My first love was animals. I made a decision very early on, when I was about six or seven years old, to study animals. I got through school, went to university to study zoology, I got a job at a university and that was the start. I was on my life's path.

We love to serve, I love to serve, and retail is the best place to do that. And that's just the emotional attachment, that's the foundation of it all.

I guess that's been our challenge. We sell HP computers and we sell HP products, but so do a lot of people. Really, what we've tried to build over the last eight years is something that sets us apart, differentiates us. And it really goes back to our 'why' - we love to serve and that's a genuine feeling. Our vision is to create customers for life so everything that we do is rooted in those two fundamentals.

Globally and locally, there's been huge growth in laptop device sales. At a global level, HP's had two great years. Locally, we've also seen a huge increase in laptop sales. What has happened is that people are now working from home - businesses have sent them home, and they've got to have a device to work on.

It can actually be as simple as a computer at home. That's the best place to start - a computer with an Internet connection and a camera. And if you're a business or you're setting up a business that needs to print, you'll need to get a printer that goes along with that. 

This is one thing that we make sure that our stores and our guys are amazing at, and that is really finding out what you need. Finding out what's the device that's going to enable you to work.

If you walk out that door and out of a store, you should know in your head that you can come back to us for whatever it is that you need. We're going to support you for the rest of your life, you can come back to us for whatever it is.

We had this "Let's build it and they'll come" kind of attitude. And we learned a hard lesson that way because that's not what happened. It happened in some of the stores - we opened Rosebank and it's been incredible from day one. But Cape Town didn't work out that way and I think our lesson would be to go back and take a real hard look at where we are opening, how we assess the market and what kind of store is it - what size is it and where is it in the mall? There are lots of real hard lessons that we learned through Cape Town.

I guess I can talk about growing a retail business, and I would say the 4 Ps - people, process, patience and profit. What I've done is surround myself with the best people, the most amazing people, most amazing teams.