Bizzy Bits: Gloftis rewards staff member with restaurant share, no ‘sly reporting’ from PWR, and students taste challenge success

BIZZY Bits: Simon Gloftis rewards loyal staff member with restaurant share, PWR denies ‘sly reporting’, and Bond students taste success at innovation challenge, plus more

Simon Gloftis and his general manager Theo Kampolis at Hellenika. Simon has made Theo a partner in the highly successful Nobby Beach restaurant. Picture: Richard Gosling

THE Coast’s own celebrity restaurateur Simon Gloftis caused a stir early in the week, announcing he’d given part of his “baby” — acclaimed Nobby Beach eatery Hellenika — to his long-time general manager.

Theo Kampolis moved from Greece with his wife seven years ago and Mr Gloftis sponsored his work visa so he could stay with Hellenika.

Starting as a waiter with barely a word of English, the determined fellow worked his way up to section manager, floor manager and restaurant manager before he was promoted to GM.

His dedication has now made him part-owner — a turn of events neither man expected seven years ago.

While the affable Gloftis was tight-lipped about the specifics of the deal, which he said was “not 5 per cent and not 50 per cent”, he was more forthcoming about his regard for the Greek-born Kampolis.

“He’s an absolute asset,” he said. “I’ve been thinking about it for a long time and with the opening in Brisbane next month, I thought the timing was perfect.

“I feel lucky with all on my team, it always happens to me, I have great people.

“We spend time together, have meals together and it’s a proper collaboration — it’s not me saying “we’re going to do this”.

“Theo’s made it his own, has taken the initiative — he said he’d show me by his actions and not his words and that’s what he’s done.”

Hellenika’s northern sister is set to open at the Calile Hotel in Fortitude Valley in the next few weeks.

Mr Kampolis said he was “very happy and excited” about gaining a stake in the restaurant.

“Simon was the person who believed in me,” he said.

“Many times away from work he has helped me and my family. When you come from another country, with a language barrier and another culture, it doesn’t matter how hard you’re working, you need someone who’s going to support you.

“For me, that was Simon.”

Kees Weel heads up PWR Holdings, which chose Thursday night, while the Liberal party was feuding about the leadership, to drop its full-year results.

IT’s been a good week for listed companies with, ahem, less than stellar annual results.

A feuding Federal Liberal Party has managed to swallow much of the news space leading crafty companies to slyly drop some poor results at opportune times.

Which is why it was shock to see PWR Holdings results drop on Thursday night. Revenue was up 8 per cent to $52 million, profit was up 19 per cent to $11 million and, closest to all shareholders hearts, dividends were up 30 per cent to 7.3c for the year.

It took several scourings of the results before the Bizzy Bits team realised there was no bad news secreted away in it. According to PWR chief financial officer Stuart Smith there was no hidden reason behind the late filing.

“The results had to be audited and, as per our continuous reporting requirements, we released them to the market once that was done,” he said.

And as for the bunfight in Canberra? “We can’t control the politicians,” Mr Smith said. Which is more the pity.

Bond University students Mona Izzeldin and brother Mumin Izzeldin.

A TEAM of Bond students has snared a top-three finish in the university stream of the 2018 Telstra Innovation Challenge with their device that is a real labour of love.

The students have developed a real-time monitoring system that would enable palliative care patients to be looked after in their own homes.

Nick Inglis, Mona Izzeldin, her brother Mumin Izzeldin (pictured) and Lucas Brown finished second out of more than 70 entrants nationwide and were flown to Telstra’s global headquarters in Melbourne to pitch their idea for the Aijonet device.

“The challenge was to use Telstra’s Internet of Things technology to develop an application for the health and wellness sector,” Ms Izzeldin, who is in her final year of a Bachelor of Biomedical science at Bond, said.

“Our solution was a device that would enable palliative care patients to record their symptoms and connect with the hospital while enjoying the luxury of their homes on their end of life journey.

“The device enables doctors and healthcare teams to customise indicators so it can be tailored to individual patients.

“The patient can record their progress … from wherever they happen to be.

“As such, our application enables palliative care patients to be monitored from the comfort and privacy of their own home where they are surrounded by loved ones, rather than spending their final months in a clinical hospital or hospice environment. That’s why we called it ‘Aijonet’ — using the Japanese word ‘aijo’ for compassion/care/love.”

Mr Izzeldin is studying business, Mr Inglis is doing his PhD in machine learning and artificial intelligence, and Mr Brown is studying at Bond University College. They came together through Transformer, a program exclusive to Bond designed to teach students how to apply design thinking and an entrepreneurial mindset.