Culture drives Red Invest growth

Building a multi-faceted business has been as much a journey of self-discovery as an economic venture for Red Invest Capital Holdings founder Richard Tester.

Raised in the Perth suburb of Forrestfield, Mr Tester’s journey into the world of Indigenous business – and his venture’s growth into a web of interconnected businesses under one umbrella – has opened doors and facilitated exploration of his own Noongar identity.

Having started in industry as a welder, Mr Tester was a successful businessman by the time he broke off a high-flying corporate career to set up his own venture in 2013.

Management-level stints at ThyssenKrupp Australia and RCR Tomlinson, and a period as chief executive of Gravity Cranes, form part of Mr Tester’s resume over a career that included stints in Qatar and Germany.

However, seeking a shift away from the politics of climbing the corporate ladder, Mr Tester decided to go his own way.

In 2013, when the seeds of Red Invest were planted, there was plenty of personal and professional discovery left to be done.

“Even when I was working at ThyssenKrupp, I never acknowledged that I was Indigenous,” a candid Mr Tester, whose mother is Aboriginal, told Business News.

“I grew up in a family where my mother didn’t acknowledge we were Aboriginal.

“Back then, we were still in a generation where you were made to feel a little bit ashamed to be Indigenous.”

Mr Tester’s path to reconciling with his own culture did not fully begin until his venture into what is now known as Red Invest: an enterprise with arms in architecture, engineering, recruitment, construction, renewables and asset management.

The now-thriving business was in its early stages when a decision was required about how to approach its identity.

A meeting with prominent Noongar businessman Gordon Cole ahead of the Indigenous Procurement Policy rollout in 2015 prompted some consideration of the opportunities that existed for an Indigenousowned business.

Mr Tester’s business was already 100 per cent Indigenous owned.

But owning that status meant stepping out from the outdated approach to thinking around culture under which he and his family had been raised.

“It’s been quite a big emotional rollercoaster for me going down this path, and probably my brother and my sister as well, because they were all in the same position,” Mr Tester said.

“To recognise your Aboriginality, what does that actually mean, you know?”

After some deliberation, Mr Tester sought out Supply Nation certification. It was a move that altered the trajectory of his business.

Supply Nation verification put Red Invest in the nation’s largest Indigenous directory, facilitating connection with contract opportunities around the country.

“In business, being Indigenous will do one thing,” Mr Tester said.

“It will let you open and put a foot in the door. But that is all it will do.

“You have to be able to deliver a quality, reliable service, because if you don’t they will shut that door on you pretty quick.”

Red Invest has kept multiple doors open over the years since Mr Tester took that initial cultural and business step.

Red Arrow – the labour hire business under Red Invest’s broader umbrella – is now the 12th-largest Indigenous business in the state by staff employed, according to Data & Insights, with 190 on the books.

The broader Red Invest staff book sits above 200, and Mr Tester estimates those numbers have doubled in recent years, in line with revenue.

Open-door policy

Connecting with culture proved to be a path-setter for Red Invest, in concert with its natural desire to expand to meet clients’ needs.

The company now known as Red Invest was founded in 2013 as Red Arrow, adapting Mr Tester’s skills in project planning and scheduling for external clients.

“Going into business myself was never about the financial side of things,” Mr Tester said.

“It was more about following the passion of what I actually liked. That was the big appeal to me.”

Red Arrow quickly realised a need to expand to set itself apart from peers offering similar work in its sector and did so by securing a distribution licence for a 4D modelling software in Australia and Germany.

The modelling offering was good, but Red Arrow’s clients did not always know how to use it. With that, came an expansion into drafting.

“It organically grew because of our clients’ needs,” Mr Tester said.

In 2013, when a peer went into administration, Mr Tester recognised an opportunity for Red Arrow in labour hire.

“They approached me and said, ‘Look, are you interested in taking over this contract?’” he said.

“We bought the contract, took it over, and pushed our labour hire business to grow immediately.”

The business continued to evolve, with different arms representing the different disciplines in which the broader group could support its clients.

Red Arrow morphed into a labour hire business under the broader Red Invest umbrella in a 2017 restructure, while engineering work fell under the RASP brand.

Ironstone was formed in 2022 as a construction, fabrication, installation and maintenance business for mine sites, the oil and gas and industrial sectors.

When national supermarket chain Woolworths approached Red Invest about some drafting work, the business was led on a path towards setting up its own architectural firm.

“We went to register as an architecture business, and the Architecture Board said, ‘You can’t be associated with an engineering business. We want them to be separate’” Mr Tester said.

“We had to set up an architecture company, and that’s where Radian Architecture came into play.”

Green Arrow Australia, specialising in renewable power systems, was founded in 2023.

Growth has come naturally over a 13-year span, and Mr Tester is yet to pull the trigger on acquisition.

But he is keen to do so and has been public in calls for interested parties – Indigenous or otherwise – to come forward for at least a year.

“We are constantly looking for businesses large and small that we could acquire or be part of, that complement what we do,” Mr Tester said.

“But it’s got to complement our core business.

“If someone came along with an Indigenous cafe, we wouldn’t run out and buy a cafe that’s for sure.”

Tier-one ambition

Red Invest has forged strong business connections and won significant work across its varied business interests.

The company has developed professional relationships with engineering services firms Jacobs and Arup and is part of the Indigenous Defence and Infrastructure Consortium run by former Sydney Swan Adam Goodes.

It has worked on major projects for the big two supermarket chains, at the Christmas Creek iron ore mine in the Pilbara, and has a hand in the burgeoning defence industry space.

On the energy front, Green Arrow recently finished work on a microgrid project for Fortescue, which was designed and delivered internally.

In its early days, the business was engaged to 3D model the graffiti on the arches of the Sydney Opera House, as part of a renewal project run by construction firm Taylor.

“We’re pretty much a tier one in mining now, having done work with BHP and Fortescue,” Mr Tester said.

“We’re now working in defence with our architecture arm on the Darwin Harbour masterplan.

“We’re also in Coles and Woolworths in terms of our architecture as well. There’s a lot of big, blue-chip clients now.”

But one target has so far proved unobtainable.

“I have not seen an Aboriginal business be allocated as a tier-one joint venture on a major infrastructure project in Australia,” Mr Tester said.

“That is our ultimate goal, that is our main focus.

“It’ll get there, it’s just a matter of when.”

Red Invest is currently working on a tender for the Kwinana Freeway extension alongside Jacobs and Arup and is engaged with the pair as part of the $15.4 billion River Torrens to Darlington road and tunnel project in South Australia.

Mr Tester said it was important Indigenous businesses were treated with the respect they deserved in a JV structure.

“There’s a lot of talk in the industry about black cladding,” he said.

“I am not a big fan of it.

“We would get offers from potential JV partners all the time who would come to us and say, ‘Can we use your name in a tender’.

“We just say no. We don’t need to be put on a tender as a token gesture.”

Indigenous ownership

Just as Mr Tester’s relationship with his culture has changed, Red Invest has grown to embrace its standing as an Indigenous business in Western Australia.

Through Radian, it offers an Indigenous housing program that aims to deliver high-quality housing in Indigenous communities.

Red Invest also offers seed funding and mentoring support for Indigenous-owned enterprises.

But a project particularly close to Mr Tester’s heart is its ADAPT program: an initiative designed to support Indigenous workers to land white-collar jobs.

“That’s my way, I think, that we have to give back,” Mr Tester said of the program.

“One of the things I found coming into this was that a lot of the big companies, the mining and construction companies and so forth, were great at offering blue-collar positions.

“But they don’t tend to offer white collar.

“We’re in a unique position because we have engineering and drafting expertise here, so our focus is really to offer white-collar positions to Indigenous people.

“That’s been a really big push of mine for the last two to three years.”

Beyond that, Mr Tester aspires to one day share the spoils of the company he is building.

Having made the call in the past six months to bring in managers for each business unit under the Red Invest umbrella, the founder is looking to the future.

Indigenous ownership comes with limitations in terms of selling of stakes or listing publicly to grow.

Mr Tester said he had no intention of selling or floating Red Invest but hoped to one day be able to give back to its staff. 

“One of the things I’d like to do is to grow to a point where the staff in this business are rewarded in regards to shares in the business,” he said. 

“Selling it is not what I’m about, and I’m 58, so I’m too young to retire and have no intention of retiring. 

“To me, I want to grow it to be as big as it can be, but I also want our staff to reap the rewards of that growth. 

“It’s not about one person, that’s for sure. “It’s about everybody who works for us being part of this journey that we’re on.”