A mortgage broker who picks unicorn crowns at podcast recordings spent five years in plan management before he realised support workers couldn't get home loans. And the social worker at an Able Plus event didn't ask about plan management. She asked for help buying a house.

Chapters:

💎 PLATINUM SPONSOR: Wholii

Team with the Queen is proudly powered by Wholii, our Platinum Sponsor.

Wholii is the compliance and workflow platform built for Australian NDIS providers by people who have lived your problems firsthand. Wholii cuts admin time, automates the manual stuff, and keeps your whole team compliant and audit ready without even trying.

Book a free demo: https://wholii.com.au

Follow Wholii:
• Instagram: instagram.com/wholii_au
• TikTok: tiktok.com/@wholii
• YouTube: youtube.com/@wholii_au
• LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/wholii
• Facebook: facebook.com/wholii

Episode featuring David Easton, founder of Support Finance Group. David is known as the King of Keys. He helps casual NDIS workers and allied health professionals get mortgages when banks say no. He spent five years in plan management and trust accounting. He built a mortgage brokerage because support workers kept getting rejected. And now he's fixing the gap between caring for others and owning your own home.

In this conversation, David shares:
• The social worker at an Able Plus event who asked for mortgage help instead of plan management advice
• Why casual employment in NDIS aged care and child services is the biggest labour creator in Australia
• The support workers in their 40s and 50s who thought they'd rent for life
• How car loans wreck your ability to get a home loan if you don't plan them right
• Why offset accounts give false positives to impulsive buyers
• The difference between a $2 million dream and what you can actually afford
• Why he tells clients not to borrow the maximum even when the bank says yes
• The 5% and 2% government schemes most people don't know exist
• How interest gets calculated daily and why weekly repayments beat monthly
• Why credit cards and buy now pay later products destroy credit scores
• The inquiries section of your credit report that most Australians ignore
• Why nurses physios and OTs can get special deals from different banks
• What rent vesting is and why giving up in your early 20s is not the answer
• Why we need more Australians owning one home not investors owning 20
• What he hopes one or two families say about stability in 10 years

There's also a headbands game where David guesses the word mortgage in two and a half minutes while wearing a unicorn crown. And a story about people losing deposits because of bad mortgage advice. And the moment Teresa Lam sends a celebrity question about financial independence. This is about security stability and what happens when someone finally understands your casual income.

David Easton — Support Finance Group
Website: https://supportfinancegroup.com.au/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-easton-08089656/

Yosmerys Aparicio Cuencas is the founder of Supporting Communities Australia and the creator of Elevate Youth Lab.
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yosmerys/

@teamwiththequeen on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube. New episodes fortnightly.

Team with the Queen is a Supporting Communities Australia

production.

#NDIS #MortgageBroker #HomeOwnership

She started in retail. Climbed to CEO. Then walked away from the corner office to care for people who couldn't speak for themselves. And now she's the one participants call Queen Bee when they end up in hospital.

Chapters:

💎 PLATINUM SPONSOR: Wholii

Team with the Queen is proudly powered by Wholii, our Platinum Sponsor.

Wholii is the compliance and workflow platform built for Australian NDIS providers by people who have lived your problems firsthand. Wholii cuts admin time, automates the manual stuff, and keeps your whole team compliant and audit ready without even trying.

Book a free demo: https://wholii.com.au

Follow Wholii:
• Instagram: instagram.com/wholii_au
• TikTok: tiktok.com/@wholii
• YouTube: youtube.com/@wholii_au
• LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/wholii
• Facebook: facebook.com/wholii

Episode featuring Beulah Lenanne, Operations Manager at Top Disability Care. Beulah is known as Queen Bee by the participants who trust her most. She's the one who worked bakery shifts and retail floors before finding her calling in aged care. She climbed from admin assistant to CEO and then chose to step back into operations because that's where the real work happens. She's spent years building SIL homes that feel like actual homes and preparing providers for audits they didn't know how to pass.

In this conversation, Beulah shares:
• Why she emigrated from Northern Ireland and started volunteering in aged care in Port Lincoln
• The 11 years she spent as a stay at home mum before her marriage broke down
• How Wesley Mission gave her the training that changed everything
• Why she believes no one should work in disability without passion for people with disability
• The difference between a house with support and an actual home
• Why NDIS planners are handing out million dollar plans to people who don't need them while cutting plans for those who do
• The participant who spent eight months in hospital because they had nowhere else to go
• Why she opens her home to people who need help even when her kids say not again
• The parent who called two weeks ago just to say thank you because their son turned 18
• What she hopes people say in 10 years about the difference she made

There's also a headbands game where Beulah guesses the word leadership in under a minute. And a story about the three Campanelli brothers who built Top Disability Care with their hands and their hearts. And a celebrity question from Emanuel Gini that turns into a rapid fire word association game. This is about finding purpose after loss. And building homes that feel like home. And leading teams who know you'll jump in and clean the bathroom if that's what's needed.

Beulah Lenanne — Top Disability Care
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/top-disability-care/

Yosmerys Aparicio Cuencas is the founder of Supporting Communities Australia and the Elevate Youth Lab.
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yosmerys-aparicio-cuencas/
Website: https://linktr.ee/Yosmerys

@teamwiththequeen on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube. New episodes fortnightly.

Team with the Queen is a Supporting Communities Australia production.

#NDIS #SIL #DisabilityCare

A dad who refused email because his fax machine worked fine. And the guy who says thank you and please to AI because he doesn't want Terminator coming back for him.

Chapters:

💎 PLATINUM SPONSOR: Wholii

Team with the Queen is proudly powered by Wholii, our Platinum Sponsor.

Wholii is the compliance and workflow platform built for Australian NDIS providers by people who have lived your problems firsthand. Wholii cuts admin time, automates the manual stuff, and keeps your whole team compliant and audit ready without even trying.

Book a free demo: https://wholii.com.au

Follow Wholii:
• Instagram: instagram.com/wholii_au
• TikTok: tiktok.com/@wholii
• YouTube: youtube.com/@wholii_au
• LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/wholii
• Facebook: facebook.com/wholii

Episode 4 of Team with the Queen featuring Hashim Ahmed, founder of Wholii and Dream Maker. Hashim is the guy who built an AI compliance platform because spreadsheets and manual processes were killing the sector. He's been in NDIS for over 10 years. He started as a support worker. He scaled Dream Maker from the ground up by solving problems nobody else wanted to touch. And now he's bringing those solutions to every provider through Wholii.

In this conversation, Hashim shares:
• Why he's got 99 problems but solving one isn't
• The marriage of cars, problem solving, and a beautiful daughter
• How Dream Maker tested his problem solving abilities for six or seven years
• The compliance nightmare most providers face three weeks before audit
• Why using ChatGPT without understanding privacy policies is a massive breach
• How Wholii uses voice transcription to auto fill forms and generate service agreements
• The difference between data processing in Australia versus overseas AI training
• Why saying thank you and please to AI might save you from Arnold Schwarzenegger
• The fax machine dad who refused email and what that says about technology resistance
• Why friction happens because people misunderstand people
• The 1% improvement theory from Atomic Habits and England's worst cycling team
• Why collaboration isn't scratching backs but honest planning with clear expectations
• The Toyota Prius as the official car of LinkedIn coffee collaboration requests
• Why he doesn't want to be remembered individually but as part of a sector that worked

There's also a headbands game where Hashim takes seven minutes to guess the word friction while wearing a helmet. And a story about phone cards before WhatsApp. And the moment Solomon sends a celebrity question about cars and personality types. This is about AI that cuts admin time, compliance without chaos, and what happens when a problem solver builds the tools the sector actually needs.

Hashim Ahmed — Wholii & Dream Maker
Website: https://wholii.com.au
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/wholii

Yosmerys Aparicio Cuencas is the founder of Supporting Communities Australia and the Elevate Youth Lab.
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yosmerys-aparicio-cuencas/
Website: https://linktr.ee/Yosmerys

@teamwiththequeen on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube. New episodes fortnightly.

Team with the Queen is a Supporting Communities Australia production.

#NDIS #AI #Compliance

A man with Huntington's wanted to keep smoking. His whole care team said no. Emanuel Gini said something else. The behaviours dropped overnight.

This is what dignity of risk looks like when it is actually practised, not just written into policy.

Episode 3 of Team with the Queen featuring Emanuel Gini, National Operations Manager at Ability Connect, the Sydney specialist support coordination team that takes on the complex NDIS cases other providers refuse.

🎯 What you'll learn:
• The Huntington's cigarette story and the harm-reduction reframe behind it (27:57)
• Why information, not the diagnosis, is the real issue behind every complex case (22:41)
• The 4-month brain-injury patient breakthrough that came from just staying (25:20)
• How a car accident at 18 ended his pro soccer dream and pivoted him into community work (15:59)
• The 3-step Ability Connect model that runs the same way it did on day one: Listen, Connect, Monitor (34:08)
• Why he tells every support coordinator: stop assuming, the person is the expert in their own life (36:12)
• Knowing when you are not the right fit, the Venezuelan proverb about gold coins (40:18)

CHAPTERS:
0:00 The patient who wanted to smoke
1:20 Meet Emanuel: Mister Eggy, family, food, community
9:17 World Cup edition: soccer, Uruguay, Australia, why football still matters
15:29 The car accident at 18 that ended the soccer dream
17:31 Bakery shifts from 2am to 2pm, seven days a week
19:04 Brought to you by Wholii
20:00 Headbands game: the topic is complex cases
22:41 Information is the real issue behind every complex case
25:20 The brain-injury patient breakthrough, 4 months of just being there
27:57 Dignity of risk: the Huntington's patient he let keep smoking
28:58 Blue plate or pink plate: small choices, big behaviour changes
32:02 Ability Connect: 10 years, 20 specialist support coordinators, one philosophy
34:08 The 3-step model: Listen, Connect, Monitor
36:12 Stop assuming, the person is the expert in their own life
37:13 Stop being curious, start dying
38:45 Soccer equals coordination: every player knows their role
40:18 You cannot be a gold coin, knowing when you are not the right fit
42:26 The celebrity question from Plan Manager Stew
46:33 The King of Coordination award
47:03 What do you hope they say about what you built
49:05 Stops managing plans, starts coordinating lives


💎 PLATINUM SPONSOR: Wholii

Team with the Queen is proudly powered by Wholii, our Platinum Sponsor.

Wholii is the compliance and workflow platform built for Australian NDIS providers by people who have lived your problems firsthand. Wholii cuts admin time, automates the manual stuff, and keeps your whole team compliant and audit-ready without even trying.

Book a free demo: https://wholii.com.au

Follow Wholii:
• Instagram: instagram.com/wholii_au
• TikTok: tiktok.com/@wholii_au
• LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/wholii
• YouTube: youtube.com/@wholii_au
• Facebook: facebook.com/wholii


👤 ABOUT THE GUEST: Emanuel Gini is the National Operations Manager at Ability Connect, a Sydney-based specialist support coordination team that has operated for over a decade. The team focuses on the high-complexity NDIS cases other providers turn away. Emanuel leads a 20-person case-management team: listen first, connect to the right services, monitor and adapt.

🔗 Ability Connect: https://abilityconnect.com.au
🔗 Emanuel on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emanuel-gini-0452991b0/

👑 ABOUT THE SHOW: Team with the Queen is the fortnightly interview podcast hosted by Yosmerys Aparicio Cuencas, a Latina-Australian founder on a mission to find 100 Australian leaders whose stories are worth hearing. Not the ones on every panel. Not the ones with the loudest LinkedIn. The leaders actually doing the work nobody is putting a microphone in front of yet. Until now.

🎙 New episodes every second Thursday.

🔗 Yosmerys Aparicio Cuencas is the founder of Supporting Communities Australia and the Elevate Youth Lab.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yosmerys/
All links: https://linktr.ee/Yosmerys

📲 FOLLOW @teamwiththequeen on YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok.

🎧 Listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and all major platforms.

Team with the Queen is a Supporting Communities Australia production.

#DignityOfRisk #DutyOfCare #TeamWithTheQueen #FounderPodcast #NDIS #SpecialistSupportCoordination #DignityOfRiskInDisability #HuntingtonsDisease #AustralianPodcast #InterviewPodcast #LeadershipPodcast #DisabilitySupport #AgedCare #AbilityConnect #EmanuelGini #YosmerysAparicio #AustralianLeader #SupportCoordinator #NDISProvider #DisabilityServices #SydneyPodcast

Thank you for listening to Team with the Queen.

You can find us on TikTok, Instagram and YouTube as @teamwiththequeen

NDIS's most connected operator started as the 16-year-old who sang Stevie Wonder to her father in ICU.

Chapters:
0:00 — Cold open: the life support decision
0:36 — Meet Gigi: the NDIS's best connector
2:24 — Two roles fill my cup
4:17 — Dad's accident at 16
12:14 — Choice and control + dignity of risk
13:25 — The Heartbreak High reveal
18:09 — Doctor or pharmacist? I chose neither
23:43 — Singing Stevie Wonder in dad's ICU
26:18 — Brought to you by Wholii
27:01 — The headbands game
39:13 — 'Open to collaborations' is the new spam
43:54 — Footprints in the sand
44:53 — The No BS Queen award

This episode is proudly presented by Wholii — built by compliance specialists for Australian NDIS providers. Wholii cuts admin time, automates the manual stuff, and keeps your whole team compliant and audit-ready. Book a free demo: https://wholii.com.au

Episode 2 of Team with the Queen featuring Gigi Bichara — Business Development Manager and Support Worker at Connect Community and Respite Services (Beverly Hills, NSW). Gigi is widely recognised as the best-connected person on the NDIS — but the path there started somewhere most people don't see.

In this conversation, Gigi shares:
- The day the medical team asked her family to turn off her father's life support
- Why she rejected the "doctor or pharmacist" expectations her Egyptian Orthodox family had for her
- What being on Heartbreak High Season 1 taught her about reinvention
- The line that separates real collaboration from "open to collaborations" spam
- Why dignity of risk is the missing pillar of choice and control
- The one thing she'd keep if everything she'd built disappeared tomorrow

Gigi Bichara — Connect Community and Respite Services

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jillian-gigi-bichara-701127320/https://www.linkedin.com/company/connect-community-and-respite-services/

Yosmerys Aparicio Cuencas is the founder of Supporting Communities Australia and the Elevate Youth Lab.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yosmerys/
Website: https://linktr.ee/Yosmerys

@teamwiththequeen on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube. New episodes every second thursday.

Team with the Queen is a Supporting Communities Australia production.

#NDIS #LeadershipPodcast #AustralianPodcast

Thank you for listening to Team with the Queen.

You can find us on TikTok, Instagram and YouTube as @teamwiththequeen

15 years in the NDIS. Now head of marketing for one of its most data-driven providers. So why does Solomon say every provider's marketing is broken?

CHAPTERS
0:00 Welcome to Team with the Queen
0:48 Why Solomon is the first guest
2:00 From Fiji to 15 years in the NDIS
4:30 Starting at DSA and working the front line
6:30 The Criminal Justice Program years
9:00 Black don't crack and the Venezuelan heritage detour
10:50 Aligned Community Care and why they built their own CRM
13:30 The data justification trap most NDIS providers fall into
18:00 Elevate Youth Lab and the "Queen" origin story
21:00 The headbands game (and the shark-head story)
27:30 What's on Solomon's forehead?
30:15 A word from our sponsor: Wholii
30:50 Back to the game
32:30 Why content in the NDIS sector is broken
33:50 "Hey guys, my name is Solomon" – scroll
40:15 Vincent Shian: 127 likes, under 100 connections
43:45 Vulnerability is the strategy
46:20 The hard question: ethics of marketing vulnerable people
49:25 The Lamborghini-NDIS problem
51:00 Gigi's celebrity question
52:30 Inclusive influencing: the centre Solomon would build
58:30 10 years from now, what will the sector say?
1:00:50 The Marshall Islands ripple story
1:02:00 Why community services are invisible online

SPONSOR
Wholii – NDIS compliance, without the chaos. Cuts admin, automates the manual stuff, keeps your team audit-ready. Book a free demo: https://wholii.com.au (ad read at 30:15)
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/wholii/

This conversation goes deep on what's broken with how the NDIS markets itself, and the small shifts that change everything. Solomon's 15-year origin story. Why Aligned built their own CRM. The post that got 127 likes with under 100 connections. The ethics of marketing vulnerable people. The kind of inclusive content centre Solomon would build if money was no object.

There's also a headbands game. And a shark head. Stay for both.

Solomon Rokotavaga is Head of Marketing & Community Engagement at Aligned Community Care, an NDIS provider specialising in complex mental health. Aligned Community Care is also a presenting sponsor of this episode.
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/solomon-rokotavaga-26a466107/
Website: https://alignedcommunitycare.com.au
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@AlignedCommunityCare

Yosmerys Aparicio Cuencas is the founder of Supporting Communities Australia and the Elevate Youth Lab.
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yosmerys-aparicio-cuencas/
Website: https://linktr.ee/Yosmerys

@teamwiththequeen on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube. New episodes fortightly.

Team with the Queen is a Supporting Communities Australia production.

#NDIS #ContentMarketing #SupportCoordinator

Thank you for listening to Team with the Queen.

You can find us on TikTok, Instagram and YouTube as @teamwiththequeen