The space was launched with a party and panel discussion with some of Australia’s leading CEOs – Jane Lu from online clothing boutique Showpo, founder of Anytime Fitness Australia Jacinta McDonell, Opportunity International Australia CEO Robert Dunn, and Charlie Wood, the former Managing Director of Dropbox, and Founder of CheckInSafe.
The panel shared advice for budding business owners, with Jacinta McDonell revealing bites of her own startup story, including how simple and lacklustre her first office space was. “This place [Christie Spaces] is much better than the dingy co-working space I first started with,” said Jacinta.
Robert Dunn also shared words of wisdom to inspire the special guests and local entrepreneur community in attendance.
“Sometime you have to jump. Most people don’t have a spark, that passion. If you have a spark, just get up and do it,” said Robert.
Founder of the co-working hub Robert Christie has a history in property investment, running one of Australia’s largest portfolios of Homemaker Centre’s, explaining he first created Christie Spaces after seeing a gap in the market, travelling to the UK and the USA to inspire the modern, boutique-style fit out by Unita.
“There was a noticeable social change taking place whereby people were no longer being bound by a static desk or sitting in a traditional office in one particular location,” said Robert.
Christie’s has nurtured a collaborative, member-centric community, with a business model partnered with Opportunity International Australia to offer microfinance loans to those in need, to build their own businesses, become entrepreneurs, and raise families out of hunger and poverty.
With the co-working environment constantly changing and evolving, as more individuals are feeling empowered to leave their “desk jobs” in favour of starting businesses they are passionate about, Christie Spaces endeavours to foster a flexible work environment to suit all entrepreneurs.
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