From a good business to a great one

Hi, I'm Mandy

I'm a business advisor and mentor, and a business coach by 15 years of choice. I work between the shop floor and the boardroom, the numbers and the people.

I notice the small things most advisors walk past, and I know which ones matter.

Mandy Walker, business advisor and mentor

Where I Started

I trained as a materials engineer at the University of Wollongong and graduated with First Class Honours. Then I went inside the machine.

For 8 years I worked in operations: aluminium engine casting at Ford, beef processing at Cargill, and North Parkes Mines. I was a maintenance supervisor, a project manager, an environmental supervisor and a process improvement specialist.

A plant runs on small things: a setting, a handover, a habit. Get them right and everything downstream improves. Miss them and no amount of effort makes up for it. I've never stopped seeing businesses that way.

From the Plant Floor to Advising Owners

Then I started working with business owners. One manufacturing owner came to me with low margins. Three different consultants had given him three different answers: cut costs, raise prices, or improve efficiency.

I spent a day in his facility. The real problem was that he was competing in the wrong market. Once we changed that, margins rose by 40%, without any of the three fixes.

"The problem is rarely where it shows up."

That has held for 15 years and more than 1000 businesses since. I added an MBA from the Australian Institute of Business. I became Expert in Residence at the University of New England's SMART Region Incubator, and a board member of Zondii, an agtech company.