Aussie surfboard entrepreneur runs his $15m business from a yacht and luxury holiday destinations around the world – and explains how you can do it too
- Mark Kelly is the CEO of surfboard distribution company Global Surf Industries
- The business draws $15million in annually and sell produce to 70 countries
- Mark runs the company from various luxury locations around the world
- He uses cloud-based technologies with no office and flexible workdays for staff
- Mark believes his approach allows him to focus on driving the business forward
An Australian entrepreneur who runs his surfboard distribution business from luxurious locations all over the world has revealed how you can do it too.
Mark Kelly, from Melbourne, is the CEO of Global Surf Industries (GSI) which sells surfboards to more than 70 countries worldwide.
Mr Kelly runs his $15million business from various international locations or on board his friend’s yacht for six months of the year.
‘The most remote land-based location I’ve worked from is a small fishing village in Mexico called San Juanico, which is five hours from the nearest airport,’ Mr Kelly told the Australian Financial Review.
‘But even sailing up the coast, if you’re off the side of the land you’ll still get a good enough signal that you can connect up pretty easily.’
Mark Kelly (pictured) is the founder and CEO of Global Surf Industries, who distribute surfboards from 15 manufacturers to 74 countries.
Global Surf Industries began trading surfboards in 2002 and has operated without a head office or traditional nine-to-five workday for almost two decades.
If it wasn’t for his wife, Mr Kelly believes he could comfortably spend 11 months of the year abroad.
Mark encourages his 17 employees to do the same and work as flexibly as possible, whether that’s from the beach, or in the middle of the night, as long as they get the job done.
Mark (pictured) didn’t start surfing until he was 30, when he began renting a property in Palm Beach and took lessons
GSI utilises cloud-based technology and communication portals have given Mr Kelly and his staff much more freedom and have removed the need for a traditional office environment.
The company uses business management software from NetSuite and content management services such as Trello and Slack to keep connected from locations in Australia, New Zealand and the US.
‘The amount of emails Slack cuts down has been fantastic,’ Mark said. ‘In one day we stopped internal emails and it gave everyone a lot of time back.’
‘Trello is also on your phone, or your computer, so you don’t have to be at a desk to be working.’
Mr Kelly believes the services have enabled him to focus on what the company needs to drive growth instead of needless expansion in staff.
‘We have a ”biggest small company” mindset and it allows you to see what the business actually needs and often it doesn’t need people, it just needs better processes and that’s where we’re going with electronic data exchange and automation,’ he said.
Mr Kelly’s business utilises cloud-based technology and communication portals, giving him and (pictured) his staff much more freedom
Mr Kelly grew up in country Victoria, and didn’t start surfing until he was 30, when he rented a house at Palm Beach and took lessons.
The experience changed his life, leading him into a job at Surf Hardware International where he was the international marketing manager for four years before launching GSI.
Mark is now expanding GSI into Europe, and believes that more businesses are going to start abandoning traditional business models in favour of his approach.
Mr Kelly (pictured) is expanding Global Surf Industries into the European market