Evolve beyond bias

For Shane Hamilton, the priority is to ‘forget you’re an indigenous company’ and deliver value.

Shane Hamilton, CEO of Evolve FM, says indigenous businesses have to be better than others to get contracts

Shane Hamilton agrees that, rightly or wrongly, Indigenous businesses such as the one he runs have to be better than others to get contracts.

The chief executive of Evolve FM, an integrated facilities management company headquartered in Canberra, says: “I think sometimes there is a level of unconscious bias, and I also think there is a level of people saying: ‘Great, but I am not sure that you have the capacity to do the work.’ So there is that sense of having to prove yourself.”

Not that he resiles from the challenge, saying “first and foremost we have to deliver service and value to our clients. Forget about the fact you are an Indigenous company.”

He wants to see Evolve, which has an annual turnover of $50m, and is majority owned by Indigenous Australians, grow to the point where “we are competitive and it won’t matter whether we are Indigenous or not”.

Evolve began five years ago as a joint venture between Indigenous-owned cleaning and construction company PSG Holdings and property manager JLL.

PSG has a 51 per cent share but JLL has been crucial to the project because Evolve piggybacks on its processing systems.

Say Hamilton: “It has allowed us to compete very quickly because we are using their systems, so we’ve been able to establish ourselves and we are on their platform.”

Hamilton who was a consultant at PricewaterhouseCoopers before joining Evolve as chief executive in April, has had extensive experience in community housing in Western Australia and more recently as chief executive of the Aboriginal Housing Office of NSW.

He says he was attracted to Evolve by the chance to lead an organisation and be hands-on in the service sector, providing a service for companies that leaves them free to focus on their core business.

“I think if we do a really good job that is one aspect of their business they don’t need to worry about,” Hamilton says. “It’s taken care of, they don’t have to worry. Every business has to control costs and where we can bring value is making sure we are managing the costs, minimising the costs, ensuring the place is comfortable and staff are happy.”

Evolve is one of three property service providers for federal government entities. It services 23 organisations with sites across Australia, managing security, cleaning, maintenance and other services. Evolve also has benefited from the federal government’s Indigenous procurement policy, which sets targets for the work awarded to Indigenous companies.

It is celebrating a new contract with the Red Cross that covers 350 sites — offices and retail stores — across the country. Says Hamilton: “We have to diversify and the Red Cross represents a not-for-profit space we can get into.”

Hamilton says the goal for the next five years is for Evolve to have at least 100 business opportunities of varying shapes and sizes.

“There are plenty of opportun­ities out there for Indigenous businesses,” he says. “But as we keep saying, we have to continue to focus on service and value.”