About Laurel Path

Adelaide consultants who learned scheduling by sitting in trades offices, not by selling subscriptions.

Registered business

Laurel Path Business Consulting Pty Ltd is the official registered name of our practice. We have operated from Adelaide since 2014, beginning as a two-person consultancy helping a handful of northern suburbs plumbing firms untangle paper job cards before expanding to electrical and building contractors across South Australia.

How we started

Founder Helen Marsh spent twelve years as an office manager for a mid-size electrical contractor in Elizabeth. When the owner retired, several neighbouring businesses asked her to document how their dispatch actually worked — not to install software, but to write down the steps so a new office hire could follow them. That side work became Laurel Path.

Co-founder David Okonkwo joined in 2017 after supervising commercial fit-out crews. He brought capacity planning and subcontractor coordination experience. Together they have completed over 140 engagements with trades businesses across SA.

Our approach

We believe most scheduling problems are visible on the wall if someone patient enough watches a Monday morning. We do not sell products. We observe, interview, document, and recommend changes your team chooses to adopt. Some clients keep handwritten boards forever; others move to simple shared calendars — the right answer depends on your crew, not a vendor demo.

Values

  • Plain language — reports written for tradies and office staff, not boardrooms
  • Your data stays yours — job records are returned or destroyed after each engagement
  • No commission on software — if we mention a tool, it is because it fits, not because we earn a referral fee
  • Regional respect — we travel to Whyalla, Mount Gambier, and Riverland clients without treating distance as an afterthought

Credentials

Helen holds a Certificate IV in Business and is a member of the Association of Consulting Architects to Small Business (ACASB) — a peer group for consultants serving trades and light industry. David completed site supervision certification through MBA South Australia in 2012.