Andrew Douglas, Managing Director, Southern Skies Investment Holdings (Cape Winelands, South Africa)

Years in Industry:
I grew up in Cabernet country, the mighty Coonawarra, a wine region in the south east of South Australia. I was “in digs" with some notable Roseworthy winemaker alumni during my Uni years in Adelaide but I’m pretty new to the world of wine. Save for a two-year stint as Australian Honorary Consul in Cape Town, I’ve built a 20+ year career producing events the world over, namely in the UK, New Zealand, Australia and for the last 17 years, South Africa.

Until March 2020 we owned Africa’s biggest Bierfest, held the Sub-Saharan license for OCR titan Tough Mudder and were making a meaningful impact with The Wine Show, a “try and buy” wine event we acquired in 2015 that in 2019 connected almost a third of our country’s wine producers to 30,000 wine enthusiasts in seven of South Africa’s major metros. Then everything changed. The arrival of a global pandemic preceded a national lockdown and all but wiped out our event business overnight. The silver lining was that this disruption provided us with some long overdue time and space for heavy introspection and deep dives around what we do and why we do it.

Simultaneously, the South African wine industry, one we’d served for five short years, was particularly hard hit with senseless liquor bans and a baffling five-week export embargo that lost valuable shelf space overseas. COVID19 exposed some cracks within the local wine retail ecosystem, namely an unhealthy reliance and unbalanced route to market skew toward distributors and “bricks and mortar” liquor retail. Non-existent, previously disregarded, Direct-to-Consumer retail channels were now suddenly in vogue.

They say that necessity is the mother of all invention.

The culmination of these events led to the sale of Bierfest, the termination of our Tough Mudder licence and an all-in, double down, last chance saloon, Hail Mary pass deep into the forward half of the South African wine industry. Suffice to say we’re no longer event producers but a small army of reinvented “wine warriors” committed to doing what we can to move the marketing and sales dial for South African wine locally and abroad.

Nowadays you’ll find us evangelising about “DTC,” “data in decision making” and “wine online” to anyone who’ll listen. We’re walking the talk and have developed some products of our own, notably, the Great BIG Wine Survey (South Africa’s first consumer wine survey of scale) and CATALIST, an end-to-end data driven DTC marketing, e-commerce and fulfilment solution for local wine producers. We’ve launched a wine club, vinoFOMO, built around a limited range of seasonal offers, and we’ve recently partnered with South Africa’s second largest e-tailer, loot.co.za, to exclusively list, manage and fulfil a vinoFOMO range of nearly 500 product lines.
 
My Top Three Challenges to Wellness:

1. Self-Belief. I run hard 7 days a week and I like to dream big. This often leads to overwhelm when a little bit of “imposter syndrome” creeps in, because the reality is often that I’m making it up as I go along. Fortunately it’s always short-lived and often I remind myself that my “greenness” and “fresh eyes” can be my greatest strength in solving problems/meeting challenges.

2. Sleep. I need it. Bad. I’m not talking regular 8 hours. I’m a bit of a sleep nuffy so I’m talking enough Deep sleep, enough REM sleep etc. I have a GARMIN that records this and I’ve learnt my body battery (how I feel and my capacity to meet the day) directly correlates to how much, and more importantly what type of sleep, I got the night before. No devices before bed time. No coffee after noon. Plenty of exercise and….Roberts your mother’s brother (or “Bob’s your uncle”).

3. Attention Deficit. I struggle to concentrate. I’m committed to learning, particularly lately, but the fact is that I’m a restless student. I often find myself experiencing creative or entrepreneurial blocks. After ensuring that my team is loaded up and clear on direction I try to slow down, be kind to myself and allow time to ride the emotional wave. However long it takes!

How I Keep It Together to Stay Well:

• Family. As an Entrepreneur I can have a tendency to “turn inward” and close off at home when life gets challenging. This means I can close off to family and home life. I try very hard to avoid doing this. I have a very supporting, amazing and understanding wife – the roles & purposes in our partnership are clear. I have the most incredible two kids who hold me to account, and when I invest the time they reciprocate in ways you can never imagine.

• Exercise. I have a regular routine of trail running and a quick gym routine. I sprinkle this with SUP when the surf is up. I am desperate to get into YOGA and other forms of stretching/anti-ageing prevention to maintain flexibility and flow. I do my best processing and planning on the mountain – no interruptions, just me and the trail and all the epiphanies hidden in the mossy crags!

• Mind Expansion. I am a recent convert to plant-based medicine for clearing energy blocks and mind expansion. Enough said. Don’t knock it until you try it. I think the recent surge in psychedelic therapies is incredibly exciting for the human race.

• Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT). I embraced this in my mid-20s, and it helped me to change unhelpful or unhealthy ways of thinking, feeling and behaving. I feel my mood, try and understand why I may feel that way (good or bad), accept it and move on. I find it a great “mood evener.”

• Humour. I love making people laugh. I find it’s a great way to grease the wheels of any social interaction to get to understanding. I often use it when dealing with serious challenges or conflict to keep the conversation, and its participants, authentic, genuine and…..human.

• Entrepreneur’s Organization (EO). Over the course of 2020 and my shift in gear/direction I realised that I was “lone wolf” most of the time, even though I have great support at work and at home. When I made the decision to “level up and learn,” a big part of that journey was to join Entrepreneur’s Organisation (EO) by surrounding myself with people like me who could share experiences and learn peer to peer from each other. My forum is becoming a big part of my life.

What Inspires Me:
Commercially Sustainable Altruism
I think I just made that up. Having cut my teeth running positive lifestyle youth programs in Australia and South Africa, I came to the sad realisation that charity and philanthropy just don’t work in isolation. I’m attracted to entrepreneurs and “change makers” who are passionate about their why and how they can contribute (not serve). Their purpose fuels them, and their business smarts sustain them and their activities ultimately for the benefit of others.

I’m an eternal optimist so I thrive on positivity and belief in a better way. I do need people around me who are realists, although I definitely can’t do cynics and pessimists… This is definitely a “No Eeyor Zone,” please.
 
A Quote I Love:
"Your mind is for having ideas, not holding them." -- David Allen

You can connect with Andrew on Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn.