“We are currently in Hawke’s Bay, so it’s quite tap on, tap off getting into the Gisborne area to service it. Our ambition is within the next six to 12 months we will have a physical office in Gisborne that we will be trading out of.
“Obviously, being born and bred there’s a little bit of a tie to get back in there, and there are a lot of opportunities that we foresee growing and presenting in Gizzy.
“So, it’s definitely on the hit list.
“I actually want to grow it locally. I never go and open up in a region and think I need to find someone to open up that region, I always open up that region and find the person.
“The person is often in that region — it’s just a case of making sure we have the right people because people are huge for us.
“So I just want to find the right person in Gisborne and go from there. If there’s anyone out there, I’d love to hear from them.”
At present there was a “hot desk situation” in Gisborne through his involvement as a shareholder with construction company Fitout Solutions, started by Aidan Teesdale.
“Ultimately, I see ALH and Fitout combining and getting a cool office space we can grow out of there.”
The Gisborne branch would need two to three people to start with, he said.
“The opportunity I see is the financial investment that is going into the region, through schools, restaurants and infrastructure. It’s an exciting time for Gisborne and ALH to be looking into injecting our culture and ambition to facilitate some of the incoming projects.”
The move to Gisborne will be a homecoming of sorts for Mr Whitley, who was born here and made a name for himself as a high-school football standout.
He had planned to turn professional but after two suspected heart attacks, then a diagnosed heart condition at just 21 years of age, he had to give up his dream of playing professionally in Auckland.
Now, still just 28, he is scoring goals in the business world.
He said the company earned $33 million in revenue in the financial year just gone.
This present financial year, the company aims to clear $50 million in revenue and Mr Whitley expects that to increase to $100m-a-year inside five years.
Should the company hit that target, a public offering could be considered.
“We are always improving systems and processes to keep that opportunity available and ready to click go on if we decide to, but ultimately we wouldn’t really look into that until we are at $100m in revenue.”
Mr Whitley said the past two and a bit years had been “chaos” with ALH opening 10 branches across New Zealand.
“It’s been a bunch of fun.
“When we were looking over a map and plan of what we need to do, I thought ‘we don’t want to be a business that stops continuing to grow within the parameters we are at’.
“So, we thought there’s probably only two or three more branches we can add in New Zealand, but when I was looking at the map, I thought Australia is not that far away.
“Our ambition is Brisbane. We have someone there full time and our second person in a kind of inter-connecting role, which is exciting.
“That’s our ambition, to have a physical office there early next year in Australia.”
He put the company’s expansion down to having the right people around him who support and encourage his hunger and ambition, as well as building strong leadership teams who share a similar goal along with being consistent in daily routines and delivery.
“The company has a board with chairman and my mentor Rob Fyfe as well as director Jason Bloom and myself as managing director.”
