Blaze Business & Legal

My firm, Blaze Business & Legal, is an innovative boutique management consultancy and law firm in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.

I have 23+ years of experience as a strategic management consultant/business adviser, and senior lawyer specialising in construction law, contracting, major projects, risk, compliance, and procurement for business and government

I have acted as General Counsel, Procurement Adviser, Commercial Officer, Contract Administrator, Senior Legal Counsel and Strategic Adviser in different organisations - these roles have given me a depth of experience that is rare for most lawyers.

My knowledge of various industries allows me to effectively contribute to the overall strategic direction and performance of my clients. I have practiced in industries such as construction, property and development, retirement, government, Defence, ICT, infrastructure, civil, services, mining, water and wastewater. I have substantial experience in many forms of project delivery

I’m a strategic problem-solver who considers issues holistically from a combined legal, commercial and operational angle

I specialise in:

🔹drafting contracts
🔹providing strategic legal advice
🔹providing strategic procurement advice and drafting procurement documents
🔹drafting innovative contracts and other legal documents
🔹risk analysis and mitigation
🔹resolving problems for the organisation
🔹advising in relation to contract management
🔹analysing and advising in relation to compliance with policies and procedures and relevant laws 
🔹governance issues

Blaze Business & Legal specialises in construction law, commercial law, legal advice, legal advisory services, major projects, infrastructure, collaborative contracting, civil, mining, business advisory services, management consulting, change management, procurement, probity, risk analysis, risk advice, risk mitigation, compliance, governance, commercial advice, strategic advice and leadership development.

Managing Director

Blaze Professional Learning

I help Lawyers and Non-Lawyers work better with Contracts and improve their skills in Contract Planning, Contract Drafting, Contract Review, Contract Negotiation and Contract Management. I also work with Professionals to help them overcome their Imposter Syndrome.

Owner

Team Downer MSP

Commercial Manager

Australian Government Solicitor

I specialised in construction law, legal advice, legal advisory services, major projects, infrastructure, collaborative contracting, civil, government contracts, government advice, Defence advisory, procurement, probity, risk analysis, risk advice, risk mitigation, compliance, and governance.

Senior Lawyer

Defence Housing Australia

I acted as General Counsel of DHA and provided senior legal advice and high-level strategic input to the Board and Managing Director of DHA. Role included leading the legal team, managing all matters, supervising hire and performance of external lawyers and all General Counsel roles.

Acting General Counsel

Meyer Vandenberg Lawyers

Senior Associate

Airservices Australia

Senior Legal Counsel

Corrs Chambers Westgarth

Construction and Major Projects Group, Engineering Procurement Infrastructure Construction Division

Solicitor

Laing O'Rourke

Secondment to Laing O'Rourke in-house legal team

Corporate Legal Counsel

Thiess

Secondment as Acting General Counsel - NSW

Acting General Counsel - New South Wales

Helping you solve your Business Challenges:

💎 𝗢𝘄𝗻𝗲𝗿𝘀: Know something is not right with your business, but you don't know who to ask for help? The structure doesn't reflect where your business is at now, things feel cobbled together and your procurement, contracting, compliance, risk management and governance need work. And it's all causing inefficiencies, compliance issues, loss of revenue and loss of sleep! You have 20 different problems in a giant ball that needs untangling. Let's chat, this is what I do!

💎 𝗕𝗼𝗮𝗿𝗱 𝗠𝗲𝗺𝗯𝗲𝗿𝘀: Need help communicating your strategic direction to your CEO and implementing changes without causing waves? Or do you need a strategic adviser (who has also been a Board Member and is experienced in Governance) to help you work out the best future path for the organisation, then help communicate this to the CEO and get buy-in?

💎 𝗖𝗘𝗢𝘀 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗠𝗮𝗻𝗮𝗴𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗗𝗶𝗿𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘀: Need a Chief Legal Officer or General Counsel but don't have the budget to hire one full-time? Need help solving specific problems and implementing solutions? Or need a strategic analysis of your organisation to work out the cause of your problem(s), then help fix them?

💎 𝗚𝗲𝗻𝗲𝗿𝗮𝗹 𝗖𝗼𝘂𝗻𝘀𝗲𝗹: Having problems within your Legal Division or with internal relationships in your organisation? Fixing these is a speciality of mine. Need extra senior resources on a flexible plug-and-play basis? Need a Senior Strategic Adviser to carry out a discrete legal or compliance project for your Division or the organisation as a whole?

💎 𝗦𝗲𝗻𝗶𝗼𝗿 𝗠𝗮𝗻𝗮𝗴𝗲𝗿𝘀: Need help restructuring your Division, putting in place policies and procedures, implementing compliance, streamlining processes, or help putting in place tighter workflows with other Divisions (then documenting those workflows in diagram form)?

I use my combined strategic advisory, management consultancy and legal skills to help you to:

🔹Carry out major projects
🔹Manage and mitigate risk
🔹Improve your business
🔹provide strategic legal advice
🔹provide strategic procurement advice and draft procurement documents
🔹Make your processes more efficient and aligned with best industry practice
🔹Resolve Business Challenges
🔹Ensure compliance with relevant laws
🔹Draft policies and procedures 
🔹Deal with governance issues
🔹Improve cross-functional dynamics
🔹Improve your bottom line

Rachelle is the Owner of Brisbane Livewell Clinic, a wellness and natural therapies centre with 2 clinics in Brisbane.

Rachelle Hare

QCsolver Inc.

The QCsolver offers a simplified way for our staff to help you to keep track of your suppliers with our services and our Supplier Control Panel. All of your critical supplier data is now gathered by our staff and is view-able on one screen. Customized reminders ensure that you don't miss key dates. 

We offer an independent third party verification of the supplier data with a unique strategy for a cost effective and seamless implementation process.

Simplify these processes
Insurance and WSIB Tracking
Contracts Database
Risk & Performance Monitoring
Vendor Performance Management
Supplier Credentialing
Audit/Internal controls

Reduce your risk

The QCsolver process helps you to reduce your risk and exposure when choosing one of our existing qualified vendors. These vendors are being used by other clients and we can provide you with up to date reports and rankings with a click of a mouse. 

Customize our service
 
Depending on your needs we can adapt our services and reporting portal to ensure an administratively efficient and effective solution.

Chief Visionary Officer

Kinetic GPO

My new role will allow me to continue to help grow Kinetic to the next level. 

Over the last 7 years, Kinetic has been there for our members and providing them with trade compliant contracts. We are now in every province and every sector. 

All of this growth has now provided us with an opportunity to visually report the data and determine how best to assist our members and allow our suppliers to gain further insights. This new initiative will allow Kinetic's team to focus on what is important and strategic.

Canadian Analytics & Strategic Advisor

Kinetic GPO is a Canadian group purchasing organization that makes national cooperative purchasing as simple as possible. We follow all governmental compliant processes and our goal is to help reduce procurement costs by leveraging the purchasing power of group buying and saving our members time by simplifying the steps to procure.

As part of a very knowledgeable and experienced team of professionals, I am working at advancing the purchasing power of entities across Canada by taking what has worked, expanding on those strategies, and offering our portfolio of compliant contracts to a full range of organizations. 

This is an exciting opportunity that I wanted to share. Please feel to contact me if you want to hear more.

Director of Supplier Development & National Programs

Cambridge Solutions Inc.

Project Management: 
•	Scope of work analysis
•	Monitoring & reporting of vendor/contractor activity

ERP Software Selection & Implementation:
•	Research, review & analyze software requirements for scope of work
•	Data conversion, synchronize item information (combine multiple branch information)

Procurement Consulting:
•	Contract negotiations
•	Purchasing support & outsourcing services

Productivity Implementation Initiatives:
•	Assistance in implementing vendor portal application
•	Consolidate spending to reduce costs & increase productivity

We are a Supply Chain & Management organization that leverages our experience & the talents of our associates to provide a wide range of services & solutions. 

Our team offers a unique combination of Supply Chain, Information Technology & Human Resources skills in order to provide you with value-added projects. 
We are proud that we think out of the box & focus on exceptional customer service. 

We use the term SCORS to help describe the outsourcing capabilities of Cambridge Solutions Inc. (CSI). What we offer is Supply Chain Outsourced Resources which include Services, Systems & Staffing.  CSI can provide you with many options to allow your company to better manage existing workloads. This includes contract & project management; commodity-based purchasing support & productivity improvement initiatives. The list above outlines some of the options CSI has offered clients in the past. This list is not limited as we have the capability to expand our horizons & adjust to meet any company’s needs. 

Most of all we believe in "work & have fun"

Supply Chain Canada, Ontario Institute

POSITIONS HELD IN THE SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT ASSOCIATION OF CANADA
SCMA is a professional purchasing organization representing 8,500 members across Canada.

2021                       Honourary Life Member
1981-present          Member and volunteer
2005-2006	       President Greater Wellington District of SCMA
1998-1999	       President of the Greater Wellington District of SCMA
1997		       National Professional Accreditation Committee member
1994		       President of SCMA Ontario (2,700+ members)
1989-1994	       Regional Director and on the Board of Directors 
1987-1988	       President Central Ontario District of SCMA
1981-1993	       Member of Central Ontario District of SCMA

Seminars Taught:
Managing Supply Chain Relationships, Outsourcing, Contracts Post Award & Tendering and Request for Proposal

AWARDS
2016        Volunteer of the Year Award   Supply Chain Management Association of Canada
2007	Twenty Five Year Award	        Supply Chain Management Association of Canada	
1995	Award of Excellence		Supply Chain Management Association of Canada
1995	Award of Merit			Supply Chain Management Association of Canada
1993	Certificate of Service		Supply Chain Management Association of Canada

Supply Chain Professional

CMC-Ontario

Worked on a sub-committe and prepared a position paper which was submitted to the Ontario Ministry of Government Services on Vendor Performance management.

Professional Member

Sustento Collaborative Hub Inc.

What Sustento is…

•It’s a Collaborative Hub or Central Connection place created to support local businesses & initiatives focusing on Food: specifically on Supply Chain, Process, Distribution, Education, and Construction

•It’s about Connecting People to promote & leverage each other’s skills, talent & resources

•We want to include People who want to collaborate and have diverse backgrounds: Business Partners, Mentors, Academic Institutions, Students, Entrepreneurs, Workforce Experienced individuals, Associations and other similar minded organizations

Chief Business Development Officer

Mohawk College

Supply Chain Management Program Advisory Committee Member

Conestoga College Institute of Technology and Advanced Learning

2018: Instructor Operations 8080 Capstone Project (Supply Chain Management-Global)
2017: Instructor Operations 1420 Introduction to Supply Chain
2017: Instructor FOOD 8150 Supply Chain Functionality 
2017: Instructor HRM 2040 Human Resource Management January 2016
2016: Instructor HRM 1010 Supervision
Instructor BUS 74060 Consulting/Integration Project II
Instructor BUS 73130 Consulting/Integration Project 1
Instructor from 1984 to Jan 2001 for the following groups: 
Human Resources Association of Ontario. 
Ontario Management Development Program. 
Toyota Motor Manufacturing in house management courses. Linamar Corporation Guelph Supervisory/Management Training Program. 
Microcomputer Applications Certificate Program. Development 

Dimensions International Instructor

Instructor & Program Advisory Committee Member

Car-san Manufacturing Limited

Established in 1985, Car-san Manufacturing Limited is a contract manufacturing company nestled in the Kitchener/Waterloo hi-tech sector. We specialize in rapid prototyping for electronic products, printed circuit board design and production and surface mount low to mid volume manufacturing. 

We are looking at expanding business opportunities with existing and customers, creating our own industrial products and partnering with post secondary institutions to help develop new tech manufacturing leaders.

As part of the Cambridge Solutions team, our goal is to work with the Car-san Senior Leadership Team and assist them by reviewing and suggesting improvements to their business processes. 

We will also be upgrading their existing software system in order to continue to add value.

Senior Business Advisor

Communitech

Member

Check out https://qcsolver.com/blog/ for updates on what is happening. 

email: geraldf@qcsolver.ca or call 226-474-1169 in case you need to get in touch with me.

I can also be reached at gerald@kineticgpo.ca

Specialties: Supplier management, purchasing, procurement, risk & performance monitoring, Contract Management and negotiations, Vendor Performance Management, Outsourced Procurement Services, Supply Chain Management, Human Resource Management, Software data conversion, and implementation, Business structuring

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Rachelle Hare

Gerald (Jerry) Ford

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