The People Behind the Collective
Paul has spent decades building Adelaide's business community, from co-founding m.Net Corporation (sold to IPG MediaBrands) to advising the City of Adelaide on economic development strategy. He holds a Master's degree from the University of Adelaide and brings a strong track record in commercial growth and organisational design. Paul co-founded Acacia Collective to give strata and community title owners across Australia a genuine alternative - member-owned management built around transparency, accountability and community.
Alex brings 17+ years of experience leading service organisations from early stage through to $8M+ in revenue, with deep expertise in operations, technology and organisational leadership. As Chief Advocate and CTO of Acacia Collective, he champions the interests of member corporations while building the platforms, automation and digital tools behind the member-owned model - giving owners across Australia transparent, responsive strata and community title management and real visibility over how their community is run.
Claire is a versatile communications and marketing professional with experience spanning FMCG, retail, not-for-profit and social enterprise sectors. She has managed national brand campaigns for clients including Samsung and KFC Australia, and led creative teams through major rebrands. At Acacia, Claire helps owners across Australia understand their rights under strata and community titles legislation and stay informed about what's happening in their owners corporation, body corporate or community corporation.
Jonathan is an entrepreneur, engineer and investor with over 30 years of building and scaling Australian businesses. He founded DSpace Pty Ltd, grew it to acquisition by a publicly listed company, and as founding CEO of 1414 Degrees led the organisation from concept through to ASX listing. He holds two engineering degrees and an MBA. At Acacia Collective, Jonathan applies his governance and operational expertise to building a member-owned strata and community title management model that puts owners corporations, bodies corporate and community corporations first.
Tabitha is a Chartered Accountant with almost 30 years of experience in accounting, business strategy and taxation. After studying Chemistry at Somerville College, Oxford, she trained with Deloitte in London before building a career across senior roles in Australian accounting practices and as CFO for an industrial manufacturing group. At Acacia Collective, Tabitha oversees financial governance for the organisation and its member corporations, ensuring levies, budgets and long-term maintenance funds are managed with rigour and transparency.
Our advisory panel
The people we take counsel from: on how buildings actually run, and on where a member-owned manager should be held to a higher standard than the industry sets for itself.
Acacia Collective is owned by the corporations it manages, which removes one conflict and creates a different obligation: when there are no outside shareholders to answer to, the discipline has to come from somewhere else. The advisory panel is part of where it comes from.
The panel is chaired by our Company Secretary, which is said here rather than left to be worked out from a card: the chair is an officer of this company and is not independent of it. The rest of the panel is. None of them is employed by us and none is paid to sit on it. They are here because they think strata management in Australia is due for a change, and would rather help shape it than watch it. They ask the questions a member would ask, if a member had the time and the decades of experience to know which questions those are.
Paul Daly
Company Secretary, and chair of this panel
Acacia Collective
Paul co-founded Acacia Collective and is its Company Secretary, and he chairs this panel. This makes him the one member of our advisory panel who is an officer of the company.
Gordon Russell
Thirty-eight years in strata and community title management
Gordon has thirty-eight years in strata and community title management, thirty of them as Managing Director and owner of UnitCare Services, and twenty-one working with the Supreme, District and Magistrates Courts as administrator to dysfunctional strata and community titled groups.
Kathryn Brewer
Leadership coach and former strata operator
The Life Creative Consultancy Services
Kathryn brings more than a decade of experience working with leaders and organisations through change, together with hands-on experience leading people and business operations in the strata sector.