David Revagliatte chats with Michaela Rees, Co-Founder of Knightsbridge Incorporated and recently appointed GFSB Board Member.
They discuss her journey from Australia, her studies in Spain, her business in Wales, and her growing role in Gibraltar's local business scene. Michaela's work with the GFSB comes into focus too as she shares updates on some of its plans for transformation. Listen in as they talk about the importance of having a support group, working together, and being passionate about business. Michaela also shares a business lesson she learned.
This week's 'What's New Gibraltar?' segment features Carlito Buhagiar from Wastage Products Limited.
Thanks for listening to the Gibraltar Business Podcast by the GFSB! Follow us on Twitter, Linkedin and Facebook!
David Revagliatte chats with Michaela Rees, Co-Founder of Knightsbridge Incorporated and recently appointed GFSB Board Member.
They discuss her journey from Australia, her studies in Spain, her business in Wales, and her growing role in Gibraltar's local business scene. Michaela's work with the GFSB comes into focus too as she shares updates on some of its plans for transformation. Listen in as they talk about the importance of having a support group, working together, and being passionate about business. Michaela also shares a business lesson she learned.
This week's 'What's New Gibraltar?' segment features Carlito Buhagiar from Wastage Products Limited.
Thanks for listening to the Gibraltar Business Podcast by the GFSB! Follow us on Twitter, Linkedin and Facebook!
Hello and welcome to the Gibraltar Business Podcast, where we meet the local entrepreneurs and experts who are leading in their fields. I'm your host, david Raghliade, and I just want to say thank you for tuning in. So, whether you've just found us or have been with us since the start or just dabble every so often in an episode, thank you so much for listening. The Gibraltar Business Podcast is brought to you by the GFSB and is once again sponsored by Gibraltar International Bank, who shares our passion for all things business. This season comes with fresh new guests, fresh new features and is coming from a brand new studio in the heart of town. So on to this week's show. This week, I am joined by Mikaela Reis, the founder of Knightsbridge Incorporated and the GFSB board member. I'll be asking Mikaela about some of the big changes taking place at the GFSB. Later in the episode, galita Buhaya pops in to tell us all about his company's anti-wipe campaign in our new what's New Gibraltar feature. So, mikaela, thanks for joining me today on the podcast and thank you for having me.
Speaker 1:No, not at all. It's a real honour to have you on the show, especially as you are the newest board member at the GFSB.
Speaker 2:I am.
Speaker 1:So how do you get here? I guess it's part of the things that I want to know. Can you tell me, through your kind of your early life, what experiences brought you to business?
Speaker 2:Well, that's quite interesting, I suppose I've been fairly nomadic throughout my life, so I was actually born in Australia, spent my early, early years in South Africa of all places, travelled around a bit around the world and ended up in the UK. So I spent most of my formative years in Wiltshire and I was quite lucky with my education there. And I completed one of these forms that said what you're going to be. When you left school and my teacher told me you're either going to be a tax inspector or a businesswoman, I said, oh, thank you very much, I'll work on that, and that's what brought me to where I am today, I suppose.
Speaker 1:It really did combine the both of things right.
Speaker 2:It did. It did Certainly, I think. From there, from school, I went on to university and I studied Spanish and international business and I studied up in Leon in the north of Spain. Quite enjoyed it, but I found Spanish culture quite difficult to get on with. After two years there I felt that I needed to leave. I had to go back to the UK. I needed my own cultural roots. I needed to be able to tell a joke and somebody to understand what I was saying. So I ran away back to the UK, didn't know what to do myself, so I did a masters in computing at that stage and Cardiff, which I thoroughly enjoyed. Hence why I do have a slight Welsh twang when I speak. Sometimes it gets worse if I'm around Welsh people. So I lived in Swansea for quite some time and I ended up setting up my own business there shortly after I'd had my daughter.
Speaker 1:And that is a huge decision. You know like, as someone who is employed and it's kind of running a business on the side, I think it's a huge decision to start one. When and why did you take that decision?
Speaker 2:If I'm really honest, it's because I am not very good at conforming. I found it very difficult within the working environment, that structure and having the restrictions imposed on me. So, having worked for a firm for sort of three or four years an accountancy firm and having my daughter, I then spoke to a few people. Somebody said to me look, you're really good at what you do, why don't you set up on your own? I'd never, ever, ever thought of running my own business. It hadn't crossed my mind.
Speaker 2:I just thought when you're in school, you went and got a job. That's what you do. You don't go and start your own business. How do you do that? Luckily, my husband came from a long line of family members who had all been in their own business, so I had lots of people to talk to and I set the firm up very small, working at the kitchen table to begin with on my own, and then, slowly but surely, someone came to start working with me part-time and then we needed an office, and then we needed a bigger office and then it grew from there really. So it happened very organically and I'm very, I'm very lucky that it happened that way.
Speaker 1:I do think some of our listeners are going to relate to that kind of story. I know that I do the parts of it as well. I can definitely relate to working on the kitchen table and then things growing organically as well. So the kitchen table becomes your best friend when you start out in business, it's near the kitchen, near the biscuits, near the tea.
Speaker 2:Obviously I find in my business because I started off with tax and accountancy, which obviously we still provide now, but that then developed into financial services generally and also the company management side of things. So I am really lucky because I get to see a lot of different businesses in my professional life. So I really get to understand the struggles that people have on a day-to-day basis. And I do get a lot of startups. I get people who come and for one reason or another they need a new start in life and the kitchen table it certainly does become the focus, and I thought of that, but it's true.
Speaker 1:So, coming back to, you mentioned the word that you've been a bit like nomadic. You'd had some time studying in Spain. What brings you to Gibraltar, then?
Speaker 2:Well, if I'm completely honest, it rains a lot in Wales, so I always wanted to move abroad somewhere. I think it was just in my blood, in my nature. Thought about moving back to Australia. Felt the pace of life was just too slow. Considered Spain, but, as I said before, culturally I didn't fit very well with that, so decided not to pursue that idea. Felt that places like Canada were just too far away. So I happened to come to Gibraltar by accident.
Speaker 1:So it happens a lot, doesn't it?
Speaker 2:And I think all good things come by accident really. But I think the biggest thing for me is if you see an opportunity, you've got to take it. If you don't, then you're going to regret it. So if you're given an opportunity and it's within your grasp and you have the appetite for it, then I think it's really important to give it a go. So I came to Gibraltar as part of a financial services firm that we're looking for higher level permissions, so essentially came here for an interview with the FSC. It was all a bit last minute, if I remember rightly, because four of us managed to be squished into a one bedroom apartment in Ocean Village. This is way back when Devil's Tower Road didn't have the holiday in. There wasn't that accommodation here, so we were literally sort of scrabbling around trying to find somewhere to stay. So we squeezed into this one bedroom apartment. My daughter got very sick with a heat stroke, so we had a horrendous time while we were here, but we absolutely loved it.
Speaker 2:We thought we're a great star I know, I know, but what they do say that Gibraltar's like Marmite and for us we absolutely loved it. Despite all of those things, we were here for a very long weekend. We tried everything.
Speaker 3:Obviously the healthcare services as well as everything else.
Speaker 2:And we just loved it and we wanted to get back here as soon as we could, so I then put my name forward to work on the management team of this financial services company that was going to move over to Gibraltar for their permissions.
Speaker 1:What a journey right. Thanks for your honesty In terms of the Marmite thing. I have heard it from many, many people who move here or even come on holiday, and I think. Gibraltar has something extra. You know, I think before we had this interview, you and I met at Vinopolis, offline here, and we talked about the decision of why you come to Gibraltar, and sometimes it's they're a financial opportunities that come. But what other things? What drew you here then?
Speaker 2:Well, I think Gibraltar is very good at marketing itself to the outside world. A lot of people want to come here. I get inquiries almost on a daily basis, generally from people in the UK who are very keen to move here, but all across Europe, lots of people always contacting us saying I quite fancy moving to Gibraltar. Have you ever been here? No, but I know it's really good there.
Speaker 2:Ok, so we were in that same camp, to be honest, and followed everything through. Unfortunately for me, the company that I was with decided not to carry on with their endeavours. By that point, I was invested and I wanted to move here and I was going to find a way to do it. So I then decided because we had made the mistakes that a lot of businesses tend to make when they're trying to actually move into Gibraltar, which is doing it themselves, because we assume that everything functions in the same way as where we're from, and that's not the case. And it does make sense to actually invest and pay a local firm to help you out. And the number of times I was asked are you, are you getting someone to help you with this? And I don't know. It's fine, we're doing it ourselves. So, having made a lot of mistakes with the financial services firm, I then realised that actually that was where my skill base was and I could actually help people move here, because every mistake that you could make I've probably done it.
Speaker 1:So you were learning by doing, and that's why you're doing it. I was learning by doing, but you're expecting it.
Speaker 2:Don't do what I did? No, exactly right. I mean, yes, there's certain things that you can do yourself, and obviously money is not unlimited, so you do have to work within budgets for clients, but it is really important. So we then decided to set up the company management firm. So we set up Knightsbridge so that we could move, have an income and trade. So we started off as a very small business. There was two of us in the team.
Speaker 1:When was that and what's the timeline? Where are you now? What do you do?
Speaker 2:We made that decision in 2017. So quite a while ago now. Took us quite a long time to get our licence, through various issues that we were dealing with, and I think we finally started trading, probably towards the end of 2019.
Speaker 1:And then, unfortunately, covid hit Well the amount of conversations that I have, not just here at the podcast but with, unfortunately, COVID but, unfortunately COVID, but was that moment for you as well?
Speaker 2:Oh well, a little bit. I went into panic mode, to be honest with you, because we literally just moved here and I thought how are we going to survive? The business hasn't started trading, but actually it carried on. Financial services carried on and I was pleasantly surprised so I was able to carry on going to work. As I said, there was only two of us in the team, so I was able to keep going to my office at that time because, obviously, with the restrictions that we had, and it worked, it did work. I think there are some businesses that really suffered and I know that with a lot of my clients, that's basically what we ended up doing is supporting them. We did a lot of videos actually telling people where to get information from. We were constantly keeping up to date with all the different things that they could apply for just to keep their heads above water. Really, it was hard.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was, it was, but it sounds like you know, you again learning by doing, and I think we've all had to share the experience there.
Speaker 1:Someone said it was a recent list, but someone said it's a shared trauma, possibly, but also a real shared experience for the business community, for sure. Definitely changing tax, slightly moving, moving on, going back to that form that you filled in the school. They said you be a business woman and for our listeners, you know some of the people who are maybe Starting out their business journey, thinking about starting a business. What advice would you give them? What's like the most important thing they should do?
Speaker 2:If you make that decision that you need a change and that you're going to start your own business, you've got to have passion, you've really got to have passion. Don't just do it because you need to find another income stream, because that isn't going to have sustainability long term. I always say to people, when you run your own business, the highs are high, but the lows are low. My goodness, the first payment I ever received was for a check. It was a check for 124 pounds and it felt like somebody had handed me a gold bar. It's tough, and the other thing I think is that you need to make sure that you've always got somebody around you as a sounding board.
Speaker 2:So often people do start business on their own. They start small, but they need to have somebody. It can be a friend, it can be a partner, it can be them mother, can be their uncle anybody but it just needs to be somebody. And that is something actually that the gfsp is trying to to time tap into to help people with Bring people together, to allow people to collaborate and to discuss and to find ways to move forward and to share ideas and hints and tips and whatever it may be, and I think that's really, really important. I think we need to not be scared of sharing the market with other people. Sometimes we can actually grow the market if we work together, and that's really important.
Speaker 1:Ask him for advice, not being scared to collaborate with other people and reach out right, which again is part of what the gfsp the jbalt federation small businesses is doing now. I mentioned at the start of our interview that you're the newest board member, so you're doing this as well as running your own business and all sorts of I'm sure outside of work commitments. How did the opportunity come about to join the board and how's it going?
Speaker 2:Well.
Speaker 1:I am.
Speaker 2:I started off quite a while ago says pre covered. I was quite involved with women in business as it was known then. That is now developed and changed and we are now women in enterprise to encompass all women who may be in other areas. So they may be working in education, for instance, or maybe they're working in government or maybe you know the voluntary roles. So we've expanded that to try to encompass everybody. So I was quite heavily involved in women enterprise and we still are, and it was just a natural progression then to then join the board and I've been thoroughly enjoying it so far.
Speaker 1:It is. You know, gfsp has been around for 30 or 30 years around the time there are some changes happening. Right, that is is. Can you tell us a bit more about?
Speaker 2:yeah, we're quite fortunate because, obviously, with covid that we've already mentioned, everything was sort of stagnating generally and, as it so happened, we will see how to our a gm this year and we now have a new chair and smith, who has been working very hard to make us work in a more efficient way, to make us more accessible and more visible to our members as well. I think that's really important. You do have to bear in mind that we are all working on a voluntary basis, with giving up our own time in order to to help further the cause, to be able to help the gfsp, so so it is important that we recognize that, but generally we are working hard.
Speaker 1:I know that there's a few projects in the pipeline, so what are some of those ambitions for change?
Speaker 2:I'd describe it more as a facelift. That's what we're working towards. So, as I said earlier, we want to make sure that we're more accessible to our members. So any new members that join, we make sure that they meet a board member a board member that may be able to help them with their specific industry. This is a new service that we're offering. We're reviewing all of the member benefits that we can offer. We're looking to expand our education and training offerings. We're looking to be able to disseminate more information to members and we're trying to tell our members what we do, because there's a lot of things that go on behind closed doors and obviously for good reason in some cases but we're not telling our members enough about the good things that we're achieving. So we're trying to post more on our social media. We're trying to show people and showcase. As well as that, we're going to be launching the new magazine later on this year, which is very exciting, and I know that you're involved with.
Speaker 1:It is very exciting. It's going to be a great piece of work and a lot of work going into that.
Speaker 2:Yes, exactly, and it's nice because we've all been collaborating on that, and it's nice to put all of that in, and the other thing we're going to do is we're going to see more of our smaller businesses feature, and I think that's really important. For me, it's particularly important because we overlook the small businesses sometimes. They don't have the same power that the larger businesses have to make their point. They don't have the same number of employees maybe, and it's very important that we try and get them involved at every level.
Speaker 1:I think so. I think there's a lot of not just small business interborts but micro businesses they call them. So one person bands. It's really nice to hear that there's been a census also recently, right?
Speaker 2:Yes, the census has recently taken place and we should have the results fairly soon, and the purpose of that census was to get a better understanding of what our members' needs are. So it has been mentioned previously that maybe the breakfast clubs might need to be a little bit more tailored towards the industries that our members are party to. So by conducting a census, we're getting a better feeling as to what their needs and requirements are.
Speaker 1:As a GFSB member myself my company I find sometimes being able to access similar companies in my field harder, so I think I'd welcome something that helped us do that. Yes, you know to search by sector so it helps you develop your business.
Speaker 2:So there's so much going on. The website is having a facelift as well. We're going to have a member's area on there. All of these things are in development. I can't promise when they're going to happen, but everybody is working really hard behind the scenes just to make things a lot more efficient for everyone.
Speaker 1:Brilliant. So, michaela, we've got a couple more questions and one of them is to kind of address, I guess, the elephant in the room. That still is the perennial elephant in the room and I asked most of my guests to write about, and it's the kind of the uncertainty that Gibraltar's business community is kind of facing. What's your take on it?
Speaker 2:Do you know what? I think there's always uncertainty with business, and you have got to be what's the term? Agile. I think you've got to be able to change. You've got to be able to flex and bend to whatever is happening at that point in time, because there is we're going to get over Brexit, we're going to get through COVID, we're going to get through the issues that we're having at the border, and then there'll be something else, something that we haven't thought about yet. So I think we've just got to keep doing what we're doing, which is talking about things working together.
Speaker 2:There's a real strong sense of community in Gibraltar, and I really, really like that. I have never been in a place where there's so much business that's going on. It's almost like a little bubble. You go into the World Trade Center and there's like a flurry of activity going on behind closed doors, and you'll go to one of the other business centers and something will be happening there as well. But the thing that we do here is that we are used to these challenges and we respond really well to them, because we change tack and we find a way through it and we pull together. Our government is easily accessible here, and that doesn't happen in most places. So when we need something, we can go to them and we can say we've got a problem, this is what we need you to do, and nine times out of ten they'll do what they can to help us.
Speaker 1:So I think we have to just keep yeah, being positive and talking and collaborating right. So that's a lot of great advice for our listeners as well.
Speaker 2:But my final question and one that I think most of my guests would really dislike.
Speaker 1:What's that one business lesson that you wish you'd known sooner, or that you've been told that you've learned?
Speaker 2:Gosh, one lesson. I think there's so many lessons and you're constantly learning, aren't you? I mean, I make a point every day of trying to learn one thing new, whatever it is, just one thing new, and I wouldn't say that's my business lesson. I think with business lesson, you have got to be prepared to admit that you're wrong. That would be my advice to anybody. You know, don't always think that you're right. You have got to accept that sometimes you have made the poor choice, you have made that wrong decision. You did take the wrong option, and that's okay, because do you know what? What did they say? In order to succeed, first, you must fail, yes, and if you don't follow that through, you're not going to be successful. That's what I truly believe Brilliant and thanks.
Speaker 1:Thanks a lot, mckellie. You've been a great guest. Thank you, you're welcome back any time of the year. Great, that's New Gibraltar. So right now, just for this new feature of the show, we have Calito Buhayda from Wastage Products Limited. Thank you, over to you Tell us what's new. Hi, david, thanks very much for having me.
Speaker 3:It's a real pleasure to be here. I'll explain a bit about who we are and stuff. Wastage Products Limited is a sewage and waste disposal company, obviously based in Gibraltar. We were established just over 25 years ago and I am one of the directors. I came into the picture about eight to 10 years ago and ever since I've sort of been campaigning for the reduction of use of baby wipes in Gibraltar and the flashing of them.
Speaker 3:Gibraltar has a very particular infrastructure. We have a very old sewage system, especially up in the upper town area, and these wet wipes are a major issue for the structural integrity of the sewage system. We have about 27 pumping stations around Gibraltar and all these wipes get accumulated in the pumping stations or they ultimately end up at sea down by Europa Point. Now our focus at the moment is to bring together a number of companies in Gibraltar. We actually believe that the private sector should assist in leading the way to sustainability in these regards. So at the moment, we have brought together a number of companies. The likes of Sustainable AMA, netgear, basadani, piranha Design have joined as well. And what we are doing? We are requesting the public to take a pledge and promise us that they will not throw wipes down the toilet. Upon taking the pledge, we'll be giving them a nice gift basket with eco-branded gifts from all of our partners, and in the hope that we can reduce the usage of wipes in Gibraltar.
Speaker 1:So brilliant, Just for our listeners. The usage of wipes is costing how much you said.
Speaker 3:Right. So back in December 22, the Chief Minister came out saying on GBC that the government invest about £1 million a year in Gibraltar's infrastructure. Now a lot of this money unfortunately has to go into repairing, for example in unblocking the sewer At Wastage. We believe that this investment could have much better use in the improvements of the system rather than in the repairing which the actual public is actually deteriorating.
Speaker 1:So I've seen this kind of stuff on the UK news so it's interesting that it happens here as well. You have the Gibraltar Business Podcasts. Promise to not do this anymore and kind of pledge and support you in your campaign. How can some of our listeners in either the public or businesses get involved in the campaign?
Speaker 3:If you follow our page on LinkedIn or our website, wwwwastageproductscom. We regularly post blogs information about actually in and around Gibraltar of what we find in the sewers, so my LinkedIn page is brilliant it's full of photos.
Speaker 1:So, guys, if you want those kind of pictures, follow Wastage. I'll include some contact details as well. And, yeah, get involved. No more wipes in Gibraltar, kaleeto. Thank you, thank you. Thank you for being part of this new feature of this new season. Thank you very much for having me, david, and that's a wrap for this episode of the Gibraltar Business Podcast. Thank you so much to my guests, mikaela Rees and Kaleeto Buhaya, as well as our sponsors, the Gibraltar International Bank. I'd like to thank everyone who contributes to the project and keeps the podcast going from strength to strength. Thank you for tuning in. I hope you found this episode informative and engagement. If you want to contact the show, please do so of any of our social channels. So it's a goodbye from me and remember keep striving for success and stay focused on your goals. See you next week.