The Entrepreneurs

How Anna McLaren built independent fashion label A Emery from bedroom idea to luxury brand

Ten years ago, Anna McLaren decided to buy herself a pair of sandals. At the time, she was working as a product designer for Australian brand Witchery. What she hoped to find was relatively straightforward: a black footbed with an elegant profile; durable enough for daily wear and that wouldn’t fall apart in a year. “It sounds so simple but that’s what I was looking for,” says Melbourne-born McLaren. She never found it – so she decided to design her own pair at home. In 2017, she launched a six-piece collection of all-black sandals from her spare bedroom. Now, her label, A Emery, is stocked by luxury digital retailers Net-a-Porter and Mytheresa, as well as at department stores including New York’s Bloomingdale’s, Harrods in London and Paris’s Galeries Lafayette.

McLaren says that A Emery’s success owes everything to patience. “It’s a misconception that you can put a product out into the market and it’ll blow up,” she says, pointing to venture-backed competitors who spend heavily to gain visibility. By contrast, independence requires “time to find your audience, get the product out there and grow slowly”.

Being Australian has also helped shape the brand. The country doesn’t have the European system of maisons that channel designers through established houses. Instead, the country’s fashion designers tend to launch their own labels early in their careers – and from scratch. “You don’t learn the business of fashion at fashion school,” says McLaren. A Emery is a good example of the Australian way of doing things. The brand has never taken outside investment, relying instead on an independent model comprising bank loans, a mortgage against the family home and loans from government incubator Export Finance Australia. This three-pronged infrastructure helps manage the cash-flow demands of a wholesale business, where payment terms of 60 to 90 days are standard. McLaren’s leap of faith and determination paid off – the business has been profitable since the six-month mark. “Every dollar earned has gone straight back into funding the next stage of our growth,” she says.

After building a strong following in footwear, McLaren expanded to ready-to-wear in 2023. While designing shoe collections and fulfilling orders, she identified a gap in the market. “I thought back to when I was working in a good job with a decent salary but beautiful European clothes and accessories were so far out of reach for me, as they are for most Australian women,” she says. “The exchange rate exponentially increases the retail price point on a garment. I wanted to bring that feeling of a luxury brand to Australian consumers with an approachable price point.”

McLaren initially encountered resistance from her suppliers. “The first wholesale season that we went into, everyone said, ‘It’s too cheap, you could be charging more and making a better margin.’ But my margins are sufficient – this is the collection and the price point that I want to present to the customer.” Her persistence paid off. “After two seasons, that conversation stopped completely, because they realised that there’s a customer base out there.”

There have still been hurdles along the way. Challenges, including the pandemic, have affected the speed and trajectory of A Emery’s growth. US trade policies and tariffs have been particularly tricky to navigate – something that’s especially important given that the country represents one of A Emery’s largest markets. Initially, McLaren had evolved the brand’s export strategy around goods shipped duty-free under the $800 (€690) threshold. When this limit was removed, every order to the US received a tariff calculated on the full retail price. “There were some months last year where we had to pay those tariffs ourselves, for the sake of keeping our customers,” says McLaren. “We made nothing at all from those sales.”

This tariff pressure accelerated A Emery’s expansion plans, with a staggered approach to opening US-based warehousing, first for wholesale in October 2025, followed by third-party logistics for e-commerce in March 2026. Basing warehousing in the US has eased shipping costs and improved customer service. “The only real change to our offering is better turnaround times on returns and exchanges,” she says.

Though McLaren’s Australian brand of independent entrepreneurship grants her creative freedom, there are trade-offs when it comes to funding expansion. “I love what we can do on our own,” she says. “But are we getting to the stage where our independence is holding us back? A little bit.” However, she’s quick to add that the freedom to make decisions without layers of approval remains the element that she values the most. Her approach to the brand’s future is deliberately unhurried. “Slow and steady growth,” she says. “That’s really all we strive for.”
aemery.com

Village people: A gelato-maker’s mission to resuscitate a declining Cocconato

Alberto Marchetti is sitting outside Osteria Bell’e Buona in Cocconato, a village in Piedmont, northern Italy, chatting to a farmer. A woman sitting on a bench nearby waves to our lunch party. “She’s a local councillor,” says Marchetti, smiling. It would be an understatement to say that he is well known in Cocconato, which has a population of about 1,400. Though he lives and runs a gelateria in Turin, about an hour’s drive away, he can often be found in this village. It was a big part of his childhood. His grandparents owned a farmhouse not far from here, while his uncle ran an ice-cream shop in town.

But when he grew up, work and life got in the way and almost three decades passed before he returned. The scene that greeted him was sombre. “The pizzeria was for sale,” he says. “There was less commerce than before, fewer young people, less bar life. Everything was closed.”

Marchetti didn’t want to accept the status quo. With Leo Longo and Fabio Digilio, he co-founded a company called Cocconato Bell’e Buono (meaning “Beautiful and Tasty Cocconato”), with the aim of giving the place a lift. Then they brought on board investors – Turin-based non-profit Fondazione CRT among them. Today, Marchetti’s team owns or rents several properties, including the osteria where Monocle is eating trout pasta, as well as a pizzeria, a salami shop, a bike shop and rentable apartments that are part of an albergo diffuso – a hotel with rooms spread throughout the village.

The team has also invested in retail. Several shopfronts along Via Roma, the medieval hamlet’s high street, have been revitalised. A ceramicist and a vintage sunglasses seller share a space, while Tamara Bocchi, who is originally from Tuscany and moved to the village a little over a year ago, runs a shop selling vintage pieces. For now, tenants’ rates are preferential as the team seeks to establish Cocconato as a destination.

Cocconato Bell’e Buono isn’t after quick gains. “This isn’t a short-term investment,” says Marchetti. “We’re not an innovative start-up. We need 20 years, with things perhaps stabilising after five years.”

Still, the village has come a long way. Marchetti says that they have created about 20 jobs, mostly for locals, and the osteria’s chefs had reason to return to the region. But there is still plenty to do. “Slowly, slowly,” he says. “It’s a work in progress.”
cocconatobellebuono.it

Cashing in their chips: Three family-owned crisp brands holding their own against PepsiCo

There are few social gatherings that wouldn’t be elevated by a bowl (or several) of well-chosen crisps. But this versatile, low-cost snack demands high sales volumes to generate profits and a robust logistics network to transport air-filled bags around the world. Conglomerates such as PepsiCo, with a reliable supply chain, have an advantage – but which are the brands determined to keep things in the family?

1.
Zweifel
Spreitenbach, Switzerland

In 1962, rather than limiting its availability to one Swiss canton, Zweifel launched its own distribution network – the Frisch-Service, a fleet of 10 Volkswagen vans that delivered packets to retailers up and down the country. This sales model has endured; today the service supplies more than 13,000 points of sale.

Longevity hasn’t meant standing still. Zweifel – now in its fourth generation of ownership – offers more than 75 flavours. Its mix of tradition and innovation has proven commercially successful: in 2025 the company generated CHF315.5m (€336m) in sales, while a new production facility at its existing site in Spreitenbach opens in 2027. And its Swiss identity goes beyond ownership. About 90 per cent of its potatoes come from 300 Swiss farmers. The original paprika flavour, launched in 1964, remains the hero product without which no Swiss child’s birthday party is complete.
zweifel.ch

2.
Brets
Pontivy, France

The success of Brittany-based Brets lies in its ability to leverage the regional identity of this French Atlantic territory. Affectionately known as le chipsier français – or “the French crisp maker” – Brets celebrates rustic Gallic flavours: think tartiflette, roast chicken and even pastis, often seasoned with sel de Guérande: coarse sea salt harvested from Brittany’s salt marshes. Brets overtook Lay’s last year as France’s leading crisps brand and represents 27 per cent of the market share, with an estimated turnover of €187m in 2025. The company opened its second production facility in Noyal-Pontivy in April. And with it have come fresh ideas. The brand’s new line of sweet crêpe crisps, including salted caramel and lemon-butter flavours, is a testament to its ambition.
brets.fr

3.
Bonilla a la Vista
A Coruña, Spain

Today, Galician brand Bonilla a la Vista is turning heads at delicatessens and department-store window displays with its chic tinned crisps. But the brand had humble beginnings. In 1932 a former navy petty officer called Salvador Bonilla decided to expand his Ferrol-based family business, which made churros sold in stalls at fairgrounds. Crisps seemed like a tasty next step. Bonilla a la Vista is now sold in more than 20 countries, turning over €8.98m in 2024. Outside Spain, South Korea has been the biggest importer since a tin appeared in the film Parasite; Bonilla a la Vista crisps also featured in the goody bags at the Oscars that year. But despite its rags-to-riches story, the brand keeps things simple. The crisps come in just one flavour: olive oil and sea salt.
bonillaalavista.com

From tea house to research organisation: Nice Projects reimagines a Kyoto relic into a laboratory

How to design an office for an organisation that deals with the artificial? That was the challenge facing London- and Sydney-based practice Nice Projects when it was commissioned to create the new headquarters of Japan’s Artificial Life Institute. The multidisciplinary academic body (whose practitioners cover the fields of physics, robotics, biology, chemistry and social sciences) investigates what life is and considers what it could be. To provide a suitable space for such broad-ranging work, it created a lab in a historic building in Kyoto. “The place used to be an adult ‘tea house’,” says Nice Projects’ Sacha Leong, who explains that the building previously had some disreputable tenants.

When Leong first visited the site in the Gojo district, he was impressed by the building’s antique foundations (he suspects that its oldest sections date back to the 18th century, when Kyoto was still Japan’s capital). He was, however, less pleased by its small rooms and shabby kitchens and bathrooms. Alongside his business partner, Simone McEwan, Leong collaborated with local artisans to open up the building, paying tribute to its heritage while avoiding any wabi-sabi clichés.

This approach has resulted in the creation of an office that is defined by a double-height void, which functions as the main workspace. It has been kitted out with a bespoke, translucent polycarbonate bookcase and a custom paper lantern in a cut-out chequerboard pattern. This was assembled by Kojima Shoten, a nearby 10th-generation atelier that traces its history back to the Edo era. On the ground floor, Nice Projects overhauled the courtyard with landscape architect Watanabe Niwamise. Also added was a meditation room lined with fabric from the city’s Hosoo textile mill and lit with Scarpa lights; the space accommodates video conferencing too. A communal dining area was set up with a bespoke table and bench, as well as aluminium dining chairs from New York’s Bestcase. The kitchen tiles are by Japanese ceramics firm Aa Danto, while McEwan and Leong installed a ceramic Gervasoni coffee table and a pair of Richard Neutra chairs.

The result is an office with a striking physical form, infused with a sense of liveliness – for which Leong credits the institute. “They would tell us things like, ‘We’re doing an experiment where we talk to pickles – can we do a pickle exhibition?’” he says. “We’d say, ‘Just tell us how big the pickle jar is.’” This collaborative approach – a world away from what you might expect at ordinary science facilities – has been a hit with the tenants. “Scientists are used to basic furniture and fluorescent lights,” says Leong. “I spent two days on site and felt that it was somewhere you’d be happy to spend time, where you could work but also relax.” It felt, he adds, “lived in”.
niceprojects.work

This new Bjarke Ingels Group-designed HQ in Denmark combines workplace and showroom

With its doughnut-shaped timber-and-glass structure, the headquarters of horticultural logistics company Dymak immediately makes an impression. The Danish brand designs, sources and delivers home and garden accessories for growers and garden centres. For its new HQ – on the edge of Odense, between an industrial zone and Glisholm Lake – it wanted a space that would celebrate the company’s craftsmanship, while also embodying its culture of openness, collaboration and innovation. To deliver the project, Dymak tapped one of the country’s best-known practices, Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG).

“The circular layout emerged from the ambition to bring Dymak’s many functions together within a single, connected workplace,” says BIG’s project leader, Lisbet Fritze Trentemøller. “Today’s workplaces need to support a far broader range of activities than just focused desk work. Collaboration, social interaction, client engagement, wellbeing and flexibility have become fundamental to how people work.” The Copenhagen-based architect and her team arranged a showroom, a photo studio, a canteen, a gym, meeting rooms, lounges and open-plan workspaces around a circular courtyard that brings daylight and greenery into the workplace, while offering a peaceful place to gather.

Timber, clay and eelgrass are used throughout. “It’s a tour de force of low-carbon materiality,” says Bjarke Ingels, BIG’s founder and creative director. “They lower the embodied carbon of the building, while providing a warm and organic atmosphere.” Further nods to nature can be found in the undulating roof that rises towards the north – offering views of the nearby forest – and slopes towards the south to regulate light and the indoor temperature. Integrated into this are 880 photovoltaic panels that help to power the building.

Every design decision responds to multiple requirements. The circular plan connects different modes of work; the courtyard gives the building a social and visual centre; the roof combines climate control and energy generation. The result is an office building that serves its users and the environment. “It communicates Dymak’s expertise and identity through direct experience rather than traditional corporate branding,” says Trentemøller. “It functions as a living showcase of materials, products and craftsmanship that allows clients and partners to engage with Dymak’s world in a tangible way.”
big.dk

At Ómós guesthouse and restaurant, a star chef is transforming Abbeyleix into Ireland’s next culinary destination

“I have always liked throwing myself in at the deep end and here I am very much at the deep end,” says 34-year-old Cúán Greene, chef and co-owner of Ómós. The 16-bedroom guesthouse and restaurant opened in July in the Irish countryside, just outside the town of Abbeyleix in County Laois. It offers the chance to sample Greene’s produce-driven tasting menu, served in its immaculately rendered, 40-cover restaurant.

Ómós is not your ordinary debut restaurant and inn. Its seven investors include John Collison, co-founder of Irish fintech firm Stripe, and Sam Dennigan, who launched food brand Strong Roots. Greene’s rise in prominence has been swift. After working internationally at restaurants including Noma in Copenhagen, he returned to Ireland in 2019 and later launched Ómós Digest, a weekly Substack newsletter about food culture. (Ómós, pronounced “Oh-mohs”, means “homage” or “respect” in Gaelic.) It was during this period that the idea of starting a bricks-and-mortar venture took shape. “I first met Cúán in 2020 to discuss a lovely concept but I never expected it to be a commercial proposition,” says Ómós’s chair, Sam Dennigan. “A lot of the time, these places can be follies for investors but I was conscious that Ómós wasn’t going to go that way.”

The original plan was to open a restaurant in Dublin – a bigger, more established market – but the project became more ambitious when Greene cooked for Collison at his newly acquired, 18th-century Abbeyleix Estate. The latter suggested that the chef take over Millbrook House, the former land agent’s Victorian residence, which lay derelict on the edge of the grounds, and turn it into a restaurant with rooms. “I had never considered opening a hotel before but I loved the idea of operating a restaurant where people could come and make themselves at home,” says Greene. His vision for Ómós was of a place with a feel inspired by the traditional Irish guesthouse – a vanishing category – albeit on a more luxurious scale.

“For me, the idea of being able to tell a new story of a more modern Ireland through food, experience and design seemed exciting,” says Dennigan, who feels that the country’s global image is still often defined by outmoded tropes. “Even so, as an investor, it was very much head over heart whether it looks like that or not.”

The renovation of the heritage-listed house and the creation of a new building to accommodate the restaurant and kitchens took more than three years to complete. The result is a three-way collaboration between Dublin-based Ryan W Kennihan Architects and Copenhagen-based interior architects Asca Studio and Relief Gallery, whose work Greene was familiar with.

For inspiration, architect Ryan Kennihan drew on the language and culture of rural Ireland’s vernacular architecture. “The ambition from my perspective was [to work with] what we found on site, aligning with Cúán’s vision, not chasing trends,” says Kennihan. “We wanted to create a timeless building that would be just as beautiful in 200 years.”

Greene and the designers spent the ensuing period visiting artisans across the country to refine the look, resulting in some 100 makers contributing to the project. Rooms in the guesthouse are scattered with custom-made furniture, Irish textiles and artworks, combining a pared-back Scandinavian sensibility with a distinctly Irish aesthetic. The bedside glasses were hand-blown by Greene’s mother, glass artist Róisín de Buitléar, while the 2,000 books scattered around the property were recommended by staff members.

The design is a reflection of the town to which the project is attracting a new generation of visitors. From Millbrook House, guests pass through gardens and a series of courtyards with exposed stone walls to the newly built restaurant. This features soaring ceilings and views of a market garden on one side and a tranquil mill pond on the other. The floor is laid with Kilkenny limestone and the gaps between the ceiling beams are lined with acoustic panels made from eelgrass by Danish firm Søuld. The oak dining tables are made from wood sourced from the estate and plates are hand-thrown by Fermoyle Pottery in County Kerry.

The menu draws on both Irish and international flavours, with techniques and combinations that Greene picked up in countries including Mexico and Thailand. The restaurant, however, mainly uses ingredients produced on site or nearby. Bread is baked using heritage grains and served with locally made butter; garden-plucked produce is paired with aged, smoked and cured meats and freshly netted seafood. Dessert includes a riff on a childhood favourite – retro ice-cream treat Viennetta – involving fig leaf, meadowsweet and blueberries. Those who stay overnight are also treated to breakfast the following morning in the guesthouse.

Already, Ómós’s presence is having a trickle-down effect on the local economy, with the business employing staff and drawing visitors to Abbeyleix. Guests can stroll into town along a trail through the estate forest or be ferried to Morrissey’s, an archetypal Irish pub-cum-grocery shop, for a pint of Guinness. Greene, who lives nearby, says that he is considering opening a deli or a wine bar nearby in the future. For now, though, his focus is on making Ómós sustainable. He acknowledges that support from the local community will be crucial to its success. “Strictly speaking, Abbeyleix is a town,” says Greene, “but, as they say, it takes a village.”
omos.co

Venice’s Fratelli Tosi shows how artisans beat automation with centuries-old craft

Inside a small workshop down a narrow street on the island of Murano in Venice, brothers Massimo and Mirco Tosi are examining a traditional Venetian mirror that they have laid on a table. They take small pieces of cut glass from wooden drawers and assemble them around the border. It’s all part of a process that involves cutting and silvering glass, engraving by hand and arranging ornamental mirrored pieces. It’s a highly skilled, intricate craft that the brothers know intimately. Their company, Fratelli Tosi, can trace its family roots back to the early 20th century. Their father did the same work as them; their grandfather too. “I was 13 or 14 when I first started coming here to help out,” says Massimo. “And then I started full-time at 20 after I completed my military service.”

Three Fratelli Tosi mirrors were recently on display at Casa Sanlorenzo in an exhibition showcasing the artisans and craftspeople of Venice and the Veneto region. It was part of Homo Faber, a large event celebrating contemporary craft that takes place every two years on the island of San Giorgio Maggiore and other venues around the lagoon city. In 2026 the event – organised by the Michelangelo Foundation, a Swiss non-profit co-founded by former Richemont CEO Johann Rupert – featured more than 700 objects by some 500 artisans from about 70 countries. The artistic direction was overseen by British designer Es Devlin, who created a cinematic, immersive experience set to voiceovers and music. In one room, objects rotated on a circular bookcase that created shadows playing across the walls; in another, an illuminated “moon” rose out of a former swimming pool, displaying a series of vases.

Homo Faber’s fourth edition also included artisans at workstations in an attempt to shed light on the people behind the pieces. This year’s artistic direction wasn’t conceived in a vacuum. The word “craft” seems to be on everyone’s lips – and not just in the design industry. For some, in our increasingly automated and AI-focused world, there is a yearning for objects that are tactile and handmade. The global arts and crafts industry is expected to grow somewhere between 7 and 9 per cent a year between now and 2030.

Fratelli Tosi certainly seems to be riding this wave. Massimo says that things have been taking off since the pandemic ended, with revenue doubling in the past year alone. He mentions a restaurant project completed just before the summer in Miami and a current order of four six-metre-high mirrors destined for Riyadh. For any artisan, success rests on their ability to read the market. Though Fratelli Tosi produces contemporary mirrors on request, buyers still want the classical Venetian look. “It’s a product that people appreciate a lot,” says Massimo.

Behind every immaculately assembled mirror or beautiful piece of pottery, there’s a need for a certain amount of business acumen and entrepreneurial spirit. The Tosi brothers used to attend trade fairs spanning Dubai, Milan, Lebanon and New York but the costs were too high, despite the guarantee of work for the whole year. So they have instead chosen to focus on e-commerce events such as 1stDibs in the US and Italy’s Artemest (which curated one of the Casa Sanlorenzo exhibitions). The decision is paying dividends, even though online sales don’t make up the bulk of the brand’s income. These sites are a vital “shop window”, says Massimo. “The more things that you do, the more visible you are,” he says. “If you don’t do it, no one will come to ring your doorbell.”

Though some artisans have gallery representation, being in this creative industry often means working for yourself – and that entails balancing visibility with ensuring that you don’t devalue your art. The industry is by no means an easy one. Because of the onward march of technology and the potential threat of cheaper copies undercutting an artisan’s meticulous work, the business side can be as important as the skills.

During Homo Faber, Monocle meets Florence-based woodworker Leonardo Cappellini, whose antiquity-influenced amphoras are in a room called “An Alphabet of Objects”. Cappellini worked in the circus until switching to woodwork seven years ago. It has been quite the rise, cemented by his selection for the 2026 edition of Homo Faber. He talks about the importance of putting yourself out there but also of knowing when to adapt. “You need to do everything at the beginning,” he says. “After that, you can be selective.” Now that Cappellini has reached a greater level of recognition, he has stopped taking part in Florence’s Mostra Internazionale dell’Artigianato, a fair that he used to attend earlier in his career.

Back on Murano, just round the corner from Fratelli Tosi, Alessandro Boscolo says that his focus isn’t business – he’s much more concerned about making his art. The glassblower, who made a rose-coloured triptych featuring a reliquary, a chalice and a vase for Homo Faber, has an entrepreneurial flair nonetheless. For one, he shares a business with his mother across two studios and several employees selling small glass pieces to customers. This is balanced with more experimental work. Like the Tosi brothers, Boscolo learnt from his family and started working full-time at the age of 13. “I feel like I’ve never worked in my life because I do what I love,” he says.

Boscolo gets his name out there by teaching abroad and at home in Venice. From a bench in his shop, he shows Monocle his custom tools, including a contraption adapted from an old water boiler that keeps glass at a constant temperature. He also uses a special blowing pipe that has a plastic tube attached and a mouthpiece that allows him to blow while using his hands to shape the glass. “I want to have a very specific type of production,” he says.

Being good at business and having an innovative streak certainly help. But success often comes down to something much simpler. In the face of our reliance on machines, craftspeople have an ace up their sleeves: they are able to tell a passionate story about what they do, without a bot in sight. It’s why many of the people who we meet – including Jessica Jue, a silverware artisan from London, and Venice-based Chinese jewellery artist Huang Xiaozhe – like to sell to customers face to face. Boscolo says that when he tells potential clients about the motivations behind his work, they’re often moved.

Micromega, an elegant glasses shop that was founded in 2003, knows about the power of personal interaction. There is currently only one Micromega outlet in the world, despite the brand counting the likes of Yoko Ono and Elton John among its clients. Micromega only sells its own frames, which are handmade without glue, screws or soldering, using flexible titanium or gold. They’re made at a small workshop a few minutes’ walk away and this relationship is one of the reasons why the business is thriving. “As soon as someone comes here, we explain what’s behind Micromega,” says Anna Carlon, the daughter of the founder, Roberto. “The first thing that they say is, ‘I have never seen anything like this in my life.’”

Five tips for running a successful craft-based company

The future of craft looks bright, with luxury brands and discerning buyers investing in handmade pieces. Here are five tips for making a business work.

1.
E-commerce is a shop window
Don’t expect online sales to dominate revenue. Instead, see them as a means of generating visibility and attracting real-world enquiries.

2.
Meet face to face
Make a point of the story behind your work. Personal contact at trade fairs converts browsers into buyers.

3.
Allow visitors into the workshop
Showing customers exactly how and where a product is made builds trust and justifies price.

4.
Balance solid sellers and experimental pieces
Make money with pieces that hold mass appeal while pursuing riskier ideas on the side. This funds creative freedom without sacrificing stability.

5.
Adapt tools and processes
Look beyond your own trade for inspiration and learn from how other industries solve similar problems.

Can film-equipment company Arri stay a Hollywood legend in the streaming era? Thomas Riedel is betting on yes

In an unassuming office building with a black-brick façade in northern Munich, there’s a surprisingly high concentration of instantly recognisable shiny statuettes. German camera and lighting company Arri won these 20 Academy Awards for scientific and technical achievements in cinematography. Founded in 1917, the brand has been a favourite of directors such as Martin Scorsese, Stanley Kubrick and Peter Jackson, but technological progress has created fierce competition. German entrepreneur Thomas Riedel bought Arri in April (the purchase price has not been disclosed). His challenge now is to find a way to innovate while keeping the company’s legacy alive.

Riedel fell in love with Arri while he was at school in Wuppertal. He wasn’t very interested in studying, preferring to explore extracurricular activities that had the potential to become business opportunities. “When I was 15, I borrowed Arri spotlights from the nearby playhouse for school theatre projects,” he says. A few years later he formalised his ventures and founded Riedel Communications, which provided technical equipment for events, beginning with just five Motorola walkie-talkies.

Riedel is now a global player. His communication systems are used at live concerts, the Olympic Games, Formula 1 racing tracks and top-level football matches. They enable drivers to talk with their teammates and moderators with their newsrooms. Riedel’s company also developed “RefCam”, the small cameras that provided the referee’s perspective on tackles and goals at this year’s Fifa World Cup and brought a new sense of intimacy to the viewing experience.

While acquiring Arri was a long-standing dream for Riedel, it has not come without complications. “The company lacked humility in recent years,” says the 58-year-old at the company’s headquarters. When streaming services started to accelerate productions about a decade ago, Arri expanded at an unsustainable rate. Then came the 2023 Hollywood strikes and a contraction across the entertainment industry. The business had to cut costs by about 40 per cent and reduce staff to 800 employees from more than 1,200.

Now that streaming platforms offer such a broad range of content, the distinction between producing for movies, television and live events has blurred. In this new environment, combining the strengths of Riedel and Arri could prove savvy. Take, for example, the Eurovision Song Contest. For the past 20 years, Riedel has been providing broadcasting technology for the competition. This year the show was filmed with 24 Arri cameras to provide a more cinematic experience, with sharper contrasts and advanced colour grading. “The resulting footage read less like a traditional live production and more like professional film work,” says Riedel.

Away from the bright lights of film sets, he has several adventurous side projects. In 2023 he started a German SailGP team together with former Formula 1 world champion Sebastian Vettel, among others. The same year, he and his brother, Markus, launched Open Ground, a nightclub housed in an abandoned bunker in Wuppertal. The club has since earned a reputation as a cathedral for DJs. “It was designed from the ground up as an acoustic experience, where even DJs suddenly hear nuances in their own songs that they have never heard before,” says Riedel. “Sometimes it brings tears to their eyes.” Rather than just a commercial venture, he sees Open Ground as a labour of love – and a way of giving something back to his hometown.

Riedel, who almost always sports a pair of red trainers, has a fun, spirited approach to work. “I need to feel that I’m allowed to play in the sandbox all day, with great moulds and the best friends to build castles with,” he says. He sees little distinction between his working hours and his leisure time. Even his favourite pastimes – playing cards, chess or the board game Settlers of Catan – exercise his “strategic” instincts.

“One of the best things that I have created for myself is my personal archive of mistakes,” he says. “I can go back and think, ‘Wait a minute… I have made this mistake before.’ That’s very valuable.” His biggest mistake in that archive – and the one that clearly comes with a pang of regret – is how he treated the people he worked with when he was building his business. “I was so manic about what I wanted to achieve that I just pushed, pushed and pushed,” he says. “If I were to do it all again, I would look more carefully at people’s personal goals and how much can be loaded on their shoulders. Today I keep a close eye on how we treat people.”

When it comes to advice that he would impart to budding entrepreneurs, Riedel says that he is against the start-up-style mentality of prematurely talking about an exit. “Building something sustainably is difficult when you have an ending in mind already,” he says. “If you build something as though you were planning to run it for the next 100 years – or forever – you can exit any time. That’s what I would say to young people seeking to start a business.”

Riedel tells Monocle that the best guidance that he has received came about 25 years ago, at a particularly turbulent moment for his company. Riedel Communications was growing but cash poor and failing to deliver products on time, and struggling to pay bills. While some suggested that Riedel was overworked and should step back, one friend encouraged him to see things through. “He said, ‘Thomas, if you’re the captain of a ship that gets into a storm and you leave the deck, the ship might survive – but do you think that you can ever come back and be respected?’” He remembers this as the counsel that helped him through that difficult period and it’s an analogy that he has since shared with other people in similar situations.

Though Riedel now employs more than 1,000 people, he does everything that he can to resist imposing structures and processes that might stymie creativity. “I hate the corporate side of growing companies,” he says. “I understand the logic that a certain structure is needed but I strongly believe that the processes of corporations aren’t the best thing for companies.” For Riedel, the ideal company is one in which communications are easy “because everyone sits in one room and if someone gets a phone call, other people listen automatically and are informed”. While that might not always be possible when a company reaches a certain size, he tries to keep communications open and bureaucracy to a minimum.

Riedel says that his job now is to harness Arri’s innovative spirit for today’s fast-evolving landscape. That involves continuing to serve current clients while looking into potential new markets, including online content creators. Taking chances is a natural part of being an entrepreneur but what does he consider to be the greatest risk? He doesn’t hesitate. “The biggest one isn’t financial,” he says. “It is the risk of failing personally. I don’t know how I would deal with that.”
arri.com

Broad Church is Sydney’s answer to the members’ club, minus the gatekeeping

On a rainy weeknight in Chippendale, south of Sydney’s CBD, 16 people have gathered for a book club in a new co-working space. The space is stylish – a Pro-Ject Debut Evo 2 turntable plays Miles Davis and Pop and Scott lightshades hang from the ceiling. We’re just 2km from where the city’s five-storey Soho House behemoth will open its doors in 2028 – but Broad Church is a very different proposition.

Broad Church was born of former venture-capital investor turned author Jessy Wu’s frustration with the way that dealmaking happens: primarily through personal and professional networks.

“Traditional members’ clubs feel like spaces where the interests of capital can gather,” says Wu. “But where are the spaces where ordinary people, especially those with jobs vulnerable to AI, can meet and help each other out?”

Broad Church encourages membership based not on status but on a sense of connection. Built in 1886, the premises were an ecumenical mission hall doubling as a food bank and volunteering depot, before operating as a gallery and tapas bar. “It felt like a storied space,” says Wu.

She signed a four-year lease on 1 January. Broad Church now has almost enough members to break even on the rent. It costs AU$850 (€520) a month for a dedicated seat in the co-working space and AU$550 (€337) for a three-days-a-week membership. “I’m not trying to make a profit,” says Wu.

The idea is to make Broad Church part of Sydney’s social fabric, as members’ clubs are elsewhere in the world. Still, the 31-year-old acknowledges that mitigating structural inequity is a much larger hill to climb. “I don’t purport to be fixing this with one little building in Chippendale,” she says. But it’s certainly a good start.

From no-man’s land to vibrant neighbourhood, Canada’s Chilliwack has a new lease on new life

In 1960 the Trans-Canada Highway bypassed the downtown business district of Chilliwack, a small city 100km east of Vancouver – dealing it a near-fatal blow. But now day trippers from the big city craving a taste of small-town life head for District 1881 – 1.5 hectares of land transformed into a bustling micro-neighbourhood of shops, cafés, apartments, offices and a hotel.

The visionaries behind this mixed-use gem in the rural Fraser River valley are three siblings who operate as Algra Bros Developments Ltd. Co-partner Dave Algra says that the area was a no-man’s-land in 2018. “You couldn’t pay someone $20 to park here and walk down the street,” he tells Monocle.

But Dave and his brothers, Phil and Peter, are committed to their native valley. Much of the city’s downtown building stock dates back to the prewar era. With the right design, tenant mix and branding, they were convinced that the city centre could thrive once again.

So Algra Bros persuaded local officials that a mix of building types would have a salutary effect. “To revitalise the downtown, you need thousands of people,” says Dave, describing his pitch that a high street packed with places to shop and have coffee would generate more footfall than residential construction alone. The brothers earned this wisdom over decades that began with them working in construction, then saving enough money to buy land and build homes. Each brother brought a skill set – land assembly from Dave, design from Peter and finance from Phil – and an aggressive growth mindset that leaned on relationships that they had made working on job sites.

In 2010 they won a bid to develop several hundred homes on a former military base and learnt that pedestrian-orientated design – houses with easy access to shops and parks – sold better. Rehabbing old buildings near their office in downtown Abbotsford, 25km from Chilliwack, showed how to make commercial property work in small communities desperate for character – Algra Bros buildings were often leased or sold even before the paint dried. District 1881 is the result of these lessons. Its final building was completed last year and the average commercial rent is 400 per cent higher than when they started eight years ago. “We’re three years ahead of schedule,” says Dave of the return on investment.

And the high street’s thriving businesses concur. Shopkeeper Lily Ellis, who opened Spruce Collective, a shop specialising in locally made wares, says, “I never envisioned Chilliwack as a retail destination.”

The brothers have no interest in franchising. “We’re not efficiency kings,” says Dave. “We like the challenge of creating solutions. It doesn’t seem like many people in our industry behave that way.”
district1881.com