Meet the Australian husbands who call their wives boss

THESE are the Aussie men abandoning corporate life in favour of work-life balance — and they don’t mind calling their wives boss.

Adam Simpson ditched a media career to work for his wife, jewellery designer Kate Sutton.

BEHIND many a successful businesswoman lies a hardworking husband, in a trend that’s flipping the glass ceiling on its head.

Aussie dads are abandoning corporate life in favour of the work-life balance that comes with joining the family business — and they don’t mind calling their wives boss.

In the past decade a wave of new mums has harnessed the power of the internet to turn their passions and hobbies into cold, hard cash, thumbing their noses at the nation’s inflexible workplaces.

Among their ranks are women whose ventures have become so profitable that their husbands have thrown in their jobs to work for them. Call it the wife-boss phenomenon.

And while there’s plenty of money to be made from a well-conceived business idea, sustaining a marriage in parallel with an employment relationship comes with its challenges.

‘SHE FIRED ME TWICE’

They met on the set of a reality television show, but lost their jobs when it was axed.

Little did Adam Simpson know, he’d end up ditching his media career in favour of working for his wife.

What began as a hobby turned into a thriving jewellery business when Kate Sutton decided to make a go of her passion while looking after her first baby.

And when her UberKate label started bringing in enough cash to cover both their incomes, Ms Sutton asked her husband to join her staff.

That was 14 years ago and the pair now count each other as co-directors of the personalised jewellery business.

Mr Simpson runs the business side of the venture, Kate is responsible for design, creation and sourcing of its precious stones and jewellery.

But it hasn’t always been smooth sailing, he recalled.

“Along the way, Kate fired me twice,” he said.

“She put me on probation early on. I was in the garage doing the polishing, and she wasn’t happy with my work.

“She sat on a stool and made me sit on an office chair so I was below her, said I wasn’t doing my job correctly.”

Ms Sutton said she was annoyed that her husband “just wasn’t as into it as I was”, admitting she had a “fiery” personality and meticulous standards.

“At the time I was doing a role I wasn’t suited to,” Mr Simpson said.

By outsourcing the polishing work, Ms Sutton freed her husband up to focus on what he did best, and their working relationship improved.

He now boasts the title of chief financial officer and manages a team of web development staff.

“I feel like I can speak up if I disagree,” he said.

“We have it out if we have an important decision to make together.”

‘AN EXPENSIVE HOBBY’

When Courtney Younie started her interior decorating business, her husband Jarrod never imagined that he would be working for her.

Initially, Mr Younie dismissed the venture as an “expensive hobby”, as he watched his wife fork out for expensive fittings to deck out properties for sale.

“I wasn’t as supportive at the start,” he admitted to news.com.au. “There were lots of outgoings and not much incoming to start out with.”

Jarrod Younie works in his wife Courtney’s interior decorating business.

Then all of a sudden, demand for Allure Property Styling’s services in Sydney’s hills district took off, and Mr Younie found himself being called on to help out on his days off.

“By January last year, I said ‘we can’t keep doing this’ and I that I needed him to work for me full time,” Ms Younie said.

For Mr Younie, a former retail store manager accustomed to managing teams of employees at companies like Rebel Sport and Amart, it was a big adjustment.

“My job is a lot more hands-on and physical now,” he said.

“For me it’s about being able to help Courtney with her dream, and spend time with our child.”

Mr Younie, Allure’s general manager of logistics and operations, was hesitant to call the business his own, acknowledging that Ms Younie “spent two and a half years building it before I left my [former] role”.

But he was “very invested in making sure it succeeds”, given the business was now the family’s sole source of income.

“I get to see my wife and daughters much more than most people would,” Mr Younie said.

FROM JET ENGINES TO BABY CLOTHES

As an aircraft engineer, Dave Rowland often worked late into the night in a male-dominated industry.

Now he sells eco-friendly baby clothes for a living in his wife Heather’s business, Kippins.

Dave and Heather Rowlands work together on her babywear label, Kippins.

It all started in 2014 when Ms Rowland was on maternity leave, and decided to use her marketing background to launch a business from their lounge room.

“I was doing a lot of reading about comforters, because they are supposed to help babies get to sleep,” she recalled.

“I was really worried as a new mum that I’d never sleep again.”

But all the products she could find were “a bit naff and old fashioned”, and she decided that she could do better, launching the Kippins range.

Thanks to a bit of “hype” on social media, the designs took off, and sales grew steadily.

After moving to her home state of Queensland, Ms Rowland asked her husband to come on board.

“The catalyst was getting to the point where we needed to hire someone,” she said.

Now Mr Rowland looks after the inventory and finance side of the business, which is nearing the $1 million turnover mark and ships to more than 450 retailers worldwide across 30 countries.

Profits are reinvested in growing the venture, so he won’t be asking for a payrise anytime soon.

And he’s, by and large, happy to defer to his wife.

“I know it’s her business, she started it, it’s her baby,” Mr Rowland said. “Most of the time I let her have her way.”

The pair admitted that it could be difficult not to let marital conflict spill over into their work lives, but said the arrangement worked overall.

“The more we can work together, the better we are,” Ms Rowland said.

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