13 unsung heroes: Mum’s secret to success after helping build up string of businesses
The 26-year-old mum says there’s one small thing every prospective business owner should do before setting up their company - but it’s often overlooked.
SA Weekend
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For humble hero and proud Ngarrindjeri woman Kedeisha Kartinyeri, 26, making a difference in her local community is well and truly what makes her tick.
Having started her career as an accountant for non-for-profits in remote Northern Territory, the mum, mentor, philanthropist, keen sportswoman, businesswoman and all-round powerhouse has her sights firmly set on improving Aboriginal representation in the SA business sector. And she’s well on her way.
Her company, KML Business Solutions, supports up to 70 Aboriginal businesses per year with funding help from The Circle, the state government’s First Nations Entrepreneur Hub.
“We make it more accessible for these smaller businesses to come in and get the right advice before they actually fully jump into business,” Kedeisha tells SA Weekend.
“We make it super, super simple, and we create personal relationships with these people so that we can make sure that they have every opportunity to thrive in what they’re doing.”
A love of maths and undying passion for guidance stemming from her school days is what set Kedeisha on her career path, having worked as a therapeutic mentor for troubled students and tutor in her teens.
A trailblazer by every definition, at 26, the soon-to-be mum-of-two is the first female Aboriginal accountant to own her own firm in SA. She’s also just become the first Aboriginal appointee to the State Library of South Australia’s board.
But – a glimpse into her modesty – she is quick to highlight the myriad of Aboriginal businesses brimming with potential in SA.
“There are so many different people doing different things, whether it’s tourism or the art space, Aboriginal lawyers.
“The potential is incredible and we can see it now through programs like The Circle. Everyone is getting a new light to shine and getting that extra support that was maybe stopping them beforehand.”
Her dream?
“To be a role model and encourage more current Aboriginal students to consider working in accounting. There’s a big stigma around accountants being mostly middle aged or older men in suits, but it’s not like that anymore. It can take you anywhere in business.”
Kedeisha Kartinyeri is one of 12 unsung heroes SA Weekend is profiling in an effort to shine the spotlight on the locals whose tireless efforts have gone largely unnoticed until now.
JP Drake
The cover star of this Saturday’s SA Weekend, John Paul Drake was the inspiration for The Advertiser sharing the state’s unsung heroes.
The supermarket boss shares videos of shoplifters stealing everything from high quality cuts of meat to shampoo from Drakes stores.
Once uploaded to TikTok, and watched by thousands of people, it isn’t long before the “magicians” are arrested
He tells SA Weekend, “We have an 85 per cent conviction rate once we post the video and within minutes we will have the addresses of whoever those customer magicians are.
“I let my team of young kids edit it and be creative like young kids do because I’m not 18 anymore – I think I am, but I’m just not. We give them the ability to come up with some of this content that makes people realise it’s lighthearted but it’s serious.”
A true unsung hero.
ROB RANKINE
He’s the local legend who took an abandoned nursing home and transformed it into a last-ditch solution for families struggling in the nationwide housing crisis.
Rob Rankine, who runs the Dalrymple Bar and Restaurant in Stansbury, Yorke Peninsula, has become a hero to residents in need after leasing a vacant Eldercare nursing home, initially with the intention of providing housing for his employees.
Soon enough, locals in desperate need of a rental have been offered rooms, providing much-needed stability in uncertain times amid a lack of available public housing outside the city and suburbs.
It comes as permanent rentals become few and far between, with only about 0.3 per cent of rental homes in Yorke Peninsula available, according to Mayor Darren Braund.
About 18 residents currently reside in the nursing home facility, which had sat empty for the better part of four years until Mr Rankine swooped in and repurposed the vacant halls.
KYLEE SIMPSON
A former victim contact officer for Major Crash, Kylee Simpson would have been the last face any person would have wanted to see.
Ms Simpson’s job was to tell family members their loved one was never coming home after they lost their life in a road crash.
Now, using her years of experience, she works as the chairperson of the Road Trauma Support Team; dedicating her life to supporting people whose lives have changed in an instant.
She oversees the counselling and support of extremely vulnerable people, who have often experienced the worst times of their lives.
Ms Simpson not only supports victims of road trauma from the moment they find out but often years later – as well as during court proceedings if required.
KAT MORRISON
General manager of the Sex Industry Network (SIN) Kat Morrison has been advocating for the rights of sex workers, not only in South Australia, but around the world for decades.
SIN originated out of the Prostitutes Association of South Australia (PASA) which was formed in 1986 by a group of local sex workers as a reaction to the police harassment that sex workers in SA were subjected to at the time.
Ms Morrison has been advocating for the decriminalisation of sex work in South Australia and the rights of sex workers, working with government and stakeholders to do so.
She runs outreach, workshops, seminars and social and informative events to engage the community to bust myths about sex work.
KELLY STEVENS
An Adelaide mum who has endured the most unimaginable grief has set her own heartache aside to help other families.
Little Charlie Stevens died of acute myeloid leukaemia in 2021 just days after his third birthday.
His mum Kelly has devoted much of her time since her family’s devastating loss to raising money to fund pediatric cancer research through a charity her family set up called Charlie’s Rainbow.
To date more than $250,000 has been raised, helping to support a dedicated post doctoral researcher to work in collaboration with UniSA’s Professor Richard D’Andrea and his team to focus on juvenile AML research.
“He was always happy, no matter what was going on. He was just a bubbly, happy kid,” the Belair hairdresser, who has one other son, says.
“This has been the most gut-wrenching journey … we don’t want any other child to go through what our Charlie boy, our rainbow unicorn, did.”
LINDA HOWELL
At 28 weeks pregnant Linda Howell felt a Tic Tac-shaped lump buried under the skin of her right breast.
After being dismissed by doctors for having a blocked milk duct, she ultimately discovered she had been living with an extremely aggressive breast cancer for at least five months.
Her experience inspired a lifesaving movement – The BEAT Movement.
Connecting 30 South Australian women who all share the common heartbreak of being diagnosed with Australia’s most common cancer in women when they were under 40.
Ms Howell travels around the state telling her story to medical professionals and other women to raise awareness of under 40s breast cancer.
Other women who are a part of the group also share their story with the aim of raising awareness so women’s symptoms do not go dismissed or ignored.
LINDA FISK AND ANNA KEMP
The daughter of an alcoholic father and an abused mother, Linda Fisk developed a drug addiction at the age of 12 and was jailed when she was 16. She says being in prison gave her a sense of safety and belonging that was lacking in her childhood.
After serving time in SA prisons and giving birth to two sons while incarcerated, she teamed up with her parole officer, Anna Kemp, in 2006, to form Seeds of Affinity, a support group for women who have been released from jail.
It meets twice a week at its new home in Kilburn, where ex-inmates get together, eat a meal, access support services and learn new skills.
ANNA MCKIE
Anna McKie has given birth as a surrogate – twice.
Once for a single mum and in September 2020 for first-time dads, Matt and Brendan.
Now, she is sharing her passion for surrogacy and helping people become parents through advocacy and support.
The high school maths teacher is responsible for the day-to-day administration of the Surrogacy Australia’s Support Service and runs regular free webinars covering all aspects of the surrogacy process.
STEPH SCHMIDT
The warm, intelligent and engaging Steph Schmidt is a woman who wears many hats: clinical psychologist, farmer, wife, mum and fierce mental health advocate with a focus on the wellbeing of farmers and rural Australians.
Mrs Schmidt grew up in inner-suburban Prospect but now runs a livestock and mixed grains property at Worlds End, near Burra, in the Mid North with husband Simon and their three young sons.
The ACT for Ag founder recently launched a “Farm Life Psych” podcast aimed to play a part in “changing the picture of farmer mental health”.
“Farming can be incredibly tough … we manage unpredictability, uncertainty, weather, financial and job pressures,” she says.
“When you run a farm, a family and a business together, there are always multiple hats being worn and a constant juggle of multiple responsibilities.
“But I believe we can all take small steps every day to care for our wellbeing so that we can thrive even during times of adversity.”
MICK WEATHERALD
Mick Weatherald is so much, much more than a local sporting legend.
The lifetime member of both Sturt Football Club and Cricket Club has been quietly inspiring countless young footballers and cricketers for half a century, coaching and mentoring young players at all levels from community to elite.
“All children will find their own level and helping them on this journey gives great satisfaction,” the 76-year-old founder of Sturt’s Junior Cricket Academy has previously told this masthead.
The father of 2002 Sturt Magarey Medallist Tim Weatherald and uncle of former Redbacks and current Adelaide Strikers batter Jake Weatherald recalls teaching an 11-year-old who couldn’t walk unaided to “stand still and bowl” in the late 1960s.
”One day, the team was short so we let him play and gave him a bowl and he got a wicket – the joy on his face as all the boys celebrated him was a memory forever,” he says.
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CECI JEFFRIES
Adelaide woman Ceci Jeffries is driven to help would-be parents navigate the “minefield” of an infertility diagnosis.
While the warm and generous founder of Fertility Collective is highly regarded around the globe as a leading fertility advocate, she mostly flies under the radar in South Australia.
As a result of her personal journey with infertility – and the associated anxiety – the ex-advertising executive obtained qualifications in holistic fertility counselling and psychology in a bid to be able to support the “one in four” couples struggling with infertility.
Now a mum of three, the fertility coach boasts an Instagram following of more than 50,000 and was recognised globally in 2023 with a Best Fertility Advocate Award.
She has since launched a podcast series – Family Collective – as a “place where we build confidence, courage and hope”.
“We speak the unspoken, break the silence and spread the love, basically,” she says.
“There is such a stigma attached to fertility … the more we talk about it, the less alone people will feel.”
NADINE WOOD
This mum-of-three was living in Torrensville when she and her husband Jason started up a We Care in the West, to help others during Covid-19.
At the start of the pandemic in 2020, the couple noticed their elderly neighbours were suffering loneliness and isolation.
The Woods did a letterbox drop of a flyer offering assistance and then created a Facebook page to reach out to people in need and get others on board to donate goods. “We started off with a box of food – coffee and sugar and non-perishable things – left on people’s doorsteps and then it just grew bigger,” Ms Wood said.
We care in the West, which is still going, has organised Christmas, Easter, backpack and pyjama drives, and more to help thousands of people. “We had no grants and would either fund things out of our own pay, or people donated items,” Ms Wood said. “I just saw the distress on people’s faces … and Jason and I felt we had to do something.”
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