Honesty
Face reality, including uncomfortable facts about our own work. Listen to different perspectives and stay hopeful about what can improve.
/ About Slash
Built through experience.
Held to a shared standard.
Slash Group builds and operates companies from Brisbane, Australia. We bring people, practical experience and shared support together around worthwhile problems. Our aim is to leave people and organisations more capable of carrying what comes next.
/ Founders
Different paths.
Shared responsibility.
Javier Bates and Jayben Bertrand founded Slash with a shared belief in what people can become. Their experiences shape how the Group approaches leadership, practical work and the responsibility of building companies.
Javier Bates
Founder
Javier’s early experience came through student-led organisations: running workshops, coordinating teams and helping new leaders take responsibility.
Those experiences shaped his belief that leadership should develop the judgement and capability of others, so they can carry the work forward in their own way.
Jayben Bertrand
Founder
Jayben worked as a mechanic before moving into technology. His experience reflects a belief shared across Slash: people can develop beyond what their current role suggests.
His approach to building companies starts with practical usefulness: understand the work, test the idea and commit to what it takes to keep it working.
Together, we are responsible for building the conditions in which others can do good work: clear purpose, meaningful ownership and support that helps people become more independent.
/ What shaped us
Lessons earned
through the work.
Our approach grew through work, mistakes and reflection. These lessons still guide us, and remain open to what experience teaches us next.
Responsibility develops people.Real ownership can reveal capability.
Early work in small, volunteer-led organisations showed us what happens when people are trusted with something that matters. They make decisions, meet consequences and learn to support others. The lasting value was in the capability they developed and passed on.
Freedom needs accountability.Agency needs clear expectations.
We also learned that freedom needs structure. People need to know which decisions they own, where the boundaries sit and when to ask for help. Responsibility should grow with capability and judgement, with room to learn and safeguards when the consequences become too great.
Belief needs a viable model.A worthwhile idea still needs sustainable economics.
An early venture aimed to bring the experience of real responsibility to more people. Its economics did not work, so we paused it. The experience taught us to distinguish a worthwhile purpose from the first model we chose to pursue it. An idea needs to work for the people it serves and sustain the work behind it.
Understand before building.Technical symptoms can have organisational causes.
Working inside other organisations through SlashTech showed us that a technical problem can begin with unclear ownership, a difficult process or knowledge that has never been shared. Understanding the people and the operation comes first. Sometimes the useful answer is a clearer way of working.
Give each company its focus.Distinct businesses can share what they learn.
Different problems need dedicated attention, leadership and customers. That led us towards a group of focused companies, connected by shared experience and support. Each should become capable of standing on its own while remaining able to learn from the others.
/ Our values
What we value. How we act.
These values guide how we work and make difficult choices. They ask us to use judgement, consider the consequences and stay willing to learn.
Responsibility
Choose what we can genuinely carry. Make room for people to act, with clear boundaries, sound judgement and ownership of the consequences.
Capability
Give people meaningful opportunities to learn through action, feedback and responsibility. Build their ability to decide and act, with support available when they need it.
Stewardship
Use leadership to strengthen people, purpose and systems. Share knowledge and ownership so the work can continue without depending on any one person.
Integrity
Build commercial strength in service of worthwhile work. Consider who bears the cost of growth, protect people from becoming fuel for ambition, and stop work that proves harmful or hollow.
Humility
Believe strongly enough to act and remain willing to be wrong. Invite challenge, change course when the evidence calls for it, and value progress even when the credit belongs elsewhere.
/ The Group today
Building for
the long term.
We are based in Brisbane and privately held. We build and operate companies, staying responsible for the work beyond the initial idea. Commercial strength gives useful work the resources to continue.
Each company needs to remain useful, viable and accountable to its purpose. As circumstances change, we should be willing to change how it works — and recognise when it no longer deserves to continue.
Meet the ventures/ The belief behind the work