How I came to love tendering and the pursuit world
Tendering was not the path I expected to take.
For a long time, I thought I was heading towards diplomacy. Growing up, I was surrounded by stories of international life and public service. My grandfather was a U.S. Ambassador, and through him, and through my mother’s experiences living across Germany, Japan and Africa, I developed a strong sense that I wanted to make a meaningful impact in the world. I studied arts-law at Sydney University with every intention of joining the Department of Foreign Affairs.
When I was selected as one of 29 people from 10,000 applicants, it felt like I had made it. But once I stepped into that world, I realised something important. The kind of direct impact I was looking for was going to be a much longer road. And somewhere in the middle of that realisation, through a few timely conversations and an unexpected shift in direction, I found my way into the world of aid and then into tendering.
My first tender was for a judicial reform program in Indonesia, and it opened up a completely new way of thinking for me. It was strategic, fast-moving, collaborative and purposeful. It gave me a place to channel my competitive nature into something constructive. Not for the sake of beating someone else, but for the challenge of building something strong, thoughtful and worth choosing. Winning that first tender was a thrill. More than that, it showed me I could contribute to meaningful outcomes from right here in Australia.
That path eventually became Tender Plus. What started with just me grew into a team across Perth, Sydney and Brisbane, and together we have had the privilege of contributing to some of Australia’s most significant projects, including Metro Martin Place. One of the things I value most about this work is the people it brings together. Tendering asks a lot of you. Judgement. Empathy. Strategy. Resilience. Care. It is an art form in its own right, even if it is not always recognised that way.
Like many businesses, we were tested during the pandemic. But the need for good work did not disappear. If anything, it became more important. Tendering played a vital role in supporting recovery, rebuilding infrastructure and creating jobs. It was a reminder that behind every submission is the potential for real-world impact.
Then in September 2021, life shifted again. I was diagnosed with an aggressive form of blood cancer. It was one of those moments that stops everything and changes the way you look at your life, your work and your future. I was incredibly fortunate to have a wonderful colleague step in and carry things forward while I focused on treatment. Today, I am in deep remission, and I have come back to this work with even more conviction than before.
Why share this story?
Because tendering matters.
It is interesting, important and too often misunderstood. It shapes communities, services and infrastructure in ways most people never see. And there are so many smart, thoughtful people in this space doing work that deserves more visibility.
That is why I keep talking about tendering. That is why I keep writing about it. Because there is value in sharing the strategic side, the human side, the pressure, the craft, the lessons and the wins. If you are already in this world, I hope this helps you feel seen. If you are just finding your way into it, I hope it gives you a clearer sense of what this work can be.
Because tendering is not just a process.
It is a craft. And it is a story worth telling.
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[00:00:43] Deb: I grew up with my grandfather, who we called Boompa, and Boompa was a US Ambassador, and his last posting was actually as the Consul General to Sydney in Australia, and I grew up hearing about his adventures and my mother's [00:01:00] adventures in in other countries, in Germany and Japan and Africa, and it made me want to make a contribution.
[00:01:09] It made me want to make an impact. And so I studied arts law at Sydney Uni with a view to getting into the Department of Foreign Affairs and becoming a diplomat. I'm not one, not to succeed in, in my goals. And so I did that. I was one of, um, 29 of 10,000 applicants to get into the Department of Foreign Affairs as a policy graduate.
[00:01:33] In, in 2000 I moved to Canberra with my partner. My wonderful partner of 27 years, hello. And, uh, I discovered really quickly that it wasn't going to be the direct impact that I wanted to make straight away. That that was a, a very much a long term career path. And so talking to friends, I found the aid world and I, I quickly left.
[00:01:58] I only lasted eight months. [00:02:00] I quickly left and I started working for a legal and governance reform, not-for-profit. And I came across my first tender, and it was for a judicial reform programme in Indonesia. I didn't know what a tender was, but I soon discovered what a tender was. It was this amazing document that you wrote to tell a funder about the amazing impact you wanted to have.
[00:02:30] Although my contribution to it was indirect. I was interviewing the judges, I was drafting their cvs, I was framing, um, the methodology of how we we would create this impact. It felt amazing and I felt like I was creating the impact that I had set out. To create. When I joined the diplomatic call and I got my first taste, I got my first taste of winning.
[00:02:58] I won [00:03:00] my first ever tender. All of a sudden, I was making this contribution from Australia. I was making the impact I wanted to make. And I felt the thrill of the chase. I felt the thrill of the win. And I've always been a very competitive person. I was never gonna be able to win in a sporting arena, but I was always really competitive in terms of my own personal achievements and goals.
[00:03:23] Not just the detriment of anyone else, just for the joy of that win. And as I got more and more into the age sector, which I worked in until 2007 when I had my first wonderful daughter, that's what I did. I tendered four jobs. I tendered for the Solomon Islands Law and Justice programme. I won it, and then I managed it and I helped make an indirect contribution in, um, the Asia Pacific in the developing world.
[00:03:52] I had Ella and she was sitting in her, her bouncy, bouncy, happily kicking her little feet, three months old. [00:04:00] I knew I needed more. I love being a mother. I still love being a mother. Uh, but that competitive edge doesn't go away. But I couldn't travel, uh, as much as I was travelling, uh, with the aid work.
[00:04:13] Um, I was back and forth all the time and I thought, well, what am I good at? What do I do? And I thought, I'm good at winning work. I'm good at tendering and wonderfully naively with no no idea of the, the, the time it would take and the risks I would take. 18 years on, I set up, um, what is now. Tender plus, um, it was just me and I networked until I built a business and that business was in competitive tendering.
[00:04:41] And I haven't looked back. So I've gone from me, uh, to, uh, a team in, in Perth, Sydney, and Brisbane, a team of wonderful, exceptional, tender specialists who love their craft and love what they do. And so what keeps me here after 18 years? Winning. I still love [00:05:00] winning, and I do a lot of it, and we do a lot of it being involved in, in some of the most exceptional projects in Australia.
[00:05:06] Really a career defining moment for me was as the submission manager for the three stages of the unsolicited proposal for Metro Martin Place. Um, Macquarie's Global headquarters in Martin Place in Sydney took up three years of my life, um, with every second, and, you know, really career defining for me, um, watching my team succeed.
[00:05:29] Watching them work with clients so that our clients succeed. Bringing kindness to tendering, being bringing kindness and warmth and care to a craft that is underappreciated a lot of the time. And advocating for it as a craft, as an art form. Tendering is an art form and I think people really. Don't fully realise the multifaceted skillset that it takes to be an excellent [00:06:00] tenderer.
[00:06:01] Kept tendering, kept tendering through COVID, kept the team, refused to make anyone redundant. We were just gonna get by on whatever we had to get by on job keeper and all. Even though the world shut down, we kept going and, and luckily, tendering was one thing that helped Australia recover. You need to build infrastructure.
[00:06:20] You need jobs, you need to continue tendering. We need to continue to make that impact, make that contribution. Know I was going along happily and then, uh, September, 2021 to be precise. Um, the 7th of September, 2021. A date that I'm probably never gonna forget. Um, I was diagnosed with a very aggressive form of blood cancer, mantle cell lymphoma.
[00:06:43] Told not to Google it. Pass that on to my family who proceeded to Google it and to ring me and say, you're gonna die. But that's not in my nature. I've never let any challenge that has stood before me in tendering or my career or my life, um, [00:07:00] stop me. And I wasn't about to let cancer do it. Here I am four years later in deep remission, still having to be vigilant because it's not a curable cancer.
[00:07:10] After I went through all those rounds of chemo, all those rounds of immunotherapy, and I felt mortality, I had to come back to a career. I had to come back to a business that I had handed over for, you know, a good, solid nine, 10 months to a wonderful colleague, and I had to decide what I really wanted, and that's a massive decision.
[00:07:29] Do I want to keep being a tenderer? And it didn't take me long to realise the, the resounding answer was yes. Yes I do. Why? Because we make an impact. Why? Because what we do is an art form. Why? Because it matters and it's great and it's interesting. And why has this podcast come along? Because. You matter.
[00:07:55] And anyone that is in this mad pursuit [00:08:00] world of ours knows what it is to feel alone sometimes, and for people not to even understand what it is you do. You go to a barbecue and they say, what do you do? He's like, I'm a tenderer. You are a tiner. What does that mean? You're a Tinder manager. You, you swipe left and right on people's profiles.
[00:08:15] No, I tender, I win competitive business for my clients and with my clients and with my team. And so I'm here to tell the story of Tendering. I'm here to share the network that I have of amazing people that pursue and win work. I'm here to share my team's experiences and my own, and I'm here to give you a good, bad, and ugly of everything.
[00:08:39] It is to love winning work, to love chasing the win.
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