The Footprints we leave Environmental, Social and Governance at The BRG

BRG ESG Commitment

We are on a mission to fundamentally change how experiences impact the world. We are on a mission to shift the way that people experience and live: grow their “good life”.

As leaders of the experience economy, we impact the lives of thousands of small businesses: our Experience Partners and their communities – hundreds of employees, millions of consumers who ask us to help them reconnect, experience something new, or live out their dreams through our brands.

We are committed to continuing to shift the world to a world where living & experiencing life matters more than consuming things. Where people, businesses and communities are lifted as we grow, where we ultimately help someone experience their “good life” every second.

While we aim to deliver an experience somewhere on Earth every second, our mission is for each experience to be 100% sustainable.

Deliver a fully sustainable experience every second, somewhere on Earth.

The shift to Experiences can bring about major change, and we want to lead in demonstrating how experiences can enhance Responsible Consumption, Impact Investment and Environmental Change.

Development Pillars

BRG ESG commitment - Environmental
Environmental
Manage the impacts of our operations on the environment. Lead and grow the experience economy and help shift the tide of consumption of ‘stuff’. Create and curate responsible, aspirational offerings that allow people to kick their own ‘Good Life Goals’ to positively impact them and the world around them.
BRG ESG commitment - Social
Social
Build and add value to the social fabric and communities around us. Create stronger sustainable supply partnerships for mutual growth. Challenge social issues, leading the industry at large to be role models & share progress.
BRG ESG commitment - Governance
Governance
Operate sustainable corporate practices with integrity. Ask our communities to also do good and do great. Earn our reputation, walking our talk internally & externally. Deepen the value of our business and importance to our employees, suppliers, communities and government.

‘Our journey so far’

Grown the experience category and BRG’s share, serving 6,500,000 experiences.Moved our printed gift vouchers, cards, and retail gift cards to recycled paper, or e-cards.

All e-waste responsibly recycled, server consolidation.

Provided office facilities for recycling such as battery and coffee cups. Drink bottle provision.

Donated $24,000.00 AUD of experiences to third party charitable/ social requests.

Given 2,600 employee hours to community volunteering.

Come together as an organisation to understand the SDG17 and Good Life Goals and actions.

Ensured pay equity across the group.

Built a diverse and inclusive working community.

On-shored our CE operations with ANZ local employees

The Footprints we leave

BRG ESG Agenda 2021

Our progress so far and commitment to doing good whilst doing great and inspiring our communities to do the same.

Read More
BRG ESG commitment

Follow the BRG

By 2030

We know we are at the start. We aspire to do more,
but humbly accept in the unknown of a new normal and beyond that the needs of our business and focus of our ESG will evolve. We commit to publishing an annual ESG commitment every year for transparency and ensuring in our practices we always do ‘great and good.’

David Anderson
BRG Group CEO & co-Founder

As the co-Founder and Group CEO of the Big Red Group (BRG), David works every day to ensure we continue to step closer to our goal to serve an experience every second. The Big Red Group owns and operates leading Australian e-commerce consumer experience brands RedBalloon, Adrenaline & Lime&Tonic, which operate alongside B2B businesses REDii, RedBalloon for Business and Marketics (the world’s first marketing A.I. platform).

Our platform, reach and technology enable BRG to offer the right experience to the right customer at the right time – on behalf of our thousands of supply partners internationally. Through this focus on customer acquisition, we deliver continued growth to our supply community.

Investing in the future of the global experiences category through marketing, technology and our sustainability commitment, we ensure we create a positive change in our journey to serve an experience every second.

Naomi Simson
co-Founder

Naomi is an influential business leader who is obsessive about the Experience Economy. Her growth obsessions is centred around how customers and clients use experiences. Experiences at work is a key area of focus as she enquires into the relationship between corporate culture and the experience of work. Naomi is a prominent business blogger at naomisimson.com; keynote speaker and author of a number of best-selling books including Live What You Love, and Ready To Soar.

She has almost 2.7 million followers subscribed to her opinion and thought-leading posts on LinkedIn. Naomi sits on a number of boards, including governor for the Cerebral Palsy Research Foundation and a director on the University of Melbourne’s Faculty of Business and Economics. She is a passionately curious individual, known to ask frequent and tough questions that challenge the status quo. Naomi’s role at the BRG is a fundamental value-add to the businesses within, as she drives authority – both internally and externally – by supporting the experience marketplaces on brand development, as well as audience reach and engagement.

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Jemma Fastnedge
Chief Operations Officer

After beginning her career leading teams across a range of digital agencies in the UK, Jemma emigrated to Australia in 2001 and joined start-up RedBalloon. Where she oversaw the rapid expansion of the business across Australia and New Zealand. Working closely with co-founder Naomi Simson, Jemma became CEO of RedBalloon in 2011, guiding RedBalloon through its fast-growth years, seeing RedBalloon be awarded BRW ‘Best Place to Work’ award five consecutive years in that time.

As Chief Operations Officer of the BRG, Jemma leads the Technology, Supply, Data, and Salesforce divisions, tasked with driving innovation across product and operational functions for BRG to continue to serve as the leader of sustainable development and innovation within the Experience Economy both locally and globally.

Matthew Cavalier
Chief Growth Officer

Matt is the Chief Growth Officer for the Big Red Group house of brands which include iconic e-commerce marketplaces RedBalloon, Adrenaline and Lime & Tonic.

Matt sets the vision, strategic direction and growth agenda for the brands in-market, driving our expansion and innovation initiatives within the experiences category both across existing markets in Australia and New Zealand and globally as we expand further. Matt is a spirited and talented leader; passionate about people, brand strategy and innovations and shifting the way our customers experience life. Matt is the force behind BRG’s purpose of delivering an experience every second, somewhere on Earth, bringing our vision to reality.

Matt’s career journey has spanned three continents and multiple industries working for some of the world’s most well-known and trusted brands across Financial Services, Media and Technology, from start-ups through to multinational conglomerates. Matt holds a Bachelor of Psychology from the University of Michigan.

Kevin Davis
Chief Financial Officer

Kevin is the Chief Financial Officer of the Big Red Group of companies, outlining and implementing the financial growth and maintenance strategies of The Big Red Group. Tasked with managing and measuring our real-time financial performance, Kevin leads the BRG Finance team.

Kevin brings more than 30 years of financial management expertise to BRG, having lead teams across industries including Financial Advisory, Healthcare, Technology and Core Service Industries. Kevin brings a unique skill set, having directly worked across a range of corporate finance specialities including business turnarounds, major M&A assignments, due diligence, private equity raising, financial modelling, core business management and rapid business development for major institutions including Big 4 Advisory firms, EY and PwC.

Madeleine Robins
Director – People, Culture & Communications

Madeleine serves on the BRG Senior Leadership Team as the Director of People, Culture and Communications, overseeing how BRG’s teams connect and influence each other to be the best they can be – operating with purpose thanks to an optimised growth culture and expert team communications.

Madeleine is accountable for strategic People and Culture initiatives across all BRG business operations including managing mergers and acquisitions, implementing ultimate best-fit organisational design and sourcing the talent we bring into our business while managing their performance and unlocking their ultimate potential.

Madeleine is also responsible for designing our Executive training, growth and development programmes, ensuring BRG coaches its executive leaders on getting the best from their teams, themselves and each other.

Prior to the Big Red Group, Madeleine was the Head of Employee Experience at RedBalloon, an Australian-owned business listed on BRW’s top 50 Best Places to Work, and served as HR Manager for Groupon AU where she was responsible for all aspect of organisation HR in a high-growth business including Compensation & Workforce Planning, Engagement and Career Development alongside core Policy Development.

Madeleine graduated with Honours from Manchester Metropolitan University and holds a BA majoring in Criminology and Sociology.

Tim Bennett
Corporate Development Officer

Tim Bennett serves as BRG’s capital advisor, using his decades of experience to support our corporate development both locally and abroad. Tim also serves as Managing Director of Capital for ASX-listed Prime Financial and in a corporate development role for firms including Limepay, Aspen Medical and Investible.

Prior to joining Big Red Group, Tim was a partner at EY (formerly Ernst & Young) and led the Sydney-based Mergers & Acquisitions division. With over 13 years specialist M&A experience, Tim has advised on a range of transactions, across all industry sectors, covering complex business and asset carve-outs and divestments, mergers and acquisitions, private company capital raising (debt and equity) and IPOs, together with a range of financial sponsor (private equity) transactions.

Prior to EY, Tim worked at other Big 4 accounting and advisory firm PwC in Mergers & Acquisitions in both the Sydney & Melbourne offices.