‘Forming relationships is fundamental’: The growing success of the Illawarra Indigenous Business Expo
What you can expect from the Illawarra Indigenous Business Expo this week.
A record 62 First Nations-owned businesses will showcase their products and services at this year’s Illawarra Indigenous Business Expo, marking the event’s largest turnout yet.
Sacred Country Consulting founder and Dunghutti and Gumbangyir woman, Gemma Lloyd, has spent the past eight months bringing the Expo together, describing it as both a professional challenge and a community milestone.
“For the last two years, the Illawarra Indigenous Business Network and Wollongong City Council have run the expo,” Lloyd said.
“They always established the event with the dream of handing it over to a First Nations business. Earlier this year, they did an expression of interest, and after I met with the Dharawal Elders, it was decided that I would take the project on.”
Wollongong City Council is the event’s major sponsor, and now in its third year, the Expo has grown rapidly from 35 stallholders in previous years to 62 in 2025.
“The businesses have to live, operate, or do work here in the Illawarra for us to accept their application,” Lloyd said.
“It’s so varied, we’ve got some T1 and T2 contractors, IT specialists, all the way down to weavers and artists. We’ve got breweries, packaging services and stationery. Name it and think of it, and we probably have a business coming that’s representing that industry.”
Lloyd said the day is about connection.
“I think for me, success on the day looks like people coming and talking with the businesses. Forming relationships is fundamental for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people,” she said.
“If people are able to form relationships on the day, procurement, purchasing, and community engagement, it comes so much more naturally because of those relationships.”
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She hopes the event will also encourage non-Indigenous organisations to engage more meaningfully with local First Nations enterprises.
Returning to the region she grew up in has been especially rewarding for Lloyd. “Since I’ve come back and launched my business, I’ve had really incredible success nationally and internationally,” she said. “But being based in the Illawarra, you honestly can’t ask for anything better. The community has just been so supportive of me coming in and running the Expo.”
Exhibitors this year include Gulanga Group, Ngiilay Gift Boxes, KJ Industrial Scaffolding, KLT Bookkeeping and BAS Services, BY Group, Gadhungal Marring, Dharawal Distilling Co and the Illawarra Aboriginal Corporation. The Elders group will also host a stall selling handmade arts and crafts.
More than 400 people have already registered to attend via Eventbrite, and Lloyd expects over 300 through the doors on Friday.
“There’s going to be something for everyone on the day, and it’s just a really beautiful and organic way for people to form a relationship. I get asked a lot, ‘How can I engage with community? How do I get my foot in the door of having that relationship?’ This is the opportunity. Come, because you get the chance to meet so many people and take that first step.”
The Illawarra Indigenous Business Expo 2025 is open to everyone and will be held at Novotel North Beach on Friday, October 31.
Entry is free; tickets are available here.