Owner / Manager Shari Agnew
Sommerville Smash Repairs, QLD
If you ask anyone at Sommerville Smash Repairs who keeps the wheels turning, the answer is simple: Shari Agnew. Officially she’s office manager and director. Unofficially she’s the business’s operating system.
Shari’s role is almost impossible to box in because she does, quite literally, a bit of everything. BAS, super, payroll tax, insurance contracts, invoicing, batch invoicing, chasing payments, checking margins, managing sublet mark-ups — she’s across it all. If there’s a question about an insurer rule or a contract clause, she’s the one people turn to. If something doesn’t reconcile, she finds it. If something needs fixing, she fixes it.
She didn’t come into the industry with a business degree. In fact, she was once a hairdresser and then a travel agent. What she does have is more than 30 years of on-the-job experience alongside husband Chris, growing the business step by step, learning the hard way. And that growth has been significant.
Under Shari and Chris' stewardship, Sommerville Smash Repairs has expanded significantly with 30-plus staff across three workshops, picking up two Paint & Panel Bodyshop awards along the way. That doesn’t happen by accident. It happens because someone is watching every number, every contract and every moving part.
But numbers are only half the story. Shari knows every team member by name. She knows their partners, their kids and what they did on the weekend. She jumps into roles when someone’s sick or on leave. She works late if that’s what it takes to get payroll done or batches submitted. She’s the first to offer help, even if it puts her behind on her own workload.
Her nominator describes her as the “SSR Bible” — the go-to source of truth for the business — and it’s not hard to see why. There’s a deep level of trust in the way she operates. Insurance companies know they’ll be billed correctly. Suppliers know they’ll be paid on time. Staff know she’ll advocate for them.
She’s also active in the broader industry, attending Car Craft and MTAQ events and showing up wherever she can. She understands that thriving businesses don’t operate in isolation.
What set Shari apart in judging was not just how hard she works — though by all accounts, that’s formidable — but the impact of that work. The scale of growth. The financial discipline. The cultural stability. The fact that she has helped build something substantial and sustainable, largely from behind the scenes.
And if you asked her about it? She’d probably shrug and say she’s just showing up to work. Which, as anyone in this industry knows, is rarely “just” anything at all.