2024 Women to Watch
This year we showcase over 80 South Australian women to watch throughout the year. From business, to careers, arts to science. This year’s selected women highlight the depth and diversity of the women in our state and also the vast array of opportunities to develop a business or career in South Australia. Find our more about our inaugural Women to Watch initiative here.
Kate Fleming is a small business owner, an enthusiastic Parkrun participant and lover of good wine, especially alternative varieties. Kate’s extensive experience in marketing, events, business development and stakeholder engagement has been honed over many years of working in not for profit and community sectors, and later, wine marketing and wine tourism. Her purpose in business is bringing people’s ideas and vision to life. Outside of work, Kate is an avid reader of both fiction and non-fiction work and she has an ever growing to-be-read pile. In her spare time she is stitching her way through an antique linen table cloth, in the hope of finishing what her husband’s grandmother started many decades earlier.
// Favourite inspirational quote
“Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.”
Maya Angelou
// Let’s get to know you
I am the co-owner of a small business that specialises in printing, design and signage, along with my husband. My role in the business is marketing and business development, and team wellbeing. Despite not finishing high school, I had a successful and diverse career, growing, learning and climbing the ladder with each role I took on. At age 30 I went to university and studied marketing, followed by post grad studies in wine business. The harder I worked, the more I put myself out there, the luckier I got and the more opportunities came my way.
I cut my teeth in events as coordinator for the South Australian Variety Bash. Wrangling 300 people and 100 vehicles for 8 days through the outback, ensuring they are all fed, watered and accounted for builds resilience and a knack for decision-making on the fly. The skills and experience from this role have stayed with me for life.
Working in wine tourism shaped my business development knowledge. Creating and developing tourism experiences for a McLaren Vale winery from scratch and selling them to the world, and ultimately achieving an international accolade for Best Sustainable Wine Tourism Business through Great Wine Capitals of the World was a great achievement and something I am immensely proud of. It also taught me the power of relationship building, a good elevator pitch and speed networking.
I began working in our print and signage business alongside my husband at the end of 2018. We then expanded our existing business (Insideout Print & Signage) with the acquisition of another business (Office & Image) in 2021 (yes during Covid!). This business was, at best, break even, but we saw enormous potential in it. After the first year we realised that potential and have continued to grow and refine the business ever since. We are now working on the next stage of growth in our business with some audacious stretch targets for the next 5 years.
// What makes you a Woman to Watch for 2024?
In 2024, my focus is on growing our business and how we make it better than ever. I have already engaged a business coach, a digital mentor and a wellbeing coach, so I am well committed to growth personally and professionally. The printing and signage industry is very male dominated and aside from online sellers, there is very limited visibility online and next to no engagement or sharing of knowledge. I use our social media platforms to do more than promote us and our work. I use these platforms to tell stories about our customers and promote them and their work. I see this as a way of helping to build our customer’s exposure. It is my aim to make our business the leading expert in our field and local market via our social media channels, website and email marketing. I will use these platforms to promote our work, our clients work and share knowledge and information to help educate people.
It is also my intention to continue to connect women in my personal network when I see opportunities for them. I love nothing more than being able to connect two women who I think can help each other and I’m always on the lookout for opportunities and openings for other women.
// What is your goal or intention for the year ahead? And how are you going to achieve it?
Professionally, I am on a mission this year to expand the geographical reach of our business, grow our revenue and become the industry
leader in marketing print and signage in the Adelaide market. We are launching a new website, incorporating a blog and case studies, and a social media strategy in July, which I am currently working on with our designer and a digital mentor, and we are embarking on a targeted campaign across multiple marketing channels to grow our customer base this year and beyond. I have created a vision board, set my goals, timelines and actions required and I have regular check-ins with our business coach, wellbeing coach and digital mentor to keep me accountable.
Personally, I am on a mission this year to reach the 50 Parkrun milestone, and to learn to tumble turn when I lap swim.
// What are the challenges that you have faced previously? What challenges may you face this year to reach your 2024 aspirations?
For context, when we bought Office & Image in late 2021, we were still in the midst of Covid. The business actually wasn’t for sale, but the building was. The previous owner was going to wind the business up and move on. In order to get the business, we had to buy the building and the only way we could do this was to cash in our superannuation and set up our own self-managed superannuation fund. The SMSF then bought the building, which happened to come with a business and 4 staff. As a result, we had no financial insight into the business, so on Day 1 we crossed our fingers and hoped our estimations were correct. We then spent the next year (2022) refining the business, investing in new equipment, work flow processes and management practices. This resulted in a lot of change for our team, but they embraced it. The changes did provide some challenges for some old, but non-profitable, customers, however we worked through this and learned what to continue with and what to let go with kindness. The following year (2023) we decided to move house to accommodate growing teenagers. We bought an old house near the beach, which required a lot of work and so for 6 months while we all lived in a caravan and camper trailer at the back of the business, I project managed the schedule and the many (many many) different trades we engaged to transform every part of our house. This understandably took me out of the business to a large degree.
This year we will be implementing more change in the business as we refine our business to business offering and remove the legacy of some poorly performing (unviable) services. This will cause some degree of upset to some customers, and some restructuring in our team, and so our challenge will be to gently transition those affected through to other options.
// What would you like to see for the future of South Australian women and girls?
I would like to see better funding for start up businesses for women and girls. The recent announcement of a $110,000 fund to go towards startups for women entrepreneurs was something, but nowhere near enough if you are starting up something in tech or manufacturing (particularly given this amount will be shared amongst recipients).
I would like to see more visibility of women and girls in business, in education, in sport, in the media – and for this visibility to be better supported by the media in the same way it readily promotes men and boys. I would love for acknowledgement of the achievements of women and girls in their chosen field to be less tokenistic and patronising.
I would love to see better access to childcare so women can participate more in the workforce without having to calculate whether working is worth the pittance between what they outlay in childcare and what they get in their take home pay. Our economy and society is poorer for losing women from the workforce because they can’t get care for their children.
Get in touch with Kate:
LinkedIn: Kate Fleming
Website: ipmservices.com.au
Check out all of the incredible Women to Watch for 2024 here as their profiles are uploaded throughout the year.
To become an SA Woman Member, check out our Membership Options here.