ABOUT AMARI
Built around people who build.
AMARI is an Australian institution built around founders, executives, creatives, operators and leaders doing work of consequence.
We call them Alchemists.
OUR STARTING POINT
The person comes first.
We believe there are people who are not willing to accept the world around them as it is. Something in them creates a desire to shape, question, improve or create.
Some set out deliberately to change something. Others simply change the things around them by the way they think, the standards they hold and the work they choose to do.
They build companies. Lead institutions. Create culture. Develop ideas. Solve difficult problems. Open possibilities that did not exist before.
AMARI Group was built for them.
The person comes first. The work comes second.
THE ALCHEMIST
The people who see what could be.
An Alchemist is not defined by profession, age, status or position.
One may be building a company. Another may be changing how an institution works. Another may be creating music, film, food, fashion or art. Another may be working quietly on an idea that few people understand yet. Another may be at the beginning of their career, with the ability already visible long before the title arrives.
The work looks different. The instinct underneath it is often the same.
Alchemists do not experience the world as something entirely fixed. They notice what others have learned to accept. They ask different questions. They can look at something ordinary and imagine another version of it.
Sometimes they are dissatisfied with what already exists. Sometimes they see an opportunity others have missed. Sometimes they carry an unusually high standard for how something should be done. Sometimes there is simply an idea they cannot leave alone.
And then they act on it.
That distinction matters to us.
Ideas alone rarely change anything. The people we believe in are willing to take responsibility for making an idea real. They make decisions without having every answer. They persuade other people to believe. They live with uncertainty. They refine, rebuild and keep going when the work becomes difficult.
Over time, something that once existed only in their mind begins to exist in the world.
A business. An institution. A body of work. A new way of doing something. A door that somebody else can now walk through.
That is the alchemy. Turning possibility into reality.
And its effect rarely ends with one person.
A company creates work for others. An idea changes how people think. A new standard lifts everyone around it. A story gives someone else language for their own ambition. One person's work can expand another person's sense of what is possible.
That is why we believe so deeply in Alchemists.
Alchemist is not a title AMARI hands out. It is our language for a particular way of moving through the world.
AMARI begins with the person. Then we look at what they are building. Then we ask what could become possible if more existed around both.
WHY AMARI
Ambition is rarely missing. What surrounds it often is.
People doing serious work rarely need somebody to give them ambition. What they often need is more around it.
Relationships that open new possibilities. Resources that help the work move. Places where genuine connections can form. Opportunities for the next generation to develop before the wider world already knows their name. Stories that allow good work to travel beyond the people who witnessed it first.
These things often exist separately.
A founder may be doing exceptional work but still need the relationship that opens another market.
An executive may be changing an institution without knowing the other people across the community thinking about similar problems.
A young person may have extraordinary ability years before they have the access or environment that helps them understand what they are capable of.
People can live in the same city, work across related industries and share parts of the same identity without ever meaningfully connecting.
AMARI brings those people, their work and the things built around them into the same institution. That is what connects Capital & Advisory, Events & Lifestyle, AMARI Futures and Media House.
They do different things. But each answers a different need around people and their work.
HOW WE WORK
Thought deeply. Executed properly.
We believe good work requires both.
Our team is analytical by nature. We question ideas, look at them from different angles and try to understand the commercial, human, cultural and practical realities before deciding what should be done. We value considered thinking because the first answer is not always the right one.
But thinking is not the end of the work. We place equal weight on execution.
On whether the idea survives contact with reality. Whether the room feels right. Whether the language is precise. Whether the relationships are genuine. Whether the details hold together. Whether the final result carries the quality of the thinking that came before it.
Considered judgement. Serious execution. We do not believe in analysis without movement, or movement without thought.
Different work. The same underlying standard.
THE GROUP
One institution. Four distinct responsibilities.
The needs surrounding serious work are different. AMARI’s four divisions are built to address those needs.
Capital & Advisory brings expertise, relationships, institutional access and commercial opportunity closer to serious businesses, projects and people.
Across the Australia–Africa corridor, it works at the point where businesses, institutions and capital need to find and understand one another, form the right relationships and move credible opportunities forward.
Its research supports that work by making AMARI's thinking and judgement visible.
Relationships need somewhere to form. Events & Lifestyle creates the places where people meet, spend time together, build genuine connections and recognise one another's work.
The AMARI Gala is its flagship expression, bringing the community together to recognise people who have already built, led, created and contributed at a high level.
Different rooms may serve different purposes. The underlying role remains the same: create the conditions for connection.
Every person we recognise today was capable before they were recognised. The ability existed before the title, the senior position or the wider attention.
AMARI Futures exists to find promising future Alchemists earlier, form them through serious work and connect them to institutions and opportunities capable of accelerating their development.
Identify. Form. Connect. AMARI should not only care about the people already doing consequential work. It should care deeply about who comes next.
Stories are how people understand one another. They are how ideas travel, how communities develop a shared memory and how work reaches people who were never in the original room.
Media House documents the people, businesses, projects and ideas around AMARI and tells those stories through film, photography, editorial and publishing.
Some stories will be about people already widely recognised. Others will introduce work that deserves attention before the wider world has noticed it. Together, they create a record of what this community built, thought about, created and contributed.
Capital & Advisory publishes knowledge. Media House tells stories.
THE DIGITAL LAYER
A community should not end when the room empties.
Physical rooms matter to AMARI. But they are temporary.
People leave. They travel. They move between cities. Projects continue. New work begins. Relationships develop long after the original introduction.
The AMARI app gives the wider community somewhere to stay connected between those moments.
Someone in Melbourne should be able to see what people are building in Perth. Someone arriving in Sydney should be able to understand what is happening around AMARI there. Over time, someone travelling elsewhere in the world should be able to do the same.
The app brings together events, projects, stories, shared interests and access so that connection is not limited to the moments when everyone happens to be in the same place.
That is why the app is not another division. The rooms create connection. The app allows it to continue.
WHERE WE ARE
Australia is home. Our outlook is global.
Australia is AMARI's primary home and community. It is where our relationships run deepest and where much of our work takes place.
But the people around AMARI are connected to something much larger. Their families, businesses, ideas, relationships and ambitions extend across African countries, the wider diaspora and the world. AMARI reflects that reality.
We are rooted in Australia and global in how we think, the relationships we build and the opportunities we pursue.
Capital & Advisory expresses this most directly through the relationship between Australia and African markets. Across the rest of AMARI, that same outlook shapes the people we connect, the stories we tell, the ideas we follow and the relationships we develop.
Being rooted gives AMARI substance. Looking outward gives it possibility.
WHAT WE BELIEVE
A few things we hold firmly.
AMARI begins with people. The businesses, institutions, ideas and projects matter because people imagine them, build them and give them meaning. We care deeply about the quality of the work without ever losing sight of the person behind it.
AMARI exists to create more value around the people it serves. Better relationships. Greater opportunity. Useful knowledge. Meaningful experiences. Stronger connections. Stories worth telling. The institution should become stronger because the community around it becomes stronger.
The relationships worth having are rarely created in one interaction. People need to know one another. Understand one another. Show up consistently. Keep commitments. Have enough experience together for confidence to become real. AMARI can create the conditions for those relationships to begin. Trust itself has to be earned.
Titles tell us where someone sits. They do not always tell us what that person has built. We are interested in contribution. What did you create? What changed because you were there? What did you build for others? What idea did you make real? What standard did you raise? The work should speak before the title does.
Australia is our primary home and community. Our relationships, perspective and ambition extend across the wider diaspora and the world. We believe those two things strengthen one another.
LEADERSHIP
The people accountable for AMARI.
AMARI is built by a small leadership team responsible for the institution, its divisions and the standards attached to the work.
- Jeremy NyerenyereChairman & Group CEO
- Daniel OlasojiVice Chairman
- Kalows AbdallaVice Chairman, Capital & Partnerships
- Meron NegassiChief Financial Officer
- Charmaine HunzwiChief Operating Officer
- Christina MekonnenSenior Managing Director & Global Head of Lifestyle
- Olivier PermalSenior Managing Director & Global Head of Events
Bringing independent insight and wisdom to the institution.
The Advisory Board exists to challenge the direction of AMARI, sharpen major decisions and test whether the work is earning the next stage.
The leadership team is supported by the AMARI Advisory Board.
- Zione Walker-Nthenda
- Wayne Nyamana
- Jamal Elsheikh
FOR THE ALCHEMISTS
AMARI begins with a simple belief.
There are extraordinary people already building. Our role is to build the infrastructure they need.
More meaningful relationships. More resources around serious work. More rooms in which people can form peer-to-peer communities. More opportunity for the people coming next. Stories told with enough care to become part of the record.
And a community connected closely enough that what one person builds can create possibility for someone else.
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