty Ltd www.svsr.com.au www.svsrminicranes.com.au

Detailed CV:

Independent of SVSR (the family business):

Entrepreneur and sole trader, focusing on health care. I created resources to help women and children experiencing domestic violence. 

Within SVSR (Family Business)

  • Within SVSR (the family business), we rebranded my parents existing manufacturing business. Registered as a new entity, while 1st generation handed over to 2nd generation. 
  • I purchased the business from my parents, to limit conflict with investors, & return their investment for superannuation.
  • Professionalising the systems & governance structure, while still keeping brothers as employees. 
  • There were 3 siblings in 2nd generation, each managing different responsibilities in the business. Myself as sole Director.
  • Diversifying, we registered & built second & third companies, as part of business group.
  • Family conflict escalated, re: business management, leadership styles, future growth & direction. The result was family split, family business mediation, and much later, family reconciliation without business connection.
  •  Surviving through Covid disruptions – financial cash flow crisis; importing ceased; lack of steel supply; construction lockdowns; HR headaches with retrenchments, etc.
  • Resilience through adversity, building a successful team to grow two businesses.
  • Introducing non-family General Manager, and later, non-family CEO.  
  • Adapting the business and people into advanced manufacturing products & processes. Focusing on innovation transformation, growth, & collaboration, building internal capacity of systems & team; and broadening our range of products & service to customers across Australia. 
  • Introducing third generation family as employees.

Personal challenges in the Family Business: 

  • Entering the family business was not part of my life or career design. I came into the family business out of necessity, wanting to protect and recover it for the good of all my family members.
  • This required self-belief and confidence in action, because of my limited business knowledge. I have invested time to learn (a very steep learning curve!) in a very short space of time. I've learnt in years what others invest a lifetime learning.
  • Family members and senior managers diminished the trust I placed in them.  It is challenging to run a business when those you placed trust in eventually prove through their actions they cannot be trusted, while simultaneously trying to move me to the sideline. It's sabotage.
  • Balancing my life while turning the business around; finding time for
    • Supporting my only child as she embarked through childhood & adolescence, with the challenges it brings to both. Fly-in, fly-out work. While living interstate as carer for parent with end-stage cancer. 
    • Caring for other family members.
    • Looking after my health and well-being.
    • My relationships.
  • From a near-zero base, building respectful relationships with team members, customers, suppliers and other resources, e.g., universities.
  • Redefining the term "family business", each individual family member has their own interpretation & meaning.

 

Personal strengths which can help small business:

  • Emotional intelligence, balanced with business acumen  
  • Empathy with the struggle. (As daughter, sister, single Mum, & business employee/ owner).
  • Experience confronting gender stereotypes in construction, manufacturing & crane industry.
  • Understanding the difference:  Working with family is not corporate. Emotional involvement with family employees means you'll need to share family birthdays & Christmas together.
  • Ethics and values: Both guide me, and I will not abandon them or allow them to be subverted for convenience, fashion, fad or commercial gain.
  • Faith: A belief in and drawing on something greater than myself.
  • Steely determination and resilience: Often in the face of a tide of things moving against me, I believe I will find my way to a better place or outcome. Conversely, having a plan, I believe in and never quit until I achieve it.
  • Care: For all people and things.
  • Asking for assistance:  I continue to build around me a network of people whose knowledge, skill and experience I respect and tap into.
  • Curiosity: I seek “the why”, so that it informs “the what” needs to be achieved.
  • Self-awareness: I share my authentic self and are comfortable knowing my character and feelings.
  • Gracious: The way I carry myself - kind, generous of spirit, empathetic and compassionate.
  • Open to the possibility: Despite self-doubt at times, I have an optimism that comes from being willing to acknowledge there may be other options and solutions.
  • Resolve: Once I settle on a direction or course of action, I follow through.
  • Teach: I have a knack for finding the teachable moment and teachable point of view that is right for each person.
  • Willingness to share my journey: Sharing my stories and encounters so that others can learn from them.

Qualifications:

  • Bachelor of Social Work
  • Diploma of Leadership, Australian School of Applied Management