Executive Director and Co-Owner, Seima
Blue Ocean Strategy
INSEAD Business School, France, 2017
With a background in IT, Michael Segredos changed channels on his career when he became owner and manager of a supermarket. Liking the taste of being his own boss, he later went on to build a national company specialising in Euro-inspired, Australian-designed bathroom, laundry and kitchen ware.
From computers to supermarkets
“Having studied Information Technology (IT) at university, I started my career in the IT industry. A couple of years into my IT career I was presented with the opportunity to throw myself into business ownership by owning and managing a supermarket. Quite different to IT, nevertheless an opportunity I thought not to be missed! This experience was pivotal in allowing me to learn a broad range of management skills. I sold the business after five years but my ambition to work for myself and to create something new drove me to my next challenge.
The start of Seima
In late 2003 my brother and I decided that we would start our own business. Having grown up on building sites with an electrician father it seemed the obvious choice to enter the industry in some form, so we ventured into the building supply chain space with the formation of SEIMA. Our focus was to design kitchen, laundry and bathroom ware and to then source and manufacture the product and offer a national distribution capability to service Australia. In August 2004 our first container of products arrived. We have since expanded into every state employing approximately 50 staff. In May 2022 we completed our new head office and national distribution centre in Edinburgh and just last month completed the addition of our Brisbane distribution centre. We now have Australia’s largest plumbing merchants stocking our products and some of the country’s largest builders, architects and developers specifying our brand.”
Beyond industry boundaries
To say the last couple of years have been challenging is very much an understatement. We have grown significantly; in fact we are nearly four times larger than what we were when I received my ILF grant in 2016! With this growth the requirement of growing our skillset as individuals and collectively to keep up has never been more important. It is for this reason I am a huge advocate of continuous growth and why I was drawn to the ILF. Geoff Vogt was quite persistent in highly recommending I apply for a grant in 2016 and I am thankful for this. I selected a course that highly resonates with me and the way we do business, which is essentially to challenge conventional thinking and go beyond industry boundaries. This has enabled me to look at our strategy through different lenses and apply some of the learnt methodologies into practice.
Like a sponge
I’ve had the privilege of being a recipient of some great advice over the years but if I had to distil it down to one key tip it would be to be a ‘learn it all’ not a ‘know it all’. Be curious, consume knowledge as though it is about to go out of fashion (and use it) and constantly challenge the norm.”
