Meet the new Chairman

Meet the new Chairman: Michael Alafaci

How did your storage story begin?

Prior to working in the storage industry, I was working in a small three partner accounting practice, considering working my way up to ultimately becoming a partner in that small practice. After just over a year of working in that practice, I was approached by a recruiter for a position with Storage King. I was interviewed by The Kings themselves; Michael Tate and David Scanlen. The timing was right for me as I was starting to think that working in practice was not quite for me and that I preferred working in the commercial world…. and well, the rest is history. Since joining Storage King just over 16 years ago, I have had the great pleasure of experiencing, and being directly involved in, the amazing growth of the company and brand. And just when I thought I’d seen it all, yet again over the last few years, I’ve seen even more seriously amazing growth in the company and brand.

What does a typical work day entail for you?

Up until only a few months ago, my typical work day involved overseeing and working closely with the Finance Team, among other duties such as internal legal work. But since then, I’ve moved into the new role of Group General Manager Corporate Development which was created to help facilitate the Storage King company and brand achieve its aspirational growth ambitions… yep, you got it… even more growth!

What opportunities do you see for industry and the SSAA?

One of the opportunities I see for the industry is the continuation and further enhancing of the highly regarded industry research pieces delivered thus far. Strong foundations have been laid and now the future of industry data availability looks very exciting. Clearly there is a thirst for this information, so to be able to keep delivering on this desire for information should truly assist members in gaining valuable insights.

I also see an opportunity to expand the SSAA’s learning, training and development offerings, with a view to continually lifting the standards across our industry. I was pleased to see this view is shared by members based on the recent survey results, so there’ll be more to come in this space I’m sure.

What are you most looking forward to as Chair?

I look forward to continually delving deeper into what the SSAA member base needs and wants and closely working with my fellow board members and Makala on how best that be delivered.

As a Board, we’re focused on positioning our industry as a standalone asset class. The acceleration of institutional investment and broader interest in the sector presents a unique opportunity for the SSAA as the peak body to advocate on behalf of industry. It’s exciting to be a part of such transformational change.

What’s life like outside of self storage for you?

Right before COVID took over the world, we decided to have a pool built at home, and since then it’s been a case of ‘thank goodness we pulled that trigger’ because as a family we may have otherwise been sitting inside thinking of the overseas trips we should have been away on, and probably moping around about it. We got so much use out of our pool and it’s become one of my favourite past times. We also really enjoy doing the occasional hike and visiting a waterfall. In researching hikes and waterfalls, we didn’t realise just how many of them were within a reasonable drive of our home in Sydney. What a magnificent country we are fortunate enough to live in! l