Blakline Managing Director, Raquel Todd (05.08.2026)

**Mark Duffield** (0:00)
Welcome back to the SENWA studio out here at Optus Stadium, Wednesday morning in Perth, 17.2 degrees outside at the moment. Special treat for you now, the managing director of Blakline, Raquel Todd joins us in the studio for Duff and the Doctor. Raquel, welcome.

**Raquel Todd** (0:17)
Thank you, thanks for having me.

**Mark Duffield** (0:19)
Sean has been threatening to bring you in for a number of weeks now. He's finally pulled it off. I was worried about his ability to deliver there for a while.

**Sean** (0:28)
Come on, Duff.

**Mark Duffield** (0:29)
Tell us about Blakline and how it came about and what was the inspiration for it.

**Raquel Todd** (0:34)
Yeah, Blakline Industries is 100% Aboriginal in business in the integrated print management industry. And came about because I've been through a few failed joint ventures, some partnerships that really didn't really align with our values or my morals, and then managed to now be in business with my now business partner.
And since then, we've kind of gone gangbusters. We've just acquired a manufacturing business. Previous to that, we were acting as a broker. And we knew that if we wanted to change the game, we had to move from being able to broker the services, to be able to manufacture, to control our cost and quality of product.

**Mark Duffield** (1:12)
Let's take you all the way back to your childhood growing up. Where did you grow up?

**Raquel Todd** (1:17)
So, grew up on Garriotta Country. So, Garriotta Country is Port Hedlund, so the northwest of WA. And also got ties to Bunjima Traditional Owner Group, which is out at Karajini. So, pretty cool places in Western Australia to grow up and be privileged to be from.

**Mark Duffield** (1:34)
And what triggered the entrepreneur in you? What made you think that this is the way I want to go with my life?

**Raquel Todd** (1:41)
Kind of hit a bit of a glass ceiling in a global business who really didn't like the look of Aboriginal women being in management positions. And from there, I needed to determine what kind of life I wanted to build for my family and what kind of wealth I wanted to create and opportunities I wanted to create for our mob.
And from there, the only way to do that was to be able to go into business and call all my own shots.

**Mark Duffield** (2:04)
How old were you when you made the decision, this is the way I'm going to go with this?

**Raquel Todd** (2:08)
23 23 23, yeah, which seems a long time ago. We were just talking about this. The 2013 AFL Grand Final was two years before. When I actually decided I wanted to be an entrepreneur. And it's the best thing I've ever done because it does, it challenges you in ways that having a nine to five isn't going to challenge you.
And the resilience that you're being able to build, the relationships you create, the opportunities to create for yourself, your family, for other people, I think is tenfolds and I don't think you could put a value on that.

**Mark Duffield** (2:39)
How were you received? Like, obviously, inclusion, acceptance, respect are pretty key words for Indigenous people. So when you decide to do this, how were you received?

**Raquel Todd** (2:53)
Look, probably a little bit cocky, to be honest. And I think I learned really quickly the difference between being cocky and being confident and how to handle yourself in different positions. It was a bit of an eye-opener because what I thought I deserved wasn't what I deserved.
And the privileges I thought that came with being an Aboriginal woman in Aboriginal business wasn't exactly how that played out. And so a few lessons along the way that has taught me how to handle business, I was very different to what I was doing back then. So yeah, I mean, if you're crazy enough to do it, absolutely do it.

**Mark Duffield** (3:30)
So give us a deeper explanation of that. What you thought you deserved, what wasn't what you deserve. What do you mean by that? We explained that to you.

**Raquel Todd** (3:40)
Yes, I thought, you know, when we launched, when I launched my businesses as an Aboriginal woman in business, and what I thought Aboriginal businesses were, were two very different ballparks that we were kind of playing in. And I learned quickly that Aboriginal businesses weren't entitled to whatever unthought Aboriginal businesses were entitled to. And so I played on a card of going, well, we're entitled to this because we're an Aboriginal business, we can do this and we can do that. But that wasn't the case. And so you learn that really, I guess, hard and fast lesson when they sit there and go, we actually don't want to deal with you. And then you're back to the drawing board and now you're going, well, hang on a sec, I'm an Aboriginal business owner, I'm a woman, like, I'm ticking all these boxes. Why do you not want to engage with me?