Business savvy surf club catches on

A mentoring program for start-up businesses offered by the Graduate Management Association of Australia – a business association whose members have MBA or DBA qualifications – has helped Melbourne entrepreneur Alba Ruiz Leon turn a social club for surfing enthusiasts, the Alba Surf Club , into a business. Ruiz Leon, a 2009 finalist in RMIT University’s annual business plan competition, was selected for the Entrepreneurship Challenge mentoring program run by the GMAA’s Victorian chapter. GMAA already provides judges and mentors to RMIT’s business plan competition. GMAA committee member Robert Weller – managing director of innovation consultant Robert Weller & Associates – says the program extends that association by providing business consulting and advice to student teams from the business plan competition that show strong potential. “When we were introduced to Alba Surf Club it was a loosely convened social club of young surfing enthusiasts but Ms Ruiz Leon had a vision to build a formal surf club,” he says. “We could see the challenges involved in such a venture … so we wanted to help them set up a company structure that covered every legal and accounting loophole.” Alba Surf Club has 100 members and organises weekly surf trips, surf camps and social events as well as running a surfing school.

BRW

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