Team
Pru Cook
Founder
Pru grew up on a farm in the Wimmera and founded Nine Creeks out of a desire to live and work in the region she loves and has always called home, without compromising on a professional career. She’s deeply connected to the community and passionate about showing that you don’t have to leave rural Australia to do impactful, high-quality work.
She brings systems thinking and a practical approach to strategy, facilitation, extension and project leadership, spanning agriculture, climate, community and regional development. She’s as comfortable in the paddock as she is in a boardroom and is known for asking the questions that get to the heart of an issue.
Working from the hyperlocal through to national and international projects, Pru partners with family farms, farming systems groups, research and development organisations, community groups, not-for-profits, corporates and all levels of government.
Alongside her consulting work, Pru serves on a range of boards and industry advisory groups, including family farm businesses. These roles keep her connected to the industries and communities she works with, while bringing practical governance experience to her consulting work.
Her focus is to make things practical, relevant and workable in the places they’re meant to happen.
Yarnie (Johanna) Couchman
Senior Consultant
Based in Creswick, north of Ballarat, Yarnie grew up on a farm outside Condobolin and later in Port Macquarie. Now raising her own young family regionally, she remains closely connected to agriculture and wants people to be able to build meaningful careers without leaving the communities they call home.
Yarnie brings over a decade of experience across agriculture, regional development and government. She's known for her ability to connect people and ideas, work through complexity, and make things clear and workable. Her work spans engagement, communications, extension, strategy and policy, with a particular strength in linking strategy to real-world delivery.
Her career includes project delivery in agricultural extension, and later as senior adviser to departmental executive leadership across regional development, resources, forestry and game — giving her a strong understanding of how decisions are made and how to translate that into practical action in regional contexts. Through her work with Nine Creeks over the past two years, she has partnered with not-for-profits, research and development corporations, government and community organisations.
Her focus is on connecting the dots, making things clear, and designing grounded solutions.
Collaborators & partners
At Nine Creeks, we work as a collaborative team, drawing on complementary skills and experience to tailor the right mix of expertise for each project. We also have a network of experienced partners, allowing us to assemble the right people to tackle diverse and complex projects across various sectors.
Work with us
If you have a project in mind or think we might be a good fit to work together, reach out.