Australia’s trusted advisory partner for NDIS and community services

Helping purpose-driven organisations strengthen governance, grow sustainably and create meaningful impact.

I’m Traidy Bugeja-Naidoo. I partner with organisations across the disability and community services sectors, plus not-for-profit and social impact, from a founder who built and ran a registered NDIS provider.

Traidy Bugeja-Naidoo, advisory partner
I founded Chosen Family

A registered NDIS provider. Built it, ran it, and lost sleep over it. I’m not advising from a textbook.

A foundation you can trust Admitted Solicitor, Supreme Court of NSW Founder, Chosen Family ISO 9001 Lead Auditor Master of Social Work

Most consultants speak compliance. Most advocates speak community. Few translate between both.

What people say

Trust that stays with you.

His ability to weave lived experience with practical tools made the conversation both moving and actionable. He created a space where everyone, from frontline workers to sector leaders, felt seen and inspired.
Peter McKendry
Chief Executive Officer, CO Group
Chosen Family has set a new benchmark in this space. Their LGBTIQA+ training is grounded in lived experience and delivered with a high level of professional insight. This training is not just important, it’s essential.
Jye Bryant
Teacher of Community Services, TAFE NSW · Founder, Nepean Pride
Traidy is a powerhouse: poetic, affirming, and deeply grounded in lived experience. He doesn’t perform impact, he embodies it. I couldn’t recommend him more highly.
Patrick Hukins
Clinical Psychotherapist & Counsellor · LGBTQIA+ Inclusion Specialist
If you’re looking for a speaker who brings soul, strategy, and substance, Traidy is the voice you want. He doesn’t just talk change. He activates it.
Desire Ude
Managing Director, Anchored Care
Nothing can prepare you for hearing Traidy speak. He is a lyrical, eloquent, engaging, and powerful presenter. Speaking with love, compassion, and deep knowledge of what he shares.
Rita Mastrangelo
Partnerships Manager, Forsight
Whether Traidy is sharing personal, lived experiences, or offering practical ideas and tips, he has a unique ability to connect, inspire and motivate people.
Ngaire Nelson
Business Relationship Manager, Ableplus
Traidy’s strength lies in his ability to weave personal storytelling with advocacy, always underpinned by themes of liberation, belonging, and inclusive care. He speaks with authenticity, humility, and clarity, resonating with audiences from all walks of life.
Chrissy Muchenagumbo MBA
Clinical Nurse Consultant, Rhema Healthcare
Traidy is wonderful and always brings with him an energy and a realness that really engages you in the topic at hand. By the end of it I felt empowered, challenged, and ready to slay.
Mael Reale
Neighbourhood Team Leader, My Supports
Leaders and teams who have worked with, trained with or hosted Traidy
  • Leora Healthcare
  • TAFE NSW
  • CO Group
  • Forsight
  • Able Plus
  • Identity Clinic
  • Rhema Healthcare
  • My Supports
  • PEAR Project
  • Anchored Care
  • Nepean Pride
If any of this sounds familiar

You’re not alone. You’re just under-supported.

  • You’re the most senior person in your organisation, and there’s no one to think out loud with.
  • Every decision compounds on every other decision, and the weight is starting to show.
  • Your team can’t be the audience for your doubts. Neither can your board. Neither can your family.
  • You’d hire a full-time COO or BDM tomorrow if it didn’t cost a quarter of a million dollars to do it.
Traidy Bugeja-Naidoo seated, hands clasped, in a studio portrait.

What would change if you had one trusted, experienced operator beside you, just one day a week?

Why hire Consult Traidy

The cost of an experienced leader. Without the cost of hiring one full-time.

In Australia in 2026 a senior executive, a COO, BDM or General Manager, costs $210,000 to $290,000 once superannuation, leave, recruitment and onboarding are counted. Most growing organisations can’t justify that yet. Most growing organisations need exactly that.

Save six figures, on average.

Engage me by the day or by the project. No superannuation. No sick leave. No recruitment cost. No 12-week onboarding curve. No hardware. No payroll tax. Most clients save $80,000 to $120,000 a year against an equivalent full-time hire, and get more relevant experience in the bargain.

A leader who has done it, not just studied it.

I founded Chosen Family. I’ve recruited support workers, run intakes, sat through audits, redesigned policies, navigated complaints, made payroll, and lost sleep over participant outcomes. When I sit alongside you, we’re not theorising. We’re working from shared ground.

Someone you can trust to hold your stress.

Boards don’t see operations. Staff can’t be the audience for doubt. Family is tired of hearing about work. I can be the audience. I’m legally trained, professionally bound, and I will never repeat what you tell me.

No retainer? No problem. Hire me for a day.

Book me as your fractional Business Development Manager for one or two days when you’re entering a new market, scoping a partnership, or running a campaign. Seven hours of senior strategic energy, focused entirely on your organisation.

Who I help

Built for the sectors where purpose meets pressure.

I work with mission-led organisations that carry real responsibility to the people they serve, and real scrutiny from the systems around them.

  • NDIS providers

    Registration and the new pathway, audit readiness, intake and growth, from a founder who built and ran one. Sole traders through to multi-site organisations.

  • Not-for-profits & charities

    Governance, sustainable growth and board support that protect the mission while the funding environment shifts underneath it.

  • Boards & executive teams

    Fractional leadership, governance uplift and strategic planning at the top table, plus confidential advisory for the person carrying it.

See all the sectors I work with →
FAQ

The questions I get most.

Mid-sized NDIS providers, training organisations, government and council inclusion teams, and community-sector founders navigating audit, growth, inclusion, workforce, or reform pressure.

Sydney-based, servicing nationally. Approximately 70% of engagements run remotely. On-site work is available nationally, with travel billed at cost.

It means designing from the participant’s experience back to the policy, instead of from the regulator forward to the participant. Every intake form, audit and training is treated as a touchpoint with a real human life.

Yes. Raise it on the discovery call and we’ll find a structure that works for your organisation.

A capped portion of hours each quarter is available for community-led, queer, CALD or First Nations organisations at sliding-scale or pro bono rates.

Yes. Certificates are available on request.

Let’s talk

The first conversation is on me. So is the second one if you need it.

Book a complimentary 30-minute discovery call. We’ll talk about what you’re carrying. I’ll tell you whether I can help, whether someone else would be better suited, or whether you don’t need anyone at all. No pitch. No pressure. Just a conversation.

Contact

Stop carrying it alone.

0415 151 984

Based in Sydney. Servicing nationally.

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ConsultTraidy © 2026 Consult Traidy · Advisory for purpose-driven organisations

Consult Traidy acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of the lands on which we live and work, and pays respect to Elders past, present and emerging. We are a queer-led, CALD-led practice. We work inclusively with disabled, queer, CALD and First Nations communities.

Consult Traidy provides general expertise only. Nothing on this website constitutes specific legal or clinical advice.

People forget most strategy documents within a month. They remember how their leader made them feel in a difficult moment for years.

As organisations grow, the role of a leader changes. In the beginning, you are close to the work and close to everyone doing it. Later, you are further away, and your influence comes less from what you do yourself and more from whether people trust you. Leadership becomes stewardship: looking after people, purpose and the organisation on behalf of everyone who depends on it.

And stewardship only works if there is trust.

Trust is built in difficult moments

It is easy to look trustworthy when things are going well. The real test comes when they are not. A funding cut, a serious incident, a restructure, a mistake that lands on the leadership team. These are the moments people watch most closely.

Did the leader tell the truth, even when it was uncomfortable? Did they take responsibility, or look for someone else to blame? Did they show up, or disappear behind emails? The answers to those questions shape trust far more than any presentation ever will.

The four things that build it

Trust is not built through charisma. A charismatic leader can win a room for an afternoon. Trust is built more slowly, through consistent behaviour over time. In my experience it rests on four things:

  • Behaviour. Doing what you said you would do, every time, especially in small things.
  • Transparency. Sharing what you can, explaining why when you cannot, and never pretending things are fine when they are not.
  • Accountability. Owning your decisions and your mistakes out loud, so your team knows it is safe to own theirs.
  • Empathy. Understanding how a decision lands for the people who have to live with it, and letting that shape how you deliver it.

None of these is complicated. All of them take discipline, because the easier option is always available.

How trust is lost

Trust is slow to build and quick to lose. It is rarely lost in one dramatic moment. More often it wears away through small things: a promise not kept, a decision announced with no explanation, a concern raised and never answered, a leader who says one thing in the meeting and another in the corridor.

Each of these on its own might seem minor. Together, they teach people that the leader's words cannot be relied on. Once that lesson is learned, even good decisions are met with doubt.

Why trust is practical, not soft

Trust can sound like a nice-to-have. It is not. When a team trusts its leaders, change happens faster because people do not need every detail proven before they move. Problems surface sooner because people feel safe to raise them. Good people stay through hard periods because they believe the leadership will see them through.

In a sector where change is constant and resources are tight, that is one of the most practical advantages an organisation can have.

Building trust from where you are

If trust in your organisation has worn thin, it can be rebuilt. It takes time, and it starts with small, consistent actions:

  • Make fewer promises, and keep every one of them.
  • When you cannot share something, say so, and explain why.
  • Close the loop on every concern raised, even if the answer is no.
  • Admit one mistake openly, and show what you changed because of it.
  • Be present when things are hard, in person where you can.

Strategy tells people where you are going. Trust is what makes them willing to come with you. Look after it carefully, because every other part of leadership depends on it.

Want a hand putting this into practice? Let’s talk it through.