About Ellery.

Ellery is built on one belief: growth is decided early. We help built environment and agribusiness firms win work, raise capital and build brands people trust, and we leave behind the strategy, the language and the habits that make the next one easier.

The story

Ellery started with twenty years of watching businesses win, and lose, from the inside.

Emma Van Veluwen has seen it from more sides than most. She set up an environmental and ecological monitoring business in the UK and worked with environmental and energy operators across Europe, the UK and North America. She has worked alongside architects and design engineers, and in tier-1 contracting she led strategy, submissions and communications on pursuits from $100 million to a few billion. That breadth means she knows what operators, designers and contractors each need to see before they say yes.

Across all of it, the pattern is hard to miss. The businesses that grow are the ones clients trust before anyone asks for a price. That trust is earned early and on purpose: a clear position, a coherent brand, plain confident communications, and a leadership team that agrees on what it stands for. The bid is just where it gets tested.

Plenty of firms have great people. The hard part is freeing them up when the work piles up, or getting an outside view when everyone is too close to it. That's where Ellery comes in. We work alongside contractors, engineers, advisers, investors and farming businesses on four fronts: winning work, specialist bid support, capital and grants, and brand. The goal is the same on every front: trust that turns into growth, and honest value for the money.

What we believe

Growth is decided early.

By the time a tender lands or a client picks up the phone, most of the decision is already made. Position, reputation and relationships do the work. We help you get there first.

Strategy beats production.

A polished brand, website or submission with the wrong argument still loses. The thinking about what the client is really deciding, and your best answer to it, is where the value is. We spend our effort there first.

Trust is built in plain language.

Clients, funders and evaluators have read too much of the other kind. One clear, confident voice, held across the bid, the website and the boardroom, is what makes a business easy to believe.

Every engagement should leave you better at the next one.

We win the work with you, build the brand with you and run the room with you, and we leave behind the strategy, the language and the habits. That is what value for money looks like: capability that stays.

How we work

Embedded

We sit inside your team, in the kick-off, the reviews and the hard conversations. A small consultancy embedded closely beats a large one at arm's length, because the thinking never has to survive a handover.

No handovers

The person you brief is the person who thinks, writes, designs and reviews. Nothing gets handed down to someone who wasn't in the room.

Plain language

We write in plain, confident English and back every claim with evidence, whether it is a tender, a capability statement or an annual report. If the reader has to hunt, it isn't finished.

Judged by the reader

Bids are reviewed against the evaluator's scoresheet. Brands against how they hold up on a hoarding and in PowerPoint. Websites against what a client needs to believe. Never against personal taste.

The team

Emma Van Veluwen

Founder and Principal

Emma founded Ellery after more than twenty years in work winning, brand and communications. She set up an environmental and ecological monitoring business in the UK and worked with environmental and energy operators across Europe, the UK and North America. She has worked at SMEC and Cardno (now Stantec), and spent six years at John Holland leading submissions and engagement on major pursuits, before bringing it all under Ellery.

She has led submissions worth more than $2.5 billion, built brands from the first sketch to the last template, and is APMP credentialled. She does the work herself: the strategy, the writing, the design and the room. What she likes most is a business leaving an engagement sharper than it arrived.

Ellery is deliberately small. When a job needs more hands, Emma brings in designers, writers and specialists she has worked with for years, and stays accountable for the whole.

Credentials

MBA, Melbourne Business School (underway)
Sustainability Leadership and Corporate Responsibility, London Business School
Strategic Social and Sustainable Procurement, University of Melbourne
Proposal development and strategy, APMP and Shipley Associates

The proof

20+

Years in pursuit rooms

$3.5bn+

Bid value supported

95%

EOI success, past five years

80%

RFT success, past five years

“I have worked with Emma for over six years across strategy planning, bid management and business systems. Her ability to synthesise information to inform strategy is exemplary, and she leads fast-paced teams in time-constrained situations while maintaining high levels of calm. An early adopter of new technologies, she pushes the boundaries of what can be delivered.”

Sarah Tozer

General Manager VIC/TAS/SA, Building, John Holland

Ready to grow on purpose? Let's start it properly.

Let's talk

Growth, on purpose.

Pages

Home What we do Work About Thinking Contact

What we do

Work winning Specialist support Capital & grants Brand

Contact

emma@ellerystudios.com 0455 111 514 LinkedIn

Brisbane, working nationally