Rebel Black is a powerhouse in rural innovation and community development. Based in Lightning Ridge, NSW, she describes herself as a human agronomist and syntropic entrepreneur—guiding growth in both people and place. Over the past 25 years, she’s helped secure and direct over $50 million in funding toward community-led projects, social enterprises, and strategic economic development across Australia. 

As founder of THE RW Collection, Rebel nurtures community-minded entrepreneurs at the succession and legacy phase of their business journey, ensuring knowledge, wealth, and wisdom remain rooted in rural places. Her landmark achievement, a successful “community exit” when her business was acquired by THE Rural Woman Cooperative, which she co-founded and set a precedent for regenerative, inclusive enterprise in the bush. 

Her national and global recognition includes being named NSW Woman of the Year Finalist and receiving the Jury’s Choice Award at the Global Women in Tech Challenge in Paris. Whether she’s hosting retreats, delivering workshops, or planting syntropic food forests, Rebel’s work is grounded in a commitment to help communities, and the people in them, #thrive, #heal, and #evolve. 

From her opalfield home, she and her husband also run a micro-business incubator and creative performance space, championing regenerative living and place-based enterprise. 

Rebel believes in the power of locals to shape global futures and she’s showing how it’s done.