Hello, I am Paul Leach

I work with busy cafe owners to help them to grow, run and sell their businesses'

I grew up in the food business, my parents owned two very successful restaurants and I remember working (or a least thinking I was) in them from a very early age. All through school I knew I wanted to go in to the hospitality industry and the day that I started at College could not come quick enough.

In 1993 I opened my first Cafe called “Hogarth’s” and that is really where it all began. 

Since then I have built up and sold nine food businesses and loved every minute (well most of it) and learnt a lot about how the sale process works.

When running and selling my businesses I always felt that there had to be a better way to get support throughout the journey and that is where this business and The GSE HUB come from. 

I am now using the experience I gained in starting, running and selling all those businesses to help people like yourself to do the same. It works well for me as I am still involved in the industry and it helps my clients by them avoiding some of the mistakes that I made when selling my first couple of cafes – Win Win!

I would love the opportunity to show you more about how this approach can help you to grow, run or sell your business.

Growing up in the hospitality industry with my dad owning an Italian restaurant, and my mum owning a ski lodge with a fine dining restaurant, it’s safe to say hospitality is in my DNA!

After I left school I wanted to try something different, so I entered the sporting industry, working at world class companies such as Nike Australia, FILA International and Pacific Dunlop, where I enjoyed and excelled in sales and marketing roles.

I loved my time in the sporting industry, but the itch to be part of the hospitality industry never left me, so when an opportunity came up to invest in and operate a restaurant in Brisbane, I jumped at the chance.

Over almost a decade, I invested in and operated multiple restaurants and a coffee specialty café, I became the National Operations Manager of the hospitality group – which eventually established 25 restaurants and 6 coffee specialty cafes trading under The Groove Train and Coffee Hit brands.

In 2015 we sold the business to Minor DKL – the parent company of The Coffee Club. Knowing that the sale was imminent I decided to further educate myself and completed my Masters in Business Administration at The University of Queensland.

Working for a premium national institutional landlord specialising in food and beverage leasing, I have gained extensive knowledge and experience about the site selection process, lease negotiation structures and the details of how the industries best businesses achieve favorable leases.

If you need help with the day to day running of your business, growth strategies or with any lease/landlord requirements please do not hesitate to reach out.

Zuzana Mero is a culture and leadership specialist in the Food & Beverage industry with 25-year history of both corporate and hospitality experience.

In the 90’s I started my career in the crazy world of media and television production in executive administration. After a decade or so I changed my career path to hospitality – an industry I fell in love with from day one. Both careers have given me a well-rounded insight into leadership and management… mainly what works and what doesn’t!

People often have the same dream of escaping the corporate grind and opening a café or restaurant only to be faced with managing and leading people in an environment they may have no experience in. Hospitality is demanding, fast paced and often unforgiving, and so are its people! Being able to depend on those we employ is critical to our success.

I’ve been there, having moved my family thousands of miles to open a huge restaurant in a CBD location with no experience thinking it would be easy! From one to two, and then to three hectic venues, all open 7 days a week for breakfast, lunch and dinner, we’ve lived the blood, sweat and tears that only hospitality owners will understand!

Over the last 14 years I’ve continually witnessed so many stories of staff being the reason some operators close their doors and give up on their dream. Now more than ever is the perfect time to understand how to keep a motivated and productive team on board. And though it’s the hardest it has ever been with the lack of willing and available staff – I know that a part of the solution lies in how you manage and lead the staff you have, as well as the new ones you are able to find!

This is the absolute heart of my passion – working with hospitality owners to grow and keep their teams with simple, down to earth methods, followed by advising exactly how to implement systems to keep it that way. My personal goal, one café owner at a time, is to make your lives less stressful, with improved staff relationships and systems to free up your time for living a little again!

Robert Illsley is a licensed Real Estate Agent running the NSW Regional and Canberra office of GSE Business Consultants who specialise in selling food businesses.

I am very passionate about hospitality and have been involved in the industry for much of my working career.

I trained as a Fine Dining Restaurant Manager and I have also been involved in the Wine Industry having spent 6 years working for one of th UK’s most well respected merchants.

In 2014 I set up my own specialty coffee shop which I ran for 4 years and I discovered a passion for broking when I came to sell my business. After a couple of bad experiences with brokers I discovered GSE and Paul showed me the right way to sell a business and he helped me to achieve a great price for my café in a reasonable time frame.

I understand that café owners are hard working people and when it comes to selling you want to entrust the sale to somebody who is as passionate about your business as you are.

I believe that selling a business works best in partnership between the broker and the seller and I work hard to gain an intimate knowledge of how your business works and what makes it special and unique and my passion and knowledge for the industry allow me to speak with authority when I am talking to buyers.

It is never too early to develop an exit strategy so if you have been thinking about selling or just want some help to understand what the process will be like when you do, then don’t hesitate to get in touch with me at any time.