8 minute read
It’s All About Behaviors
from TWSM#14
PEoPlE to Watch
Brendt Barbur
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Brendt Barbur (1971) moved to New York from San Francisco 15 years ago to be involved in the arts. Through the years he kept busy with a number of art projects until he was hit by a bus while riding his bike – a horrible experience that drove him to do something positive from it. “I was the victim but I was treated poorly; people said it was my fault because I was stupid to ride my bike in the streets of New York,” he says. Brendt decided that he wanted to do for bikers what had been done for surfers. Today surfers are “cool,” but they were not considered so when the surfing movement started. He started with the idea of making a movie, which soon turned into the Bicycle Film Festival, a cultural event and not a festival about bikes. “The festival operates in a collaborative way; we want to make everyone feel involved. Content is much more important than marketing,” he says. Brendt is currently directing his first movie about a bike race. “This is probably the biggest project of my life,” he says. Brendt loves cooking and going to art shows.
PEoPlE to Watch
Jane Lu
Jane Lu (1986) emigrated with her family from Beijing to Sydney at the young age of 8. Not knowing the language and culture made the adaptation initially difficult. She understood the meaning of hard work and sacrifices as her parents left everything they knew and their professional careers to work in factories so that they could give her the chance of a brighter future. Jane today is a very young entrepreneur – she owns an online fashion store that was built largely on social media. She recalls, “The idea for Showpo grew from when I was working in my corporate finance job. I shopped online as an escape from my mundane job but struggled to find many stores that provided on-trend yet affordable clothes. I wanted to buy something new to wear for Friday-night drinks that wasn’t going to break my budget as a graduate analyst.” Jane had no money when she set up her new business. “I was completely broke from travels, uni debt, being jobless and from my business failure. Having no funding meant our business has always been a very lean and profitable operation.” When not working, Jane has a love for traveling, having visited 50 countries already. Today, Jane is happy – she has built a career out of her passion and loves coming to work every day.
PEoPlE to Watch
Jodie Fox
Jodie Fox (1984) was listed among the top 30 most influential Australian women in retail for 2014 at the age of 30 by the magazine Shoes String. This is one of Jodie’s achievements thanks to the great intuition she had in 2009 when she launched the online retail website Shoes of Prey, based in Sydney. “Shoes of Prey is a website where women can design their own shoes,” explains Jodie. “I was solving a problem of my own – I’ve always liked shoes but I never loved them because I couldn’t find exactly what I was looking for: the right color, the right heel height and so on. When I was traveling I found someone from whom I could commission shoe designs. My shoe collection became really exciting, and my girlfriends asked me to create shoes for them too.” Living in the Sydney suburb of Surrey Hills – the city’s main center for wholesale fashion activities, with a mixture of residential, commercial and light industrial areas – Jodie likes spending her days at her favorite café, Single Origin, having breakfast at Kitchen By Mike and cultivating her great passion for design, wine and, of course, fashion. “I’m passionate about inspiring a light in other people,” she says, “and I see my next 10 years being spent on my business, working hard to improve it and hopefully being surrounded by my own family.”
PEoPlE to Watch
Kimihito Okubo
Kimihito Okubo lives in Tokyo. He’s married and has a 20-year-old daughter. He holds a degree in business administration from WSDA, a prestigious university in Tokyo. After many years in advertising he has developed the idea that although Japan is very avant-garde in technology, what hampers globalization in the country is the attitude of the Japanese. “Japan remains a country based on the product, definitely high quality, but lacks the strategy, a vision for these products, which must fight in an increasingly competitive market," states Okubo. Kimihito is member of the One Young World committee. His professional experience has sparked his desire to do something for his nation. For this reason Kimihito has set up a company called "One World" whose aims are to create international links to encourage greater exchange between Japan and the rest of the world. In addition to this, Kimihito is very busy organizing an international forum that will be held in Tokyo in 2015 for his NGO.
PEoPlE to Watch
Sacha Beverley
Sacha Beverley (1977) was born in Gold Coast, Australia. She has always been very creative. She recalls, “When I was seven, I remember making greetings cards in my bedroom to sell to my mum and family. I was also winning coloring competitions at the age of 8. I guess I was born creative!” When she left school at 17, she started working in hospitality, administration and photography, and at the age of 21 she started traveling around the world while working. She says, “It’s thanks to traveling that I really started having an understanding of myself and others, as well as of what I liked, what I didn’t like and what I was passionate about.” Once back in Australia, she realized that hospitality was not really something she wanted to do in the long run, which made her take a course in interior design. She worked for seven years in the design industry until two factors made her realize that she was ready for another career change, the first one being that while working as an interior designer in London she took a course at the prestigious Central Saint Martins in textile design and fell in love with transporting art onto fabric; the second being the fact that she lost her job, which gave her the final push to take the leap of faith and pursue a career in art. She says, “Losing my job was a blessing in disguise.” Today, Sacha has her own gallery in Southport, considered to be Gold Coast’s business district, which she opened in 2012.
PEoPlE to Watch
Marta González Tarruella
Marta González Tarruella (1980) is a Spanish fashion blogger living in Madrid. She holds a PhD in political sciences but she decided to go for something very different: she runs a blog on hola.com about fashion, lifestyle and horses. “This is my true passion, together with the field where I grew up, because of my father: he was a bullfighter and taught me to love this way of life.” Although she loves horses and country life, Marta lives in Madrid, where she has a very hectic life. She explains, “Running a blog requires dedication, time, resolution and effort,” and adds, “I have to attend many fashion events in Madrid but I also have to go to the countryside every weekend to interview people for Galope magazine.” Marta is one of those lucky ones who has transformed her hobby – horseback riding – into her job. She has been influenced by her hobby since she was a child. She recalls, “I grew up in the countryside and I played many sports with horses, such as jumping and doma clasica, and I also enjoyed herding cattle with my horse. I missed this part of my life a lot when I was studying in New York or working in the European parliament.” Marta also enjoys painting. At present she doesn’t want to think about the long term and has only short-term professional plans.
