From Working-Class Roots to Retail Leader - Mark Newman

In this episode of The Quest for Success Podcast, we sit down with Mark Newman for a thoughtful conversation on success, leadership and personal growth. Drawing from his journey from a working-class upbringing in England to a respected career in the retail industry, Mark shares how his definition of success has evolved beyond professional titles to focus on contentment, relationships and being a good human being.

He speaks openly about the influence of family values, early life experiences and education in shaping his work ethic and leadership style. Mark reflects on the lessons learned throughout his career, the importance of consistency and hard work, and why personal success ultimately outweighs professional achievement. He also offers insights into leading with openness, building inclusive teams and maintaining strong relationships in fast-paced business environments.

The conversation explores the challenges faced by the retail industry, particularly during COVID-19, and how adaptability and innovation became essential for survival and growth. Mark shares how the pandemic reshaped thinking around business strategy, leadership and opportunity.

This episode is a grounded reminder that success is a long game built on relationships, resilience and continuous learning. Mark’s vision for the future centres on staying curious, embracing innovation and leaving behind a legacy rooted in integrity, kindness and positive impact.


Key Takeaways
• Success is a long-term journey built on relationships.
• Personal success is more important than professional titles.
• Contentment in life is a true measure of success.
• Family values and upbringing shape leadership and work ethic.
• Hard work and consistency drive long-term growth.
• Leadership thrives on openness and inclusivity.
• Retail requires constant adaptability and resilience.
• COVID-19 created space for innovation and new thinking.
• Strong relationships are essential in business and life.
• Legacy is about character, not just career achievements.


Connect with Mark Newman
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/mark-newman-01456a14

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Transcript

right. Welcome back to the quest for success podcast. And thanks for tuning in once again. We always love it on the show when we get to sit down and have a chat with someone who we know quite well. And I'd say that's today's guest. We're joined by.

Mark Newman, who it's hard to put a title on Mark. feel like I'd say a retail veteran. was the ex CEO of Dymix. He's done a lot of work in the retail space. and yeah, really excited to sit down and chat with you. Yeah. got to meet Mark when Mark was at Auraton group and he was a CEO and, I had to do very hard negotiation and, when it's come to negotiation, he always wins.

I think I know Mark for the last 10 years plus and after Oraton we started doing some work with Dimex and when Mark came over to Dimex as the CEO. So Mark, there's a really nice story that we want to unfold and thank you for joining us today. Thank you for having me. I think it's been longer than 10 years because I was at Oraton from 2010 to...

wow. Yeah. 15 years now. 15. And Mark, this podcast is all about success. And so we need to start with a very fundamental question. And that is what does success actually mean to you? Okay. That's a, that's a good question. And I guess I sort of preface the conversation around, the fact that I don't necessarily think that I am successful. because I, I believe that you

You know, you can always, always do more and you can, you know, you can, you can always be more successful. Um, and I know that there are obviously a lot of people out there who were a hell of a lot more successful than, than I am. Um, so, um, yeah, I think ultimately for me, um, success comes in lots of different forms. Um, and actually for me personally,

Dylan Pathirana (04:52.268)
You know, being successful in my personal life and my family life is far more important than being successful in business or my work life. For most of us, obviously those two things are inextricably linked anyway. But ultimately, know, I believe success is about finding contentment. You know, if you can be content with

where you are, um, in both your personal life and your professional life, then I think that that's, that's a definition of success. I think that's a great, great place to start. And Mark, for us to understand the man who we're sitting down with today, we'd like to go back to the beginning. Can you take us through your kind of early upbringing and how you think your parents especially shaped who you've become? Sure. Yeah. Um, so I was born in, um, Guilford in Surrey in England.

long time ago in the mid sixties. and, yeah, my, parents were working class. My father was a painter and decorator, but had various different, different jobs, that, that he, that he did. My mother was a secretary. she worked in sort of law courts doing his legal secretary work, but, yeah, very working class. didn't own a property. lived in a, know, what?

what were called a council house, you know, at the time it happened to be in a very nice village outside Guilford. So, you know, wasn't, it was a relatively nice environment. but yeah, there wasn't a lot of, a lot of money around. and, but my parents got divorced when I was about eight years old. and my, my parents split up my, I have an elder sister and a younger brother and

my mother got custody of all three children. and my mother, and I not a hundred percent sure of the timing, but my mother had, started a relationship with, a chap who is, who's my stepfather, or became my stepfather who was in the, army in the British army. and again, he was, you know, just in, in the ranks. He wasn't an officer or anything like that. and.

Dylan Pathirana (07:18.351)
So when the divorce happened, separation happened, my brother, my sister and I went to live with my mother and my stepfather, um, in Germany, which is where he was, he was based at that point in time. Um, then after about, I think probably six months or so, my sister who was, would have been about 11 at the time. Um, she,

wanted to come back to, or go back to the, to the UK to spend some time with her best friend who, she'd kind of grown up with, who lived in a house near to us. And so my, you know, my mother let her go back. she spent time there with my father and, and this friend and never came back. right. so.

And eventually my father gained custody of my sister. so my sister grew up in a very different kind of environment and background to my brother and I, who, you know, stayed with my, with my mother, being in the army, the army is very transient. and, postings usually last for, a couple of years. My stepfather was in the.

Remy, who are the engineers who tend to be attached to other regiments. So they don't stay, you know, in particular places, particularly long time. And so we moved from Germany to the Outer Hebrides, which is sort of islands off the west coast of Scotland. British missile firing range there, which is the only reason why, why there's army there. Yeah. And, and so my mother decided that if we were going to continue to move around that

perhaps the best thing for my brother and I would be to go to boarding school. because, you know, we would never have been able to afford to, you know, to go to boarding school, my parents wouldn't have been able to afford to pay for me. But the army basically pays for, you know, kids to go to private school, to boarding school. And so that's what's happened. So my brother and I, I mean, I was nine, he was seven. We were, you know, shipped off to boarding school in England.

Dylan Pathirana (09:34.735)
basically kind of, know, where we sort of started our education in a private school environment. first at first today at a primary school and then in into secondary school and yeah, so that's kind of how it all started in London. So we were in, so initially, um, we were in, um, in Surrey, uh, in a place called Cobham, which is sort of south of London. Um, and then, uh, we went to secondary boarding school in, uh, Kent in

Yeah. Have you had anything to do with your father since separation? Yeah, so then that was interesting, but no, didn't really have any contact with him until my sister got married. And we were invited to her wedding, we sort of reconnected with her in her sort of late teen years.

And yeah, so I think the first time that I saw him after that was when I was about 18. Wow. But you studied together with your brother? But my brother and I kind of grew up together and my sister grew up separately. grew up, obviously, my father then remarried and his wife had children. So yeah, so very different kind of upbringing. So and then yeah, and then obviously school and I

was at boarding school in, in Kent, I said, when I got there, there were, um, it was boys only from, um, up to the sixth form in the UK. that's up to year 11, so up to the end of year 10. Um, and then we had girls in the sixth form. years 11 and 12. Um, I think it's completely coed now, but at that point, um, and so, um, yeah, I mean, I, I, I wasn't very,

I'm studious at school. was quite sporty. I was interested in sport. I played a lot of field hockey. I had a, used to play for the county for Kent County. I had an England trial under 18 trial in field hockey. And so was, and I play cricket in summer and stuff like that. So was kind of more interested in sport and, and the girls that then arrived in the, in the sixth form. And so I, I, you know, I didn't really study very hard.

Dylan Pathirana (11:57.657)
didn't do particularly well at my, in my A levels and therefore didn't get into university. right. So I, I, I, I got a degree later in life, so I didn't do it the usual route. and, so, So what did you do just after school? So then, so basically at school, I met my wife, Rachel, she, know, was she doing there in UK? basically her father worked for the United nations.

And he was based in Geneva. And so his, all of his five children were at boarding school in the UK. so Rachel had been at a, at another girl, all girls, boarding school, which she didn't like. so eventually persuaded her father to allow her to come and join the school that I was at. and so that was where we met. And so we met there and so, she

did study and did get into university. and so, when we left school, Rachel had taken a year out. moved to London. we, you know, shared a flat with her sister, one of her sisters and, and yeah, we worked in, we just worked in bars and restaurants. was working in a bar called Petament, a restaurant called Petament Park in Soho, which was kind of like

one of the first like cocktail bar hamburger type restaurants, kind of quality hamburger restaurants. And it was very busy. It was right next to a very famous nightclub called String Fellows. And I was working there. Rachel was working in hotel. And basically we did that for about six months and saved up enough money and just to go traveling. And then we traveled around Europe for about six months before she went to uni.

And then I thought, what am going to do now? But get a job. what was like when you were, suppose, at the end of your secondary schooling, was there any like idea of what you wanted to do somewhere down the line? No, no, no idea. And it's interesting because I had this conversation with a guy yesterday morning. and, and he, you know, younger guy, know, early, early forties or whatever. And he was asking me about planning. because I'm quite.

Dylan Pathirana (14:20.143)
disciplined when it comes to routine. And I've got a very kind of, you know, well regimented exercise routine and that type thing. But I've never been a planner. I've never been somebody who said, by now I want to be here, you know, I need to go for this, this year, I'm going to have these various. That's not, that's not in my, in my personality. For me,

you know, habits are something that you so I've never been a new year gonna do this kind of thing. know, habits to me have always been consistent, regular things that you do year in year out. Otherwise, they're not habits. Yeah, ultimately. And they're a way of living a way of a way of life. But I and I've obviously had ambition and I wanted to do things and there were certain things that I did want to do but I but I'm but I'm not I'm not a planner. Yeah.

So at that point in time, I had no idea. I just knew that I needed to get a job to earn some money because I, otherwise I would, you know, I'd have nowhere to live. how important do think that like early international exposure was obviously, you know, going from UK to Germany, to Scotland, like all that international exposure. Yeah, interesting. Uh, you know, and, and I think that probably had more influence on what I ended up doing and wanting to do than, than my parents.

because I think, you know, just back to your original question, I think about the, you know, the influence that my parents had on me. It's very hard to think about what that might've been apart from, you know, my mother had a very strong work ethic and she also, was very keen on appearance and, and, and that type of thing. But yeah, I don't know. because one of the, the one thing that I did realize that I wanted to do.

was to go and live and work abroad. And I don't know where that came from. And it may have come from, those, those early things, although, you know, that early kind of travel when I was young and the separation of my parents and going to live in Germany was actually quite traumatic. I don't know, you know, whether that would be something that I wanted to go and, know, that would have been an inspiration for that. But, but there was that. And the, the other thing that I do remember is that when I met my, wife, at

Dylan Pathirana (16:38.197)
at school, her father, they had as a family had traveled all over the world. so she's from New Zealand origin. Exactly. That's right. Well, her father, her parents from New Zealand. And, but but Rachel was born in, in Baghdad, in Iraq, at least because her father was based there in Baghdad at the time working for the United Nations. And so because of his job, they and because of where they came from,

they, every year would have home leave and, they would accumulate that kind of allowance and every two or three years do a big round the world kind of trip. And so they, you know, and so Rachel and I would sit there at school in the school library, looking at Atlas's and she'd say, I've been to Bali and I've been to Jakarta and I've been to Sri Lanka and I've been to the Maldives and I've, you all these places and, and I found that fascinating. So maybe there was a little bit of that too.

Yeah, what about your like, habit of like in routines? Do you think that you got that from living in a like a boarding school? Yeah, I don't I don't know. I think that habits. And again, it's interesting. was chatting to a guy at the in the pool this morning in the the showers, because he was we were talking about the fact that we are all kind of creatures of habit in terms of you know,

uses that shower, I use this shower kind of thing. And, know, and I, and to me, that type of thing is actually, you know, what, what routine and habit does is it eliminates the ambiguities of life. So, you know, if you've got that certainty that you know, that you're going to do a certain thing, then you don't have to think about all the other things that might go wrong, or might not happen or, get confused about because you know, that that's what you're going to do. So

I think that, having routine for me is very much about, it's a way of life, guess. And it's a way of kind of navigating life and, yeah, and taking the ambiguity out of life. That's good. Good. Mark, I want to understand how you like from this seemingly lost

Dylan Pathirana (18:56.537)
boy at the end of high school, how you kind of pivoted into or got into retail and yeah. Yeah, exactly. So again, there was another person in my life who was, who was quite influential early on. He was the father of one of the boys who was at the boarding school. Because when, when we were at boarding school, my brother and I, we, my parents couldn't afford to pay for us to fly back.

to Germany during school, half terms and stuff, generally the big holidays, yes, but half terms and things like that. so we would typically stay at school. And that wasn't unusual. There were other kids there. I there were, you know, I mean, it was crazy when you think about it, but you know, sort of six, seven year old kids from Nigeria who literally just, you know, were sent away and you know, that was it kind of thing. So there were other kids there.

over the holidays and the school was able to accommodate that. as I got a little bit older and got friendly with this one particular guy, he sort of said, Oh, why don't you come back to our place for, you know, for half term. And so I started to do that and got to know his parents and his father was a very, you know, charismatic man in the advertising industry, a bit of a bon-viver, you know, kind of larger than life. But he liked people and I think, you know, he

And he really kind of encouraged me to, you know, basically, guess, you know, I guess he instilled a certain sense of you can do whatever you want kind of thing. because I didn't really have any idea. And, and, and so, yeah, I, and he was the one that really encouraged me to get the job in the

in that, that restaurant, because his office was close by there in Soho. literally, I was having lunch with him one day. And he said, just go and walk in there and ask them now, you know, say, look, I'm looking for a job. And, know, and obviously, I was quite, I was actually quite introverted. I am an introvert, but I, was quite shy. And so, so he kind of pushed me to do that. And, and fortunately, they said, Yeah, we're looking for people. And, you know, and I made that work. So that was, that was good. But

Dylan Pathirana (21:10.639)
So I think that that gave me a certain sense of, I guess, confidence to be able to go and do that, that type of thing, to be able to walk in somewhere and say, know, you know, I'm looking for a job sort of thing. But the retail thing really happened by chance. had said, you know, we, Rachel gone to university, I had mucked around doing some, you know, silly jobs trying to be a

I was a courier at one point in time, was doing commission only selling advertising space over the phone. was horrible job. And then and then I ended up going away with a mate of mine, another mate of mine from school on on on holiday, traveling around Greece for a bit, and then came back and he had been working at a at a at a store in in in London in in at the end of Kings Road.

called Hackett and it been started by these two guys who really basically used to buy secondhand but you know, high end tailor made tailoring and that type of thing and they would go around they'd look through the obituary you know, notices in the Times and they would go and contact these old ladies, know, lady goldsmith or whatever.

whose husband had just died and, go to their, you know, big country houses and basically just buy up all of their husbands, you know, Savile Row tailor made tailoring tweed jackets and suits and tuxedo dinner suits and that type of thing. Shoes, shirts. mean, you know, and it was all very good quality stuff and they started a retail business. They started with one store down in on the Kings road that then eventually, you know, became

a cluster of five small stores all around that area. And this was in the, you know, the kind of early mid eighties when the whole Sloan Ranger thing that you may or may not have heard of kind of was it was a style of dressing that, know, kind of, guess, public school kids, you know, were dressing up in their dad's old tweed jacket and stuff like that. It kind of called trousers, it was just a thing, you know, it was a thing of the moment. And he was working at one of their stores.

Dylan Pathirana (23:26.383)
They had also just bought a business that was more established in London in Piccadilly called Cording's. It was a, you know, a similar kind of thing, you know, brand new ready made. yeah. And anyway, I just went, I got, managed to, you know, meet the owners of that and, uh, and started working there. And so I started working in one of the shops just as a sales staff. And then it did that for a while. And then it was made a manager of one of the stores. And then.

And then I kind of got a bit bored and thought, I, you know, I want to do more. And so I sort of had been looking up courses for, for like regional management roles, that type of thing, area management roles. And, and I went to one of the owners and said, look, I'd like to do this course. Would you pay for me to do it? and he said, well, actually we're looking for somebody to join the buying team to work on product and product development and sourcing and stuff like that. Do you want to do that? So that's, and that's what I did. And so, yeah, kind of, that's how got into retail.

And then what was the like pivot from that to, I feel like there's a big gap in my mind of like from that early stage to, know, I feel like the next job that I know of yours is like running Australia and New Zealand for a huge retail brand. what was that kind of thing? was a fair bit of time in between. I, so I worked, so I worked at Hackett for probably, I guess that would have been about eight, eight years or so.

through to my kind of late, late twenties. and at the time, so then basically I was kind of head of buying in the end and, and the business, you know, basically sort of exploded from, you know, secondhand into, know, just replicating that stuff ready made and, all from, from English factories to start with. then the, you know, it became so big that we ended up sourcing out of Portugal and China and Hong Kong and stuff like that.

And so I was kind of doing all of, became the head of buying towards the end. That business was then bought by the group that is now the Richemont group that owns brands like Panerai and IWC and, you know, Mont Blanc, but they also owned, and so basically they owned Dunhill, which was a British luxury goods brand. so they, so effectively at that point in time, the group was really just Dunhill.

Dylan Pathirana (25:49.615)
Cartier and Mont Blanc. And those are the three brands that this South African chap, Johann Rupert had bought. so I, and that was, guess, because I was doing, so I've been doing quite a bit of travel during my role at Hackett doing the sourcing. So I was traveling to Hong Kong to do sourcing there, we had a license agreement with a company in Japan called Dido who were a

fabric company, textile company. So I was traveling to Japan because I had to go and approve samples of the product that they were licensing. I was going to Europe a lot. so I think maybe I got a bit of a bug for travel as well because of that. And so I thought, well, okay, Dunhill, they're an international business. They've got offices in Japan and New York and around the world. And so maybe, you if I go and see if I can get a job with them, I'll be able to go and work abroad. And that's what I did. I eventually

I said to the guy was running the hacking business, look, I think I've come as far as I can here. I'd like to see if I can go and work at Dunhill. And yeah, I went and met with them and they had a role as a product manager of the menswear business, which involved basically sort of putting together a product development brief each season and then, you know, working with designers get the stuff made, sampled, selling it into each of the different, you know, companies around the world that you know, the different regional offices.

And then providing all the kind of marketing support for that, for the, for the companies to then, uh, each of the distribution companies to sell, sell that stuff. So that's how, that's what I did. And, know, I, kind of joined them thinking, oh, well, you know, maybe in about a year or so, I'll be able to get a job abroad. It took me about four years. Um, I think we had three different CEOs in that as well. that kind of got complicated. Um, but yeah, after about four years, I, I'd made it very clear, you know, during that time, um,

right up to the sort of CEO level that I was interested in getting a role out in one of the regions. And eventually I was offered I was actually offered two two roles one either to go to New York to work in the office there to be marketing director effectively for the new the US business, or to go to Tokyo to have the same role, you know, marketing director that encompassed sort of visual merchandising and merchandising and marketing.

Dylan Pathirana (28:11.915)
in, in Japan. And I, know, I really would have loved to have gone and worked in New York and whatever, but it was a, it was a bigger job. It was a much bigger market. Japan was, much more diverse. And so, I decided I I would do, do that one instead. So, that, so that, that's, then I moved to, so I moved to Japan. and yeah, I was working with a, the guy who was the, you know, managing director of the, Japan region.

he then got, you know, moved to run the Asia Pacific office out of Hong Kong. and he said, you know, will you, will you come with me? and I moved to Hong Kong originally as marketing director. And then eventually he took on responsibility for both Asia pack and Japan. And so he needed an Asia pack MD. And so, you know, I became managing director of the Asia pack region.

And so that was kind of what enabled me then when we decided to move down to Australia to kind of apply for, know, C-suite type kind of roles. Yeah. Before you go to Australia, I mean, you came from just a retail, a sales guy to CEO level, MD level. you think what are the key contributors to get to that? yeah.

Yeah, I mean, I guess ultimately, I would say just hard work. Honestly. I know it's not as simple as that. Yeah. You've got to be able obviously to get on with people both above you and below you. I heard recently, I think it was, is it Jason Huang, who's the Jensen Huang of Nvidia? Yeah. He was saying somebody asked him the same question and you know, his answer was

Don't get fired and don't get bored. And I actually think that those are, that's pretty, pretty good too. Because again, if I look back on, have been fired a couple of times by the way. So I think a lot, people have, but, but I think the don't get bored things really, really important as well, because I have been in a position a few times where I thought, okay, you know, I'm, I'm not motivated anymore because I'm not learning anymore. And I'm not moving. I don't feel like I'm kind of moving forward. And

Dylan Pathirana (30:35.757)
you know, some of that obviously is, you know, to do with organizations in terms of making sure that they, you know, that they keep people trained, etc. But a lot of that is has to come from within. And, you know, I don't think you can rely on organizations to manage your career for you, you know, I think you've got to you've got to it's got to come from within. so if you

If you have a need or a desire to continue to be doing something different and learning. so that really, for me, I think was the key thing is that I certainly, I put in a lot of hours and I, you know, and I, I probably put in more hours than most of my contemporaries in the jobs that I did. But also I was keen to keep moving and

And I was able to do that, you know, every couple of years I moved into a different role. you know, they were always roles that were, giving me a broader experience. so yeah, I think, you know, ultimately it's about just having, the ambition, but working hard, you've to put yourself in a position where people say, okay, well, we'll give him the job rather than her the job, her the job rather than him the job. Yeah. Yeah. Sure.

I want to know like leading big brands, especially kind of like luxury retail brands in a world today where it's like, there's so much fast fashion and like products are everywhere. How do you kind of steer the ship to really differentiate a brand? Yeah. In the context of luxury, you think or you mean? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I I think it's, I think it's actually relatively easy.

because I think we have learned over the last sort of 20 years or so that fast fashion certainly has a place. And what fast fashion has done is it's made fashionable clothing and clothing in general affordable for a much broader, maybe affordable ultimately, but it has created this con this idea of disposability as well and certainly contributing to a massive, you know, kind of

Dylan Pathirana (32:50.34)
landfills and that type of thing. it has a purpose. Luxury is very different to that. And luxury brands actually can only survive and only exist if their product is true to what it says it is. Because you can't fake that type of thing. You can't say that

this handbag or this suit is brilliantly handmade, and it's going to last forever and it falls apart, right? You know, you can't do that. you know, the concept of luxury really ultimately is about, you know, is about longevity. It's in everything to a certain extent, but certainly in terms of I mean, I have pairs of shoes that I've owned for 30 years, but are still just as good as they were when I, you know, when I bought them. I got

you know, clothing suits and things like that, that I've had for 20 odd years or so. And I think, you know, the concept of luxury generally around brands is two things. It's about longevity, both in terms of the quality of the product lasting and being fit for purpose, but also in terms of style as well. so, you know, lot of those things, you know, those shoes, I can wear them to date, they don't look about the ordinary, they don't look like you're wearing something from

you know, Charles Dickens or whatever. it's, there's, still, there's styles and shapes and things like that. That's still, are still kind of classic and that type of thing. yeah, you know, luxury brands are very much about, you know, ensuring that that message around, timelessness and, quality are, you know, front and center and, and that's why they work. And you mentioned in the previous point, you know,

A lot of your success has been driven around being able to maintain these kinds of relationships, both up and down. And so I want to get your insights from, you know, obviously leading some big teams across the world. A, what do you think your leadership style is and what has been like the biggest takeaway, like in terms of leadership? Okay. Um, I mean, I guess in terms of my leadership style, what I would say is that I am, um, I'm very open.

Dylan Pathirana (35:11.58)
I am very, inclusive. and, I am not a directive leader. there are times, and of course you have to be directed. but I have always, always said to my, my teams that I'm very happy for them to.

find their own way in their their role and and and find a way that works best for them. But I'm always there if they need to check in, are not sure about something, you know, look, look for some advice. I always had an open door policy. And I think the other thing that I've had feedback from people on is that I'm very consistent in terms of my, you know,

feedback communication, my behavior. Do you think that leadership style evolved over the years? Yes. Yeah, very much so. And certainly as I got older and matured, my style was more relaxed. Yeah. And that's, that's a positive thing. And I was able to

let go a little bit more in the early days, I was probably more involved or or controlling is not really the right word. But you know, if you have responsibility for a business, then you've got to find ways to make sure that you can deliver what that business is looking for. And so certainly, as I as I got older, I did become more relaxed and I was

I believe a better leader as a result of that allowing people to have more, more, freedom. But yes, and yes, exactly that that that's right. But then also, I do fundamentally believe that the people are also looking for direction. Yeah. And so, you know, individuals do thrive under under direction as well. But obviously, there's got to balance, there's got to be a balance. Yeah.

Dylan Pathirana (37:33.402)
Definitely. And then your your latest role has been, you know, leading the ship of Dimmick's CEO of Dimmick's. And, you know, it's got a tremendous 140 year history. I want to know how you balance that history and legacy whilst also being able to innovate and, you know, create growth opportunities. Yeah, it's difficult balance. It is but but again,

all businesses have to continue to kind of innovate and evolve. And even though Dimox has been around for, 140 plus years, during that time, the, you know, the brand has evolved many, many times and had various different iterations from, you know, being an importer of books from, from the UK, you know, back in the late 1800s, out of a single store in in Sydney, to

starting a franchising model, which helped the company and the brand expand nationally to eventually adopting e commerce and an omnichannel business. So even a know, even a brand of that of that of that longevity has had to had to innovate, you know, many, times over over the years, or brands do and

you know, you look at talking about luxury brands, I mean, if you look at brands like Gucci and Prada and Burberry, for example, Burberry is a classic example, the amount of innovation and the changes that have happened in that business over their very long history is huge. And what that means is, all those businesses do go through peaks and troughs, because it's very difficult to maintain upward movement all the time.

But yeah, it is a fine balance. think the important thing is to stay, always stay true to what the brand values are and what the brand promises. And Dimox's brand promise is very much about, you know, we would use the expression, the well-read people. And the promise with it, when you go into a Dimox store is that the, you know, the confidence that, you know, when you walk into that store, you've got a range of product that's as broad as possible.

Dylan Pathirana (39:47.508)
and that you've got staff who, who read books, who know what they're talking about, who are able to give you a recommendation or give you advice on, on whatever you're, you're looking for. and that's, know, that, and that's stay true from, from the very early days. but there's certainly things that you can do, which we did do at the DemoX around, you know, retail store environment and, and innovation there and, and, you know, self checkout and kiosks and.

all of that type of thing that you can still bring into that type of environment. want to go back a little bit back. Like, I just want to know, I mean, you travel a lot, but then you decided, well, I want to move to Australia to settle in. What was the reason behind that? It was really a decision, a lifestyle decision for our family. We were, we'd been in Hong Kong for about eight years.

We have three, three daughters. eldest was in 14 or so at the time. and, and being in Hong Kong as an expat, it's a very transient environment. know, her every, you know, every summer, you know, she'd say, Oh, well, you know, Amy's leaving this year and you know, she's my best friend.

So constantly like our friends were leaving and, you know, being posted elsewhere. And so there was that. And so we kind of were, you know, cognizant that we needed to really be somewhere for their, you know, their later education years where they could put down some roots and build long lasting friendships with people. Hong Kong was becoming increasingly polluted and you know, there were more and more kind of

smoggy days than non smoggy days. So we thought, well, this is probably not really good from a health perspective. But it was really more, you know, putting out some roots. Because I'm from the UK. Rachel's family, all that old, you know, being from New Zealand, but that had actually retired initially in the UK, but then moved over here to Australia. I got fed up with the weather in the UK. And so her family were here. Yeah. And so was really go back to the UK or come down here. so I mean, that was a very

Dylan Pathirana (42:04.342)
easy decision from a lifestyle perspective, a little bit more challenging career wise, because it's a very small market here, we know particularly for you know, in the luxury goods industry that I've seen. But yeah, that's why we decided to move and I, you know, I was on six months notice in my job. So I kind of realized that if in order for us to move, you know, over the the December period, so the kids could start school here in the new school year, Southern Hemisphere school year.

that I needed to kind of have a notice in and just see, you know, and hope I found a job by the time I got here. Yeah. Which I, which I, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. And while we're on the topic of family, you know, your definition of success was largely around, you know, your personal success rather than business success. How did you, you know, leading these big teams and big brands, how did you also make sure you made time for that personal success and family? Yeah. And I, and I probably didn't that.

as much as I, as I should have done in those early years. So when I was, you know, even when I was working in London, I was traveling a lot for work. And then when I moved to Japan and Hong Kong and Hong Kong, I was traveling every week. So yeah, I did. So I didn't really that that much then. But since moving here, I've

I've tried to make up for that as much as I as I could. But but but again, you know,

family, you know, successful family life isn't just about time either spent together, it's about making sure that when you spend that time, there's quality there. And, and, yeah, and, and, and also, I fundamentally believe that that, you know, my success, whatever that success was from a from a professional perspective is 110 %

Dylan Pathirana (44:06.946)
also due to my wife and my relationship with my wife and the stability around that. are there any or I suppose earlier in your, you know, as a father, were there any values that you were trying to impart on your kids? I think really just work hard and, and, you know, and, and, yeah, put as much as you can into it into, you know, whatever you do. I think really, that's the that's really the most important thing.

And, you know, it's, I know it's very, it's very easy to say, you know, that we should be telling people that they can do anything they want and all that kind of thing. But the reality is that that's not always the case. And I think sometimes that can be damaging in a way when you set expectations for your children that they can't achieve or don't want to achieve or for whatever reason that doesn't happen. So I think it's, it's really about just supporting them in whatever they choose to do. and, and just being, being there for them. Yeah.

So again, coming to Australia, transition from Hong Kong to Australia, and also working in a public company. What was that transition like? Yeah, I was interesting. I'd come from a global matrix organization that had very, very efficient processes and systems.

and, you know, came, came to, into the Oriton group. was initially, running the Ralph Lauren business and the Ralph Lauren business was a license, you know, being long-term 20 plus year license that Oriton group had had. when I came into that role, I knew that that license was going to be taken away, within sort of, you know, four, four years or so. and, but.

But actually, you know, so I came in, it was a smaller organization.

Dylan Pathirana (46:07.596)
It was, it was my first female boss. Yeah. In my career, which was fantastic. And I, you know, learned a huge amount from, from Sally, who was running the company at the time. You know, significantly smarter than me and, but just a very, very different way of thinking and a completely different way of, of leading and whatever, which initially I found quite

quite challenging because it wasn't as it was, it was a very, there was much less structure. And, and I did, I did find that that challenging to start with, but, but, you know, but I leaned into it and, and, you know, learned that and I, and I developed as a result of that. But yeah, it was, it was just as much more environment, but, but it was, but it was good. And I, you know, I enjoyed it and I, to a certain extent, I was enjoying not having the

you know, the crazy kind of frenetic kind of environment that we had in Hong Kong, in particular, where the work culture there is, you know, is very intense. And so, you know, it was, it was, was quite enjoyable from that, from that perspective. I always want to ask this question from someone because I remember early days when I engaged Auraton, this is around 2008, 2009, probably a little bit.

earlier than you joined, maybe 10. When we pitching to Oraton about getting to contest loyalty and they just closed the door pretty much, saying, well, we don't want to go into online. You've gone through this different kind of journey, So your fashion, high-end fashion brands, like they were pretty much stores and then...

now like, you know, transition into that online space. There was a bit of a changing of thinking, right? Yes. I'm sure you've gone through that journey, right? Yeah. What was like? Yeah, I mean, challenging, really. I mean, I think that, again, you know, one of I guess, one of the things that I would, if I sort of reflect back on my career, one of the things that that that I found challenging,

Dylan Pathirana (48:32.59)
was

managing technology in organizations. And I don't mean that in the sense that I don't understand technology, because I do understand technology, but I can't possibly be an expert on every element of technology. And as more and more types of technology have become available to businesses, it's very hard to stay on top of everything. know, mean, you know, we've now got we got obviously, you know, AI and, know, and I'm learning even now as much as I can about AI.

It's just, it's another element. And I think one of the biggest challenges for leaders of organizations is picking the right people when it comes to technology, picking the right CTO, that, you know, that type of thing, because really it is probably the single, area of, of, business and, that, that actually, you know, you can't know everything and you really need to rely on people, you know, most of the other aspects of the businesses that I've been doing, whether it's

you know, finance, whether it's, you know, you know, understanding PNLs, distribution, sales distribution, you know, marketing or whatever, you kind of can understand, you know, enough of it, to be able to have a really kind of clear view as to what you what you think is right or wrong or the right way to go or not technology, you really have to rely on other people. And so that I found the most most challenging because

impossible to make the right choices all the time there. but I guess, you know, to your to your question, as you know, ecommerce started to emerge within retail organizations, I was able to stay, you know, on top of it enough to kind of understand what we needed as an organization work with. Initially, a lot of it was external.

Dylan Pathirana (50:32.42)
you know, agencies who are running, you know, websites and things like that, you know, we had a good company, external company at Orton who was, know, running the Orton website on the ecommerce store. But yeah, you know, it's, I guess it's just about kind of evolving and just learning and, you know, trying to understand. But again, if you understand the principles of trade and commerce, at the end of the day, it's the same thing in terms of what you need out of that in terms of the

the user experience and what an e-commerce store needs to look like. And you know, what products you have to have on there and pricing and promotion and that type of thing. It's all it's commerce. Yeah. You're gonna make sure you deliver it in the right way. And it's timing as well, right? Sometimes you have to wait for the right time to, you know, have that distribution channel is, is, is right for the brand. Yes, absolutely. And speaking about challenging times, you're leading a retail brand during COVID.

which I imagine would have been extremely challenging. I'd love to get your insights from the lessons that you learned from that. sure. I mean, it was challenging, but it was also in a way. There were things about it that made it easy as well, to a certain extent, you know, joining an organization during that time. You know, I joined in May 2020. Because it gave me the opportunity in a way to

spend time trying to understand the business. Because everything had kind of slowed down to a certain extent, you know. If you remember at the beginning of COVID, everyone was so confused as to what was going on. What does that mean? Everyone just treads water. know, people don't make decisions, people are not going out there thinking, okay, we've got to go do this. It's like, well, let's just understand what's going on here. So it gave me an opportunity really to kind of just study the business. And

And also, you know, interestingly enough, obviously book sales kind of went through bit of a boom during the pandemic because people were stuck at home and looking at screens all day long. And, you know, it was a way to kind of get away from, get away from screens. and people obviously were wanting to learn things and that type of thing. So there was a big boom in, sort of self-help, but also hobbies and that type of thing. yeah, it was, you know, it was on the one side, was quite, it was a, it was a positive thing.

Dylan Pathirana (52:55.476)
gave me an opportunity to kind of understand the business, but it also gave us an opportunity in a way to kind of innovate. mean, you know, we were able to launch click and collect during that time that again, the business had been looking at doing for, you know, quite a few years beforehand, but hadn't been able to stand up. know, we were able to do some, things like that. We, took the opportunity to refurbish, start the refurbishment of the George street flagship store, which again, the company had been looking to do for probably five or six years beforehand, but never actually.

being able to start just because the size of the operation, you know, and the cost of it was just difficult to kind of get your head around. But you know, we had a situation where shop hadn't be shut anyway. let's, you know, let's refurbish it, you know, let's start at least. And that's what we did. We refurbished the whole of the ground floor of the bookstore side. So yeah, it gave us an opportunity to a few things. also you handle distribution like

online ecommerce fulfillment. Well, absolutely. Exactly. That's right. Yeah. When I when I started, there was this massive, you know, this had been this massive boom in in ecommerce sales and online orders. And, you know, we were we were had been fulfilling all of the basically all of the in stock items out of the George Street store, but also sort of up to 50 % of orders were coming from the local publishers warehouses or

as in to, you know, to order and also coming from international. So, you know, when I got there, I went down a couple of days to the to the warehouse, it was at the back of the basement of the store. And it was literally piled, you know, floor to ceiling with, with boxes of basically just orders that had come in, had they hadn't been able to process them, you know, quickly enough. And of course, the problem was, you've got all these customers saying, where's my order and their order is at the

Yeah, in the box at of the pile, not at the top of the pile. So how do you get to it? Yeah. So that was, that was challenging. And we realized, you know, I realized that we needed to find a scalable fulfillment for some of that. And yeah, I knew this guy called Jam, logistics company who was, call up and say, Hey, can you help us out here? I remember getting that call on Saturday saying,

Dylan Pathirana (55:15.776)
and I congratulate, you're getting, you got a job at, as the CEO of, DMX, GM at DMX, sorry, managing director at DMX. And then you mentioned, yeah, I'm in trouble. need your help. know, so, yeah, so that was a great experience. Yeah. Yeah. And that was, you know, that was a case of obviously, you know, obviously I, I had the opportunity that I knew you. I also knew that you would.

Um, try and find a way to help. I think that, you know, those, those sorts of relationships in business are really important is, you know, is, is knowing people who you know, that you can trust will, you know, try and, try and help. Um, and, uh, you know, so the help was mutually beneficial, course. But, um, but yeah, that was quite important in terms of getting out of that. And like, want to know as, you know, a leader steering the big ships, I'm always fascinated to like really.

understand how you make big decisions. Cause you know, it's tough for people even to make small decisions. And for you, you know, basically changing the course of a brand or, you know, a retail store. Like, did you have any frameworks or anything, how you go about making those big decisions when it rests on your shoulders? I guess probably a, a,

you know, not a, not a, not a structured framework as, as such. mean, I suppose we all, whenever we weigh up a decision, consider pros and cons and, and, and, and that, that type of thing. Um, a lot of decisions, uh, you know, sort of big decisions in organizations involve money. Um, and you know, whether that's a refurbishment of a, of a store or something like that, or, you know, replatforming website or.

or even even a new a new strategic direction, branching out into a new product category or something like that, they there's always a financial element to it. so so doing the financial modeling of all of these things is also a key kind of part of that of that decision. Then canvassing opinion obviously of kind of key stakeholders.

Dylan Pathirana (57:32.442)
But at the end of the day, you know, if you have to then make that you're the one that's making that that decision. And even if that decision is one of, you know, you have a board of directors that you that you report to, and ultimately, that decision is going to be made by by that board, you still have to make a decision to make that proposal of what that is and what your

you know what your proposal is. So you're making a decision from that perspective. So yeah, I think ultimately, it is really you draw a lot on experience, you draw a lot on kind of, you know, previous, you know, situations environments, but you do you do numbers around it, you canvas opinion, you listen to, you know, to what everybody's got to say. But yeah, ultimately, you know, informed with all of that, you got to

put your neck on the line and make a also sometimes, you know, you need to be a little bit brave as well. Yeah. You don't always know that that's, that's going to work. but the most important thing to do is to make a decision. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And Mark, you know, now that you've stepped down from Demyx, what's, what's next for you? What are you, what are you putting your energy towards? yeah, well, not a lot actually, for the last sort of five months or so, but I,

But yeah, I'm quite keen to stay involved in business. I'm quite keen to kind of utilize my experience where I can. So I'm keen to perhaps secure a couple of board positions that I can kind of add my experience and value to some businesses.

I'm keen to do a bit of business coaching, a bit of mentoring and the chap that I met with yesterday morning that I, that I, that I mentioned earlier on, you know, he's, he's looking for some, some, business coaching. so possibly a little bit of that. there's a little sort of startup thing that I've been mucking around with as well. See whether that comes anywhere or not. yeah, that's, that's still quite a lot on.

Dylan Pathirana (59:46.896)
Well, yes, yes, and no, yes, and no, you know, one of the things I think is, you know, that is is that becomes over time, I think quite challenging in, you know, senior leadership positions and CEO type roles is that no matter how good you think you are at leading people and managing people and I and I

to a certain extent, I would say that I've always been a reluctant leader. That's never been my motivation in any role is to be a leader. It's something that I've had to do as a result of getting Yeah, doing the jobs that I've been doing. But one of the things that that is, that is that is that becomes quite challenging over time, is the responsibility that you have for those people.

And the responsibility for ensuring, you know, that those people are motivated, that their well being is, is sound, that they're progressing, there is a big responsibility, you know, around around that. And, and that and that's, you know, that's exciting, but it also, you know, can can become quite

Yeah, quite challenging, consistently over time, having to get up in front of people, you know, doing town halls and things like that and, and saying, Hey, you know, business is great, or when actually business is not great. And I didn't do that because I was always very honest with, you know, with my, with my teams. And I would always be very transparent across the entire business. And, you know, we would do town halls regularly, at least every, every month. And I would always be very transparent with the performance of the business.

But it's very, you know, can become challenging, you know, for you, when you know that you're the person that ultimately is responsible for making sure that people stay engaged and motivated even when things are, things are tough. So yeah, that, that side of things I probably won't miss. It's a hard thing to be consistent, right? Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. So, I want, I want to be now be able to do sort of things that, know, that I, that I really enjoy doing.

Dylan Pathirana (01:02:03.736)
Yeah, so you're now a grandfather. Yes. Has that changed your life? It has. Yeah, absolutely. 100 % it has. Yeah, it's a wonderful, wonderful thing that, you know, that I'm lucky, my wife and I are lucky enough to, to be grandparents. And yeah, I mean, it's, you know, coincided, obviously, with me having more time to be able to spend with him. And yeah, it's a wonderful, wonderful thing.

it really is seeing, you know, seeing new, new, you know, new young life. Yeah. And Mark, what do want your legacy to be? I don't. Yeah, I don't know. I'm not, again, I'm not big on needing a legacy or wanting a legacy. I, yeah, I really, I really don't know, Dylan. mean, I, I think hopefully just that, you know, that, that I was a good person and that, you know, that I helped some people along the way.

And, and, yeah. And the, you know, that I was, I was always available. And I suppose Mark, looking back on this incredible journey we've spoken about and given your definition of success was largely around, know, that personal success. Do you feel successful? I absolutely feel successful in my, in my personal life. Absolutely. I, you know, I've been lucky, very lucky to be, to, have the, the, the, you know, the personal life that I've, that I've had and

You know, I've had some success in business as well. Amazing. Well, Mark, it's been a fascinating conversation as I feel all our conversations that we have are, but I've tried to jot down what I think are a few of the traits, which I think you embody, which have been part of your success. And I'd like to share them. The first one is definitely consistency. We spoke about that so many times throughout the conversation. It's like you do the small things consistently, but they stack up and it's like a great philosophy is, know, from atomic habits.

the 1 % and like just continually improving 1%. And I think the consistency even shows up in your leadership, like always trying to ensure consistent communication across your organizations and just like always, always showing up. And I think that's a really important point. The next one, I think it came from, from your family is definitely hard work and always driving and moving forward and just consistently putting in that.

Dylan Pathirana (01:04:27.14)
hard work. I think that's a really important thing because you can talk the talk, but if you don't get in there and do that work, it's, it's not going to lead to anything. Right. And the last one is, I suppose it's like a people or relationship focus. And I think, know, you and Jamra a great example, right? That's a relationship that started years ago, but by consistently fostering those relationships that you have, especially in business that will show up and show fruit.

somewhere down the line. think that's a really important thing. It's fascinating discussion, Mark. You know, I think we had the chance to get to know you much, much deeper, like, you know, knowing your story and thank you so much. You know, it's really interesting conversation. Great. Thank you. Thank you very much for having me. And for our listeners, if you've gotten something out of today's episode, it would mean the world. If you can like and subscribe helps us to get to more and more ears.

And you can see all of our inspirational content over on our website, the quest for success podcast.com. And with that, we'll catch you guys in the next episode. Thanks for listening. Thank you, Mark. Thank you.