Yamagigu Consulting promotes Amber Roberts and Ching Tan to partner
First Nations advisory Yamagigu Consulting has promoted Amber Roberts and Ching Tan to partner in Cairns and Melbourne, its first additions since shifting from PwC to Deloitte last year.
Roberts, an Aboriginal woman from Far North Queensland, leads Yamagigu Consulting’s sustainability and human rights practice, while Tan heads up the firm’s digital & transformation offering applying his expertise in ‘design anthropology’.
Established as PwC Indigenous Consulting in 2013, Deloitte picked up a minority stake in the business from its rival last year before then relaunching as Yamagigu. Recently, the firm’s entire team came together for the first time under its new brand.
“We are so delighted to have the skills and experience of these two outstanding professionals as we partner with community and clients to enable meaningful change,” the firm stated. “These are two particularly special promotions for a pair of deeply committed leaders of our business who have given so much to our communities, our clients, and also to their colleagues.
Amber Roberts
Roberts joined PwC Indigenous Consulting in 2018 prior to which she worked for the Australian Human Rights Commission as a policy and research officer on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander social justice. She earlier spent time at Reconciliation Australia, the Diversity Council Australia, the National Native Title Tribunal, and the Queensland Department of Justice and Attorney-General.
A masters holder in human rights from Sydney University presently based in Far North Queensland, Roberts in her current role supports clients among other areas with developing and implementing their Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP), embedding human rights policy in business operations, and designing ESG strategies and evaluation frameworks from a First Nations perspective.
Ching Tan
Tan meanwhile joined the firm in Melbourne in 2016, having previously gained experience in UX design roles at various companies following his masters with Swinburne University in design anthropology – a discipline which, in short, adopts ethnographic approaches in the design of products and services engineered to better address the human and social factors behind UX.
In his capacity as design & transformation leader at Yamagigu, Tan taps this expertise to apply design principles and Indigenous methodologies to co-develop, test and launch innovative Indigenous-led products and services to effect more meaningful and lasting change, while also being tasked with growing digital skills pathways for First Nations communities.
Yamagigu Consulting
Led by co-founder and CEO Gavin Brown and CFO & COO Chris McKendrick, other partners at Yamagigu – a Wiradyuri word which translates to ‘our purpose is to go with you’ – include Jay Edmondson and Roanna Edwards, who were respectively elevated last year in Adelaide and Perth.
More recently, the firm’s entire team of more than 60 consultants came together in Melbourne (Naarm) for the first time since its relaunch to mark the anniversary of the federal government’s formal apology for the mistreatment and profound grief and suffering inflicted on Aboriginal and Torres Strait communities caused by the forcible removal of children during previous generations.
The firm noted however that one factor driving its commitment to making a lasting impact is the fact that, more than a decade and a half on from the apology, Indigenous children remain more than ten times more likely to be removed from their families compared to those of non-indigenous backgrounds, making up a staggering 40 percent of kids aged under 17 in out-of-home care.
