In this episode of YS Up Governance and Boards Podcast, 3YS Owls Governance Consultants, Ainslie Cunningham and Deb Anderson interview Theo Vairaktaris. Theo is founder and sole owner of the Taris Property Group and the award winning Usher Group. The Usher Group started out as a humble small painting business on the Gold Coast. Almost two decades on, the Usher Group is recognised as one of the construction and trade industry's most recognisable businesses.

We explore with Theo the growth of the Usher Group from a small painting business to a company that now works across nine different service areas and the importance of core values, agreed behaviours, purpose and passion in building a resilient culture and brand.

"I think if they're stuck in a rut, I think coming back to those basic levels and understanding what's your purpose. I believe if you've got your purpose clear, and you find your passion in that purpose, then you're going to deliver an awesome product. Those three things there for me was really, really clear in my journey that I was highly passionate, and I had a purpose, which helped me deliver an awesome product. And then the next three was obviously people, culture and brand.

So, I think once your purpose is clear and you understand truly what you're focusing on, and you're really clear about that, then you can really find your... It really ignites you again. Sometimes we get a bit grey. We find ourselves in a, "What am I really doing? What's my real purpose? What am I selling?" or, "What's my service?" or, "What problem am I solving?" I think we've got to be really clear about what's my goal here, what's my aim? I think if we can find and really define that, then we can be really clear with our people. We can be really clear about our strategic direction, and then we can really be clear about what results we want to achieve. So sometimes it's just coming back to those core basics, purpose and passion."
- Theo Vairaktaris

Summary of episode
· The importance of People and Culture
· Brand
· Strategy
· The importance of a mentor
· DiSC profiling
· "Your Project Partner"
· Usher Love - charitable foundation
· Some of the challenges Theo faced in growing the business and his tips on how to overcome some of the challenges faced by business owners

About Theodore Vairaktaris
As the founder and sole owner of the Usher Group, Theodore Vairaktaris started out as a humble small painting business on the Gold Coast. Almost two decades on, the Usher Group is recognised as one of the construction and trade industry's most recognisable businesses.

Painting is still at the heart of what the Usher Group does, yet today the company work across nine different service areas including solid plastering, signage, property maintenance, swinging stage and mast climber access solutions, electrical, refrigeration and mechanical, landscaping and labour-hire.

With such an expansive collection of services at Usher Group, their strongest belief is that they establish...