For this series of Q&As, we strike up a chat with a member of our wonderful leadership team so you can get to know them and learn about the fantastic work they do for our team and, ultimately, our clients.

We sat down with Founder and Director Kate Phillips, who has led IRS with clear vision, resilience and strong values for over 27 years. Through both growth and industry shifts, Kate’s leadership has laid the foundation for the resilient, thriving organisation IRS is today.

Here, she shares her perspective on building a sustainable business, navigating change and what keeps her inspired.

1. To start, we’d love to hear a bit about your career path. What problem were you trying to solve when you decided to start IRS? What is it about our mission—the impact we have on clients—that keeps you energised and focused today?

I established Independent Rehabilitation Services, in 1999, after having my eldest son. My senior public physiotherapist role couldn’t be made part-time, so I began doing private neurological physio to work around family life.

However, I quickly realised I didn’t enjoy working in isolation – I missed having OTs and Speechies alongside me. I strongly believe the best outcomes happen when a multidisciplinary team collaborates closely. So, I took the plunge and established IRS – which, as far as I know, was the first private multidisciplinary neuro rehab service in the area.

What keeps me energised and focused is the outcomes, working wins and goals achieved for our clients. It’s a challenging sector but knowing that the team has such a great impact is what keeps me turning up!

2. A founder’s job changes all the time. Where do you spend most of your time and energy right now? Are you focused on big-picture strategy, finding new business opportunities, securing funding, or making sure the company culture stays strong?

My role has evolved significantly over the years – in the early days I was business support and operations all rolled into one – thank goodness I don’t do that anymore! My focus today is on strategy, ensuring we stay focused on our IRS priorities, ensuring we have ongoing financial stability, keeping an eye on all internal workings, working with Julie on quality assurance and watching the external sector and trying to keep up with that.

Clearly, as the practice has grown, delegation to a skilled, reliable team has been key. Our culture requires a lot of time and effort, which is best managed by someone who is in the office many days of the week. The crucial component of culture, for me, is that we stay aligned to our values.

3. We love to celebrate how far we’ve come. Can you share a story about a time when IRS had a major ‘win’ that truly showed you the company was on the right track? What was a moment that really defined what IRS stands for?

There is no one single moment, but many moments over time. The working wins I hear at our Monday Huddles are amazing and make me so happy!

Major wins, well being here after 27 years and still going strong. Being recognised as leaders in community rehab, and having that validated by many external clinicians, is a win for me. Being respected and trusted within the sector so that referrers know their clients are in good hands is another. Also, observing our clinicians grow in their skills and abilities – knowing that we have developed fantastic clinicians who can have such a huge impact on our clients’ lives – is another.

4. How did you decide on the core values and beliefs that IRS operates on? How do these values guide the company’s major decisions, and what makes IRS truly stand out from other rehabilitation providers in the market?

The core IRS values grew out of my personal principles, but they were formally affirmed over a decade ago by our team of clinicians. We reflect on them regularly, and they still capture who we are today. Whenever we face a major decision, we evaluate it against those values to ensure we’re staying true to the foundation of IRS.

We stand out from other providers due to the measurable outcomes we achieve with our clients, as well as the amount of support we provide our clinicians in the form of mentoring, ongoing supervision and career development (via our competency frameworks which focus on our clinicians’ clinical and professional skills). Referrers and clients know they can trust us because we only recommend and provide interventions that are truly necessary and beneficial.

5. As the Founder, you set the example for the whole company. How do you manage your own energy and prevent burnout when dealing with high-pressure decisions? What is your strategy for making sure you take care of yourself?

My family – my kids and my husband keep me grounded. I love cooking (and eating!!), gardening and reading – being in nature is a big pressure release for me.

We have our place at Anglesea, and when I go there I can feel myself relax. Recently, I’ve also taken up drawing, which is so relaxing and helps remove me from the pressures of running a business.

6. Starting and growing IRS involved risks. Looking back, what was the biggest risk or challenge you had to overcome to get IRS where it is today? How do you make sure the company’s foundation (our clinical model and operations) can keep up with future growth?

The biggest challenge early on was believing in myself that we could do this. When I set up IRS, no other private service was seeing people in the community – clients were basically all seen in clinics, so it was a challenge for funding bodies to believe this was reasonable.

However, the evidence has always been solid that rehabilitation in a real-world environment, goal-directed with a lot of repetition and practice, yields superior outcomes. And measurement to demonstrate this is crucial. Once the data and client progress spoke for themselves, referrers knew their clients were in good hands, and the momentum grew from there.

7. Thinking about the last year, what moments made you feel the proudest of the team and IRS? What is the most important thing you want IRS to achieve next—what is the big goal for the future that you are working toward?

What made me particularly proud was how we navigated recent NDIS changes – such as halved travel fees and reduced physiotherapy rates – despite operating without fee increases since 2019.

The NDIS landscape is incredibly challenging, but its Participants deserve every bit of support they receive. Having worked in this sector for many years, I know that before the NDIS, many Participants lived lives far more limited than any non-disabled person would ever accept.

As a reliable, high-quality provider, it’s frustrating to feel penalised by the actions of unethical actors who have entered the sector. Delivering mobile, in-home care under these financial constraints makes survival a huge challenge, yet we succeeded. I am immensely proud of my partner, Nat, who managed this transition brilliantly, and of our team, who skillfully juggled their caseloads to ensure our NDIS participants continued to receive uninterrupted, high-quality care.

From pioneering private multidisciplinary care 27 years ago to staying true to our core values through shifting NDIS landscapes, this conversation is such a great reminder of the purpose, heart and resilience behind IRS – and it’s wonderful to hear how you manage to stay grounded through it all.

Thank you so much for taking the time to share your journey and insights with us, Kate. We are so grateful for your leadership and the lasting impact you continue to make on our team, our clients and our community.