An ever-expansive First Nations business sector has grown three times faster than non-Indigenous cohort and is poised to create generational wealth and sustain economic prosperity across Aboriginal communities.

The rate of growth in the past decade has set the scene for Indigenous businesses to leverage opportunities and accelerate economic opportunities even further ahead of the Brisbane 2032 Olympics.

Corporate organisations and government departments joined Indigenous entrepreneurs and business leaders to hear how First Nations businesses were poised to harness momentum and opportunities ahead of the Olympic Games and other major events this decade at Supply Nation's annual Connect event.

More than 2000 delegates are expected at the two-day think-fest focused on Indigenous business growth and culminating in the organisation's Supplier Diversity Awards on Thursday night.

Supply Nation CEO Kate Russell's opening address at the two-day conference's opening Knowledge Forum event on the lands of the Turrbal and Jagera peoples in Meanjin resonated with delegates, setting the scene for the 2024 theme of legacy.

"In the past 12 months, Supply Nation has been thinking deeply about impact," she told the audience at the Brisbane Convention & Exhibition Centre.

"What do we want to leave for those that come after us?"

This year marks the 15th anniversary of Supply Nation, an organisation that began as a three-year pilot to support Indigenous business growth and now has honed its strategic focus, helping the long-term sustainability and economic empowerment of its 5000 members and the wider Indigenous business sector.

"Supply Nation was established as the Australian Indigenous Minority Supplier Council … created to support the growth and success of Indigenous business," Ms Russell said.

The organisation is now critical to the sector's recent growth surge, providing invaluable infrastructure to leverage economic engagement.

Ms Russell also celebrated the community that has grown around Supply Nation, acknowledging the crucial role of partnerships such as recent MOUs with the Business Council of Australia and Austrade, and its key relationship with the Commonwealth Bank, which promotes Indigenous lending and engagement and is designed to complement wealth creation among First Nations people and businesses.

The first day of the conference – Australia's biggest trade event for Indigenous businesses – was told how the First Nations sector now contributes more than $16 billion to the national economy each year, employs more than 116,000 people and pays upwards of $4 billion in wages each year.

Michelle Evans, director of Dilin Duwa Centre for Indigenous Business Leadership, told First Nations business leaders at the forum they were "just smashing it out of the park".

"The Indigenous business sector is growing at the rate of 8.29 per cent year-on-year," she said.

"That's for over 10 years and in comparison to the non-Indigenous business sector, which grows at about three per cent each year."

Ms Evans said she believed the Indigenous business sector would continue to grow, and businesses could eventually create intergenerational wealth for First Nations people.

"Our people are business owners, job creators, innovators and exporters, custodians and entrepreneurs," she said.

"We're going to see business people starting to hand their businesses on to the next generation, we're going to see live intergenerational wealth transfer in our community.

"When I think about the next 15 years, I'm starting to think about how we all contribute to an economically powerful Indigenous … clearly through healthy and very innovative businesses, by employing mob and Australians all over.

"So I'm very excited about the next 10-15 years, and I think the state of the sector is very healthy."

Queensland First Nations Tourism Council deputy chair Cameron Costello said businesses must make the most of the momentum building across industry and governments at all levels, to engage with First Nations people on major projects.

Mr Costello also highlighted the unique and huge opportunity the sector had to leverage growth and momentum ahead, during and after the 2032 Brisbane Olympics, in the context of wealth creation.

"We're in a great position, but one where we have to mobilise collectively – industry, community, government – and take advantage and put things in place so we can take that next step," he said of the event.

A member of Brisbane's Olympic and Paralympic Games Legacy Committee, Mr Costello said the sector was in prime position to harness opportunities from the world's second biggest sports event.

"Two key things are leadership and legacy at the moment, and there's growing awareness of putting and empowering First Nations voices and seats at the table," he said.

"The opportunities around 2032, we can see the potential there ... there's momentum and excitement around that."

But the sector still faces challenges, such as access to capital, with many Indigenous entrepreneurs-in-waiting requiring lending to kickstart their businesses.

Carol Vale co-founded her consultancy firm, Murawin, a decade ago and said her experience along the way had inspired her to support others with the same dream.

"I've always tried to bring other women along - Indigenous women first and foremost - but other women too," she said.

Newly appointed Supply Nation co-chair Damien Barnes said there would always be challenges ahead for the sector.

"Supply Nation is unique. It's precisely that uniqueness that makes it so valuable, but also so vulnerable," he said.

He highlighted specific issues Indigenous businesses currently face, such as institutional bias, access to capital and the rise of 'black cladding', with regulations likely to limit the illegal practice.

"We're looking to tackle black cladding head-on," Mr Barnes said, emphasising the board's commitment to protecting the integrity of Indigenous businesses.

Visit National Indigenous Times and the Indigenous Business Review on Thursday and Friday for all the results and interviews with winners from the 2024 Supplier Diversity Awards.

More information about Connect 2024 is available online.