Youth Policy - The Future of Perth Business Has Never Looked Brighter

7/28/2019 Youth Policy - The Future of Perth Business Has Never Looked Brighter

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Youth Policy: The future of Perth business has never looked brighter

Matt Brennan

Sebastian Hyde, Jake Hammer and Mary Novakovich are all yet to blow out the candles for their 26th

birthday but in the words of Barbados singer Rhianna, they all really do “shine bright like adiamond.” These fresh faced business leaders of the future will likely help shape the business

landscape of Perth and Australia for that matter, and with great pleasure I will deliver their insights.

The interview was designed to be a symphony of epiphanies, where ideas are free flowing and

everyone is part of the collaborative process which modern workplaces are striving towards, and this

only compliments the way these individuals like to do business. Young business leaders are not

immune to car troubles however, so Mary had to be interviewed at a later timeslot, which was a

shame as the cohesion and understanding between Jake and Sebastian was inspiring, akin to that of

13 times Men’s Grand Slam Doubles winning pair the Bryan brothers and would have been enhanced

further with another bright mind like Mary.

Sebastian Hyde’s official title is executive at Vantage Performance, where he and his colleagues work

with their clients to realise their potential and avoid foreclosure, in some instances assuming an

interim CEO position. This role came about after more than four distinguished years at Price

Waterhouse Coopers (PwC) where he was a valuable member of the Research and Development

team and rose to the level of senior consultant. Sebastian was so influential that he once single-

handedly came up with an idea that demonstrated PwC’s value proposition so clearly it secured a

sceptical client. “I came up with the idea of the company trialling our advice on a discrete project (nofee), which would allow us to provide concrete evidence of the value we could deliver. I took the

proposal to my manager and he encouraged me to propose the idea to the client. Through a

combination of hard work, good planning and luck we created immense value for the client through

our trial project and secured a very valuable client as a result.”

Outside of the boardroom, rock climbing is Sebastian’s main obsession and the mountain he desires

to scale is El Capitan, a 3000 foot goliath in the Yosemite national park. Sebastian embraces the

Anima Sana in Corpore Sano (ASICS) logic of sound body sound mind, and can usually be found at

least twice a week conditioning himself at one of the indoor rock climbing centres in Perth, and if

you had visited the indoor rock climbing centre Rock Face in Northbridge early last year, chances areyou would have come across a creation that he and Jake Hammer engineered, Rock Sauce, a hand



lotion which provides soothing post climb relief. The product is no longer on the shelves as Sebastian

conceded the market was “too niche” and “was dominated by a single competitor” so the product

wasn’t ever viable, but the taste of running his own business has left Sebastian hooked.

Jake Hammer is the living testament to the adage; the world is your oyster , and his globetrotting

path has seen him travel to both Chicago and Chennai for business. After finishing his property and

finance degree at Curtin, Jake decided he wanted to be a trader in the US, “so here I was going

around Chicago in a suit with a heap of resumes to companies I had mapped out, I had basically two

weeks to find a job and I was putting in long hours each day to make sure I could live my dream in

Chicago. Sure enough, by going that extra mile (11,000 miles) I ended up working for my number

one preference.” This number one preference happened to be Geneva Trading where Jake learnt

how to compete as an oil and gas futures trader. “I was always trying to get out of my comfort zone,testing the waters and aiming for something that I didn’t always think was possible, I never have any

regrets when I follow my dreams.” Jake seemingly had the Midas touch, where every trade he

touched went up three-fold. Until that global financial earthquake occurred, swiftly reshaping Jakes

career path. “The GFC was a great lesson in humility for me, and one of my last memories of Chicago

was me standing at a bus stop with basically just a suitcase and a plane ticket waiting to fly back to

Perth.”

Returning to Curtin with a large dent in his confidence and savings only galvanised Jake to complete

his Masters, where upon completion he accepted an internship in India to write a report on the

retail car finance environment. “My role was to dress up in a suit and pretend to be an executivewho planned to move to Chennai, I visited the major car companies like Renault, Skoda, Volkswagen

and Mercedes… and not long after I submitted my report to the manager. He said he was so pleased

with it that he would adopt my report as the template for all of the major hubs in India.” At present

Jake is a respected consultant, fittingly enough, at Oyster Consulting where his motivation and drive

which served him so well overseas, is benefitting him just as much domestically. “Improving

businesses is what gets me out of bed in the morning, and when employees come up to me and say

‘where have you been all our lives?’ because of the changes I have made to their organisation, the

sense of accomplishment and that of genuinely helping people really embodies what business is all

about to me.”



Mary Novakovich is the opposite of dial-up internet. Her reliability and efficiency are her stand out

traits and she recently confessed that she was involved in so many extra-curricular volunteer

activities that she had to take a step back. “Even for a woman the amount of multi-tasking I was

doing was too much so I am taking a much needed break from everything and discovering what’s

most important to me.” With impressive academic credentials in all her marketing units, Mary

decided to take electives in fashion design and brand management even though these subjects are

quite difficult to achieve really high grades in. “I wanted to make my degree personal and if I emerge

with a really good CWA (course weighted average) then that’s just a bonus.”

Whilst concurrently participating in the Deloitte Dream Team competition, Mary entered theBusiness Icon Competition in Perth which requires participants to raise as much money as possible

for a designated charity (last year it was a micro-finance charity in South East Asia) using original

ideas whilst adhering to a difficult 40 hour time frame. The judging panel were impressed with Mary

and her idea, which generated well over $500 through the use of a bronze, silver and gold tiered

sponsorship program on Facebook. In fact, the judges were so impressed with Mary she was invited

to compete as a finalist in the National Business Icon Competition to showcase her entrepreneurial

prowess and was awarded return airfares to Melbourne. Although Mary did not win overall, she

later mingled with fashion icon Peter Alexander and that in itself was a highly rewarding experience.

To see what makes this trio of future business leaders tick, a multi-choice scenario was thrown atthem:

a) You can run your own business earning $5 million with a 25% chance of success

b) You can run your own business earning $2.5 million with a 50% chance of success

c) You can run your own business earning $1.25 million with a 75% chance of success

Jake was the first to realise how complex this question really is.“Putting on a pure finance hat, they

all seem pretty equal.” Sebastian added, “I would take none of these options, in reality I would go

for a business earning $500 million with a 1% chance of success.” Mary was also undecided when

these options were put forward. To break the deadlock, option d was introduced



d) You can be employed by company XYZ making a guaranteed $750,000 p.a. but in a role that

does not interest you.

Since there was no timeframe specified, everyone came up with the same overall idea of being

employed by company XYZ for two or more years and reinvesting the money saved to improve the

success rate attainable in option a. Mary also added “option d is really just a stepping stone to mydream so I’m willing to make the sacrifice.” This concept of time sacrificing is obviously more

advantageous to someone at the beginning of their business careers and is one Sebastian is happy to

make. “I’m willing to risk a lot of time if it means I get to live my dream. My dream is to create

immense value through businesses; I don’t just want to turn bad businesses into good businesses, I

want to create elite businesses, I want to create value that inspires others to become involved in

business creation and development”.

More than just a means of free childcare for young couples, grandparents and baby boomers still are

the lynchpins of industry, as they occupy most of the top positions across all sectors. Jake noted that

it’s quite easy to get to lower-middle management of an organisation pretty quickly, “but that final

ascension may take 10-15years.” To this Sebastian chimed in “the only real accelerate path is to get

out there and start your own business.” Both Jake and Sebastian have had terrific management

along the way, although at times it has been less than perfect. “I think as I grow older” and here Jake

paused “although I’m not that old, but I’ve learned that senior management is not infallible and

whenever I work with senior management it is always important for me to put my own lens on the

situation as well.” Sebastian added, “Rather than just sit at my desk and be confused by a senior

management decision, I prefer to learn from the situation. I often take notes which I reflect on and

use to shape my own decisions in the future.”

To Mary, the idea of being able to shape her own destiny is what appeals to her when running her

own business, “I want to make a meaningful contribution to the world and a difference to my life

and those around me.” At this point Mary leaned in and whispered conspirationally, “but I also want

to wake up when I want to and not run on somebody else’s clock.” One of Mary’s planned business

ventures is to start a coffee shop in Indonesia incorporating Australian standards, and utilise the low

start-up costs which Mary estimates to be around $3,000 AUD. “I don’t expect this first venture to

be hugely profitable, but the flip side is with such low operational costs I expect the initial losses will

be quite small.”

Even from an early age these prodigies and future business leaders were aiming for the skies.

Amongst the cohort, Sebastian wanted to be an astronaut, Jake wanted to be a pilot and Mary just

wanted to be famous. Each of these individuals was already thinking of reaching for the stars, or just

becoming one. Sebastian, Jake and Mary all have aspirations to start their own business, but what

really embodies their personalities is a genuine desire to give back. Jake for instance as an alumnus

of Curtin is offering to give coaching, mentoring and run seminars for the CBS Wall Street Chapter,

providing “hard core analysis” and encouraging anyone who is doing a bachelor of commerce to join

the chapter. It was the popular rapper Lil’ Wayne who captured this heightened sense of perception

and perspective that these young leaders have in his hit song How to Love, “Oh, you had a lot of

dreams that transformed to visions; the fact that you saw the world affected all your decisions.”

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Youth Policy - The Future of Perth Business Has Never Looked Brighter