your family wholesale business, and rebranded when you became the CEO. Talk me through this. Joseph Merlino: Table and Chair had been around since 1989 and in 2008 I restructured the business and founded District Australia. When I took over the business it was very small and I changed the whole way in which we work. IR: How has the business evolved? JM: Our business has changed so much. We were predominantly for hospitality back when we first started. Commercial and residential was always a thing, but it was never massive for us. It was always icing on the cake, that’s how we used to see it back in those days. Clients would come in and they could buy products, but it was never a focus. Now it’s become a really big focus for us and we see it as a huge category. IR: How did you approach expanding from a small hospitality wholesale family business based in Perth to a national next-generation design business?  JM: The main reason why we opened in Melbourne was the people.  Joe Catania manages Melbourne and that relationship was formed through trust. He worked from his grandfather’s garage where we had samples. As the business grew over there, I said to him, if you hit a million dollars in the first year, I’ll get you a showroom and that’s what we did in Melbourne, then Sydney and that’s what we’ll do in Brisbane. IR: District is about to go through another rebrand – why is this? JM: When we changed from Table and Chair to District, we were children, and now we feel like we’ve matured a bit and are moving into that real adult stage now. We’re rebranding District and giving it a fresh look. The idea of this is to bring transparency to the brand and showcase who our makers are. An online rebrand will launch in 2024, with a new website which will be a huge e-commerce platform. When you’re [shopping] on our new website it’ll feel like you’re shopping in-store, and a lot of work has gone into that. IR: What customer are you servicing? JM: It all started when we went national and now we have showrooms in Perth, Melbourne, Sydney, and an office in Brisbane. For us residential is a big part, but with B2B we play in a lot of different sectors.  Our biggest sector is definitely the workplace; in the last 18 months it’s been big with the ever-changing workplace environments. Hospitality slowed for a while as you can imagine over Covid, but it’s picked back up now. I would say 70 per cent [of sales] is B2B and 50 per cent of that currently is in the workplace. IR: What is your approach to leading a national team? JM: We are a small family business that operates in every state of Australia. Trust is a big thing for me. I give autonomy, because I believe you employ and pay people to do a job who are experienced and knowledgeable in that field. I am definitely a listener. I want to learn and hear what my employees have to say. Nine times out of ten I want to go with the direction they feel is right for the business based on their experience and knowledge.  I’m not someone who makes all the decisions; I like to work in partnership. It’s a team of us growing District and I get a lot out of my people based on the fact that I’m kind and understanding, and want to work with them in a great way as opposed to being a micromanager.  IR: What are some areas you’re developing internally? JM: As a team, we could be a bit more KPI-driven, to be honest. We’ve acknowledged this internally and that’s an improvement that we’ll be working on over the next 18 months. Hiring good quality people is important to me. IR: How did District navigate the pandemic? JM: There was a change, but weirdly for us, we experienced growth in the workplace part of the business and created our brand Elements during this time. It’s mainly workplace furniture and a good percentage of its components are produced in Australia.  It came from designing product based on a brief with an Australian client who helped us to understand the possibilities and potential new ways that customers were interested in working with us. People wanted product quickly and we had the stock and capacity to deliver it to them pretty much immediately. We were lucky during that period. IR: Do you supply to an overseas market? JM: Not yet. We’ve got the rights for a lot of brands in Australia currently and our long-term strategy will be expanding globally. We’re looking to start in Asia. Right now we’ve got our hands full with what’s going on in Australia.