Rina Kumar - Strata Community Manager of the Year Award at 2021 SCA (NSW) Strata Community Awards!

Rina Kumar began her career in the strata management industry in February 2016 as an Administrative Assistant. Within two years she was a trainee Strata Manager and, only four months later in March 2019, she was a fully fledged Strata Manager with her own portfolio. In that same year, 2019, she was a finalist in the SCA(NSW) “Rising Star” category at the annual Awards Night, a feat she repeated in the following year, 2020. Undeterred by not winning that award, Rina eclipsed that disappointment when, twelve months later in 2021, she was named SCA(NSW) “Strata Manager of the Year”, in only her sixth year in the industry—a meteoric rise in anyone’s book.

   Rina Kumar was born in the Sydney suburb of Eastwood in 1994, spending most of her early years in nearby West Ryde. Her father, Hiren Patel, who had been born in Perth, was an Electrical Engineer with Canon Corporation and her Mum, Dhruma, born in Mumbai, ran her own business importing homewares from India. Rina has one sibling, a brother, Rohan, six years her junior, who has degrees in Mechanical and Mechatronic Engineering from UTS and is an employee in that university’s Tech Laboratory. When Rina was 13 years of age, her father gave up engineering to purchase a Baker’s Delight franchise in Chatswood and the family moved to Killara, where Rina attended Killara High School. Although Rina achieved successful Higher School Certificate results, which enabled her to gain entry to Griffith University to study Business and Events Management in 2021, she was not overly enamoured of school. She always chafed against the rules, which tried to enforce a “one size fits all” strategy for education. One of the highlights of her school years was an exchange with a French-Canadian family in 2009 when she was in Year 10. She lived for five months in a small community called St Hubert, outside Montreal, in Quebec province.

   A love of travel is central to Rina’s character and, only a year into her degree at Griffith University, she left and travelled back to Canada to the small hamlet of Inglis in Manitoba, where she worked at various jobs in the local ski fields in order to allow her to indulge her passion for snowboarding. The wanderlust was in Rina’s DNA, having travelled with her parents on a backpacking holiday through New Zealand when she was only seven months old. After running out of money in Canada, Rina returned home and worked in the family’s bakery business, now expanded with the addition of a second franchise at St. Ives, in order to earn enough money to fund the next overseas trip. Towards the end of 2013, she had saved enough to take what would prove to be one of the most significant trips of her life, a trip to India where she would meet Raj, whom she would marry in April 2015.

   Rina set out in late 2013 on a volunteer adventure trip to India, travelling to Delhi, Agra, Jaipur and the foothills of the Himalayas in northern India. Husband to be, Raj Kumar, was one of the guides on the trip and Rina admits that at the outset he was strict and bossy and neither she, nor the group, took to him at first. However, in the end, he won them all over. Rina returned to Australia and began a new Business degree at UTS but lasted only one semester. In the next twelve months she made 48 flights, almost all of them to India to see Raj. In April 2015 the couple were married in Raj’s hometown on the Indian/Pakistani border, followed by a big reception with her family in Mumbai. In February 2016, Raj received his visa to Australia and, later that year, permanent residency,

   At this same time, in early 2016, Rina was seeking a career change and she landed a job with Strata Partners as an Administration Assistant. Whilst in this role, Leisl Nutt showed her the basics of strata management and Rina proved to be a fast learner. When strata manager Bronwyn Dutton’s assistant resigned, Rina was given the role. In August 2016 she began a Business Administration degree at Macquarie University which she completed in November 2021.

   In September 2017, Rina left Strata Partners and spent some time at Strata Choice as the Corporate Services Assistant, but the desire to manage a strata portfolio saw her begin a role as a trainee Strata Manager at Bright and Duggan in November 2018. After only four months in this role, the late Phil Duggan appointed Rina as a Strata Manager, with a portfolio of 36 buildings. Initially, for just over twelve months, Rina’s assistant was Mascha Ponsa and, then, in May 2020, Louis Goldsmith took over that role. They managed the portfolio together and Rina fully acknowledges the contribution of Louis in her gaining the SCA(NSW) “Strata Manager of the Year” award in 2021. Louis Goldsmith is now a fulltime strata manager at Bright and Duggan in his own right.

   Her rising status in the strata industry in NSW was confirmed in late 2021 when the SCA(NSW) Education Committee asked Rina to join Board member, Colin Grace in recording a 90 minute webinar on building defects, which was very well received.

   Such stellar success early in her career has not made Rina Kumar complacent. In fact, the opposite is true. In May this year, looking for more challenges, she and Raj made the decision to move to Melbourne and she resigned her position with Bright and Duggan. Although she has nothing lined up work-wise, she is keen to work in the strata industry in Victoria, after some travel in Tasmania and Asia. 

   Rina’s father, Hiren, has been her role model for business. He is a clear thinker and very financially savvy and, further down the track, she would like to follow in his footsteps and branch out into her own business, although, whether that’s in strata or not, remains to be seen. However, that does not mean that there won’t be more travel and adventure, especially as the world starts to open up again after the pandemic. In addition, as an avid snowboarder, she is keen to explore the snowfields of the Victorian Alps and, in a nod to another of her passions, scuba diving, to explore the world beneath the waves in new spots off Victoria.

   One thing you can be certain of is that you will hear more about Rina Kumar in the strata world, no matter what state she is working in. You can also be certain that she and Raj will continue to travel the world looking for more exciting experiences and lots of new adventures.