A professional gymnast till adulthood, Dion immigrated to Sydney from Capetown in 1989, studied Building, then with his keen business drive, traversed to Project Management.…only to find it desk bound and soul-less! Off came the suit when in 2003 the idea was born to open a retail coffee roaster with his wife Emma, also looking for a life change. Seventeen suit-less years later at Single O, Dion has played chef, espresso machine technician, delivery driver, finance dude, general manager, and these days, supports where he is most at home – in sales, with his hospo tribe. As for his attributes, Tim Cameron, National Sales Manager at Single O, puts it poignantly; “When Dion interviewed me in 2014, he asked just three questions ‘If I was a coffee what would it be ? What gets me up in the morning, what drives me ? What do I want here and now ?’ He has a way of simplifying things that makes the world easy to approach. He has a way of getting the exact truth or core out of people. He has a unique style of leadership where he gets extreme loyalty out of people that are willing to buy in and helps people get the best of themselves. If I had to sum him up in a few words? Menace, rascal, loving, listener , story teller, big heart, inspiration, networker, loyalty, Midnight joker , family.” And from Single O General Manager, Mike Brabant, “Dion is the Hugh Jackman of coffee. Has a connection to everybody in the coffee world (and sometimes the world it seems). He loves people and people love him. He’s 100% himself. Dion is a lateral thinker – he sees things through relationships and connections from a marathon away to find, support and help the business. His passion and energy could be mistaken for health critical levels of caffeination!