Felicity Rodgers appeared on the AMEX Ideas Exchange panel, offering advice on scaling a small business, looking after your customers and the core ingredients to creating a memorable mission statement, without being contrived.

The Amex Ideas Exchange brings together some of Australia’s greatest business minds, sharing their knowledge and learnings with other Australian small business owners.

Hosted by entrepreneur and Shark Tank star, Andrew Banks, the all-star panel included;

  • -     Felicity Rodgers, Founder & Creative Director Cargo Crew

  • -     Justin Dry, entrepreneur & CEO Vinomofo

  • -     Tim Reid, Author of The Bloomberg Effect

  • -     Amanda Fisher, CFO & Speaker

As the Founder and Creative Director of Cargo Crew, Felicity believes the key to business success is being passionate and single minded about your goal & instilling this in your staff.  

“The thread that links throughout our culture to our customers, is a passion for creating uniforms that support a business’s brand identity, and ensures people feel confident and comfortable at work. We are single-minded about evolving the definition of a modern uniform and leading the industry through continuing to evolve our offering and focusing on our customers needs” Says Felicity.

Small beginnings

As a graduate of Fashion Design from RMIT, Felicity founded Cargo Crew in the early 2000’s after recognising a gap in the market for fashionable, well-designed uniforms. Felicity used a $2000 tax return to fund the start-up of her corporate work wear business from her one-bedroom flat in Melbourne. Fast-forward to today and Cargo Crew is a family operated business with both Felicity’s husband and sister, a core part of the Melbourne-based company.

In recent years Cargo Crew has grown to become a global player, shaking up the traditional uniform market and replacing it with modern design, high-performance fabrics, combined with sustainability & ethical behaviour. With no middle man margins, the model has ensured that the purchase process for the customer is both affordable and convenient with online ordering, onsite warehousing, no minimum order quantities and inhouse embroidery services.

Loved by over 25,000 companies, in more than 75 countries, the unique aesthetic that Cargo Crew creates, is undeniably Australian, yet the offering clearly resonates to a global market.

As winners of the 2015 Telstra Small Business of the Year award, Felicity and the team at Cargo Crew continue to disrupt their market and work with leading businesses across the globe including Freedom Furniture, Art Series Hotels, Dulux, Nandos and Goop - with Gwyneth Paltrow a fan of their signature aprons!

As the Founder and Creative Director of Cargo Crew, Felicity believes the key to business success is being passionate and single minded about your goal & instilling this in your staff.  

“The thread that links throughout our culture to our customers, is a passion for creating uniforms that support a business’s brand identity, and ensures people feel confident and comfortable at work. We are single-minded about evolving the definition of a modern uniform and leading the industry through continuing to evolve our offering and focusing on our customers needs” Says Felicity.

Obsessive design & functionality

Driven by a passion for the product, Felicity believes good design puts functionality at its heart, which is why the Cargo Crew team obsess over every detail, every button, every seam, to ensure a uniform not only looks the part, but is high-performing. 

Cargo Crew spend 10,000 hours on apparel Research & Development each year to ensure they create fabrics and uniforms that are led by innovation. The Modern Uniform company recently released Parker Polo, exclusively delivering drirelease to the uniform market in Australia & New Zealand. Engineered with permanent performance odour control that wont wash out, unlike other polo treatments. Parker also dries 4 times faster than cotton, holds shape & colour and is setting the new standard as the premium quality corporate polo. Better for your staff, better for the environment.

Cargo Crew also engineered a Fight the Fade™ fabric range that uses cutting-edge technology to resist fading for over 100 washes. The Fight the Fade™ range is considered a global benchmark in terms of fabric performance and durability. 

Felicity and the Cargo Crew team is constantly looking to improve the uniform industry standard and their latest expansion into suiting is setting a new benchmark. Crafting modern suiting that delivers comfort & breathability, without compromising on design and style. Felicity Rodgers and Cargo Crew are certainly an Australian business to watch.