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Mark Bouris Addresses The Crescent Club - 21/11/12

The Crescent Club was privileged to host Mr Mark Bouris Chairman of Yellow Brick Road as its guest of honour in its leadership series for the final event of 2012. The event closed off an eventful year made possible by our gracious supporters, Corrs Chambers Westgarth, Fujitsu, Crescent Wealth and the Islamic Museum of Australia.

The evening began with guests enjoying canapés whilst meeting fellow Crescent Club members- all keenly awaiting the entrance of Mr Bouris.

At 7pm, after a personal introduction by Mr Talal Yassine OAM (Managing Director of Australia’s first Islamic Wealth Manager, Crescent Wealth) Mark took to the stage and began a very candid and inspiring address of how he saw himself as a “disruptor”.  He discussed his personal mission to be the guy who “disrupts” & “rocks the boat” by following a disruptive business model targeting duopolies, oligopolies and essentially anyone who is in the business of not giving the average person a quintessential “fair go”! 

His tenacity, ambition and ingenuity to tackle the big banks in the Australian banking & finance sector – not just once with Wizard home loans – but now again through Yellow Brick Road – kept Crescent Club members eager to hear more.

However, Mark most poignantly and succinctly conveyed his judgement and wise counsel during the Q & A segment of the evening.  Mr Bouris shared his views and personal commitment to gaining a work/life balance.  Having written a book on this very topic – he shared his view on the four investments one needs to make to achieve this.  A key investment being in one’s health.  

 

As a testament to this – he shared that he is up at 4:30am to ensure he fits in exercise into his day - everyday - because “you can’t enjoy your life & your successes if you don’t have your health”.

Mr Bouris also gave his view that the next big disruption should probably happen in the retail & FMCG sectors.  He talked to the Australian consumers’ desire to purchase online (sighting the Click Frenzy interest) and even shared some ideas on how to tackle the supermarket giants Coles & Woolworths.

But one of the highlights of the evening for most- if not all who attended – was the sharing of his family’s personal story of struggle, hardship & migration to Australia.  He really brought home the need to always “remember your roots” and by doing so it ensured an almost invisible leveler in life with an ability to have the right state of mind throughout ‘struggle and grind’ periods.

As a token of appreciation to Mr Bouris for his time, advice and absolute candidness – Mr Yassine presented him with a few “unique” gifts.  Namely – a copy of a newly published book “Boundless Plains” – which gives a photographic depiction of the history of Islam & Muslims in Australia – which dates back over 200 years;as well as a bottle of “musk” perfume and a copy of The Noble Quran with English translation.

As the Crescent Club signs off for 2012, we would like to thank all our members who attended the evening and have supported the Crescent Club throughout 2012. The Crescent Club holds events which hopefully provides a net benefit to its members through networking and hearing from thought leaders across a broad range of fields.

As a commitment to continuously improve our events for members we ask of you to spare a few minutes to complete an anonymous short survey.

 

 

 

 

We look forward to seeing you at our events in 2013.

 

The Crescent Club Team

 

 

If you have any comments or suggestions please don’t hesitate to forward them through via email: info@crescentclub.com.au or through one of the Crescent Club representatives directly.