“I always embrace the challenge.”
Rancilio Australia’s Paul O’Brien speaks with the warmth and confidence of someone unafraid to make bold choices and push for better results.The fact that Rancilio Australia exists in its current form is testament to the boldness of Paul and others within the company.
“It’s been hugely rewarding to see our numbers improve over time,” Paul says.
“A lot of people didn’t believe in our brand when we started, so to see the change internally and externally has been huge.”
Paul helps Australians to have the finest Italian espresso experience from his base in Melbourne, which is a world away from where he grew up in Sydney’s western suburbs.After finishing school, he got his electronic technician’s trade qualification and headed to the land of his parents, Ireland in 2003 for a yearlong working sojourn.
That year turned into five as he travelled Europe fixing La Cimbali machines as a senior engineer, where confidence was essential as he quickly learned the importance of “faking it until you make it”.
“It was a really exciting time,” he says. “It never stopped feeling like a holiday because everything was new to me. “From the food I ate to the traffic I sat in to the pubs I visited, everything was just buzzing. “Some people would push back from that, but I embraced it”.
He was left high and dry, though, whenever he returned to Ireland thirsty. “It’s such a culture of tea drinkers there that I don’t think I ever got a decent coffee,” he says. “Of course, that’s changed now with a really good specialty market coming in.”
After meeting his future wife in Dublin, the couple returned to Australia and lived in Sydney briefly before settling on the Mornington Peninsula last year. Paul says he’s “loving the challenge” of taking Rancilio Australia to the market, and being responsible for a company that has spent more than 85 years in kitchens around the world. “It’s all new again; this role I’m in has never existed before, selling equipment like this has never existed before. “I’m kind of laying the path and walking on it at the same time. “It’s reactive, new and exciting work.”
Paul’s reactions are regularly put to the test when he partakes in his “absolute, undying passion” which he describes as being so bad it’s “like a disease”. “Fishing nowadays is all about the Facebook photos or else it didn’t happen,” he laughs. “The irony, really, is that if you’re there just for the fish, you’re doing it wrong. Getting a fish is a bonus.”
For Paul and young son Harry, fishing is about “getting up early when the sun is rising and the birds are singing”. “You wouldn’t jump out of bed for work at that time, but I just can’t sleep the night before,” Paul says, before laughingly admitting he keeps his fishing clothing and gear next to his marital bed, much to his better half’s chagrin. “There’s been a lot of shenanigans over the years, tripping over in the shadows,” he laughs.
Life these days is all about enjoying the finer qualities of coffee, food and family together, with Paul quick to respond when asked if he would move back to Europe. “We both agreed when Harry was only a couple of months old that we had to move to give him the best life. That’s what we’ve done and we’re not looking back.”
