Why We Built HI And What We're Here to Do

This is the story of two women who didn't plan to start a business together.

We met a year ago on the Peanut app - both with unique parenting stories.

One of us is a senior delivery leader with over twenty years of experience across economic development, programme management and business growth. The other is a nurse and midwife with years of clinical experience and an eye on the future of healthcare delivery.

We come from completely different professional worlds. We arrived in the same place by completely different roads. And somewhere in the middle of figuring out what came next for each of us, we found each other, saw the same gap, and decided to build something.

This is the story of HI. Where it came from, why it exists, and what we're here to do.

Jacque's Road

I spent a decade doing work I loved. Economic development, programme leadership, director-level roles in local and central government in New Zealand. Helping organisations grow, delivering complex programmes, building teams that got things done. It was fast, future-focused work and I was good at it.

Then my first daughter was born and everything quietly rearranged itself.

She was born with a severe brain injury. And like so many parents in that moment, I found myself navigating a world I knew nothing about. Systems I'd never encountered. Language I'd never learned. A constant, relentless advocacy that runs alongside everything else you're trying to do as a parent and a professional.

I went back to work quickly; work was a welcomed break. I kept delivering. But I couldn't unknow what I now knew. The lack of ongoing support for families through some dark times. The gap between what family’s need and what services can provide. How fragmented the health and disability sector felt.

Then last year, our family made a decision that still takes my breath away a little. While on maternity leave for my second daughter, we moved from New Zealand to Australia, to the Gold Coast. As a dual citizen family, the support available for our daughter here was better than what we could access in New Zealand. I left a senior role I was proud of to do it. Started over in a new country with no network and a very different set of priorities.

I tried to go back to the workforce. Found that senior flexible roles were almost non-existent. Started a business. Pivoted. Kept going. And kept coming back to the same thought ‘the health and disability sector needs better delivery support and I think I can help provide it.’

Eva's Road

I’d done my time at the coalface of healthcare and I was ready for something different. Not away from the health sector completely as I knew my clinical experience had value, but towards something more innovative, more focused on how services are delivered and less at the bedside.

A project role in a tertiary hospital gave me a glimpse of that. I saw the bigger picture, I understood the complexities of delivering a sustainable, modern healthcare service and what is really takes to deliver meaningful patient outcomes. That planted a seed. It was time for a career change.

But when I started to look seriously at what a career change from clinical work would actually require, and what the traditional workplace was offering, the picture was pretty bleak. Flexible or part time roles barely exist. And for me, flexibility wasn’t just a preference - it’s a necessity. I am a solo parent to a child navigating their own health journey. I am also late diagnosed neurodivergent, which reframes a lot of about how I work and what I need from a working environment.

I knew my next move had to look different. How could I use my healthcare and project experience, lean into my interest in health innovation, particularly digital health and still work in a way that actually fits my life?

I know how. Postgraduate studies in Digital Health and building HI. HI is the solution I couldn’t find, and we built it for or others who can’t find it either.

Where HI Came From

We met at a point where we were both figuring out what came next. Same location. Same season of life. Same frustration with a workforce that wasn't built for people like us.

We started talking. Our passion for seeing real improvements in the health and disability sector aligned immediately. And we realised that in combining our experience, senior operational and delivery leadership with deep clinical knowledge, we could offer something powerful and genuinely unique.

The gap we kept seeing wasn't strategy or intention. It was capacity. Senior, experienced people who could step in, own the work, and see it through.

We also realised something else. The reason we needed to work differently - flexibility, purpose, meaningful work that fit around our lives - wasn't a weakness. It was exactly what made us right for this.

Our clients get flexibility. So do we. And as HI grows, so will other senior professionals who need the same thing.

So, we stopped talking about it and built HI.

We think this is the future of work.

What HI Is

Hi is a professional services business providing senior embedded delivery capability to health and disability organisations across Australia and New Zealand.

We work directly inside organisations - leading projects, supporting operations, developing new services - as a flexible, right-sized alternative to a permanent hire or a traditional consulting engagement.

In practice that means we might be:

• Stepping in as a senior project leader for a funded programme that needs someone to own it

• Supporting an organisation through a period of growth or operational pressure

• Helping develop a new service from idea through to launch

• Providing fractional senior support on a retainer basis for organisations that need ongoing capability without a full-time hire

We embed into your team. We understand your context. We stay until something actually changes. And then we scale back when you don't need us anymore.

We are not consultants who parachute in and leave a report. We are not a staffing agency placing people into roles. We are senior professionals who show up, own the work, and deliver outcomes.

What Makes Us Different

Three things set HI apart from other professional services options in this sector.

First - our combined experience. Jacque brings commercial acumen, programme leadership and a deep understanding of how organisations grow and deliver. Eva brings clinical knowledge, health systems experience, the operational instincts that only come from working inside these organisations, and Postgraduate Studies in Digital Health that keeps HI's thinking firmly pointed at where the sector is heading, not just where it is today. Together we can walk into almost any health or disability organisation and understand what's happening; strategically, operationally, clinically and digitally.

Second - lived experience. We don't just work in this sector. We live in it. As a parent navigating complex disability supports, and as a solo mother who has experienced first-hand what it means to need flexible, human-centred services. That changes the questions we ask, the things we notice, and what we understand about what's really at stake for the people these organisations serve.

Third - our model. HI is built around flexibility - for our clients, and for us. You don't need to take on a full-time hire or a long-term contract to access senior capability. We right-size everything to what you actually need, when you need it. That's not a compromise. It's the point.

What We're Building Towards

HI is new. We're honest about that. We're building our client base, learning the sector properly, and proving our model one engagement at a time.

But our intention is bigger than a professional services business.

We're intentionally building HI to create opportunities for other senior professionals who need to work differently. People like us – people with HI standards, experienced, capable, and unable to find meaningful flexible work in the traditional market. As HI grows, so does the opportunity for others.

And longer term, we want to use HI as a platform to develop and deliver our own ideas in the sector. New services, new models, new ways of doing things that we think could make a real difference. The client work funds the mission. The mission is what gets us out of bed.

We are just getting started.

A Final Word

If you're leading a health or disability organisation and you have work that needs delivering - we'd love to talk.

If you're a senior professional with HI standards who needs to work differently and wants to know more about what we're building - we'd love to hear from you too.

And if you're someone who is simply interested in the health and disability sector - follow along. We're going to be talking honestly about what we're learning, what we're seeing, and what we think needs to change.

Because here's something worth remembering.

Disability is the only minority group that anyone can become a member of at any time.

This sector matters to all of us. Whether we know it yet or not.

HI. We're glad you found us.

HI provides senior embedded delivery capability to health and disability organisations. To find out more or start a conversation, visit www.healthimplemented.com or connect with us on LinkedIn.