What does it take to be the perfect service supplier in your discipline? 4 leaders in defence tech, healthtech, government recruitment and water infrastructure give us a glimpse.
Forward of the 2026 EY Entrepreneur Of The 12 months™ program’s twenty fifth annual awards in October, Startup Every day is profiling the trailblazing entrepreneurs named as nationwide finalists.
Thus far, we’ve met the finalists within the Social Impression, Rising and Trade classes.
We’ll quickly meet the Know-how finalists, however in the present day it’s all concerning the Companies class; 4 founders breaking new floor in how they ship service throughout their respective fields.
Kuba Kabacinski, Consunet
In 2002, Adelaide entrepreneur Kuba Kabacinski (pictured) purchased a small internet improvement enterprise for $200 whereas finding out IT at Flinders College.
Right this moment, that enterprise is Consunet, a defence tech software program firm with greater than 130 employees engaged on high-tech options for digital warfare and spectrum administration (powering communications gadgets and sensors).
Kabacinski says their largest problem was backing themselves and investing $6 million to compete in opposition to six multinational firms for the Australian Defence Drive’s electromagnetic battle administration mission. They received, and efficiently delivered the $61 million mission.
“The long-term impact that I hope to achieve with Consunet is to disrupt the global spectrum management market to ensure that communication technologies are broadly available to everyone at an acceptable cost,” he says.
“And we want to have a billion-dollar valuation.”
Stella Petrou Concha, Reo Group
Because the CEO of nationwide recruitment, government search {and professional} companies company Reo Group, and cofounder of government improvement agency HiveQ, Stella Petrou Concha (pictured) is obsessed with serving to folks realise their full potential.
Famend for her deal with self-mastery and its position in shaping careers, the acclaimed writer and tutorial practises what she preaches, mastering her personal pivot from drugs to expertise technique when she based Reo in 2009.
“After two years working for an international agency, I said to my husband Marcello, would you back me in going into business? I’d like to start my own agency. There’s an opportunity in the market here where could do it just a little bit differently,” Conch says.
“Instead of focusing on the client side, I’d like to focus on the candidate the side. The candidate’s the one that has the really deep need, and they need support in identifying what the trajectory of their life needs to be and how that’s going to align to a career.”
Right this moment, the enterprise has three places of work in Sydney, Parramatta and Adelaide, with specialised consultants serving to to develop candidates to get the roles they need.
The present jobs market and cost-of-living disaster has been difficult, Concha admits. However holding hyper-vigilant and specializing in the enterprise’ two development engines – its folks and its clients – is what retains driving enterprise ahead.
Dr Chris Behrenbruch, Telix Prescription drugs
Dr Chris Behrenbruch (pictured) is the managing director and group CEO of Melbourne-based Telix Prescription drugs, an oncology firm that develops radioactive medication to assist deal with most cancers and uncommon illnesses.
“Our class of drugs is really unusual. We take a molecule that targets a cancer signature and we attach radiation to it and we inject it into you, and it whizzes all around your body until it finds a tumour and then it kills it,” Behrenbruch explains.
Behrenbruch based Telix in 2015, combining his expertise in radiopharmaceuticals and biotech with a German doctor’s experience in nuclear drugs.
Now ASX-listed, with industrial operations in Australia, the US, Europe and Japan, Telix (ASX:TLX) has made a world impression with its revolutionary strategy to drugs.
“Last year we changed the lives of about 150,000 people. That means that a child got another year with their father or got to spend more time with their grandfather. So that’s a big deal,” he says.
Matt Rear, PPS Water Group
Matt Rear’s profession is all about transferring water from location to a different – a sophisticated job for the distant mining initiatives PPS Water Group works throughout in WA.
A former C-suite government within the lithium business, Rear (pictured) has grown his water infrastructure firm considerably lately, delivering sustainable water administration options for the likes of Rio Tinto, BHP and Fortescue.
“A major milestone at PPS is that we’ve just completed the Western Range [iron ore mine] project. It was the largest water infrastructure project to my knowledge in one contract,” he shares.
“It was [around] $100 million. It began as $40 million, and due to our good work, we stayed there for over two years,” he says.
Rear places PPS’s success all the way down to constructing belief with shoppers with out compromising the output.
“We became the preferred contractor by delivering safely and by delivering on time and just being there for the client,” he says.
Extra about EY Entrepreneur Of The 12 months
The EY Entrepreneur Of The 12 months Program recognises Australian entrepreneurs who’re disrupting conventional methods of doing issues and constructing a greater working world.
Run by international skilled companies organisation EY, the EOY program spans 60 international locations and jurisdictions and supplies unique networking and studying alternatives to members. EY Australia will host a gala occasion on October 15, the place winners throughout 5 classes might be awarded (Rising, Trade, Companies, Social Impression and Know-how).
One winner might be chosen to symbolize Australia on the EY World Entrepreneur Of The 12 months™ international competitors in 2026.
For more information, go to the EY Entrepreneur Of The 12 months web site.
Startup Every day is a media companion for the EY Entrepreneur Of The 12 months program.
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