Dean Kowarski on wellness and burning the candle at both ends

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JIMMY MOYAHA: It is Executive Lounge time on this Wednesday, and we use this time to get to know leading executives a little better – especially beyond their day-to-day responsibilities.

This week’s executive is the group chief executive officer of the Virgin Active Group. He holds more than one title, because he also happens to be the chief executive officer of Kauai.

I’m joined on the line by Dean Kowarski to take a look at his life and see if we can make sense of it. Dean, lovely having you on the show. Thanks so much for taking the time.

How did you get into the Virgin Group? I know you have quite a rich history in terms of the healthy food side of it – and we’ll get into that. Which roads led you to this group?

DEAN KOWARSKI: Jimmy, it started with Kauai, and my journey with healthy food was my entry into wellness.

We acquired Kauai in 2015. It was very much a personal journey which I can take you through later.

But with the acquisition of Kauai, and then realising that nutrition alone was really just one piece of wellness, I wanted to be more involved in the wellness space – not from a commercial point of view.

But I realised that to make a real impact, nutrition played a part, sleep played a part, and exercise was a major part.

[Being] a major shareholder in the Kauai business led me to Virgin Active.

We were operating some Kauais inside Virgin Active. I spoke to Virgin Active and said, look, you guys are in exercise, we’re in nutrition – how do we create a really global wellness business that’s not focused only on exercise, not focused only on nutrition?

And that’s how we came together.

There was a realisation from Virgin Active and from Kauai that we could make a much, much bigger impact if we had nutrition and exercise as part of our wellness offering.

JIMMY MOYAHA: Dean, as a global CEO who spends his time across many different jurisdictions and geographical locations, what would you say is the most rewarding part of running a global business like the Virgin Group?

DEAN KOWARSKI: It’s less about being a global group; it’s more about what we do and our purpose and its ability to change people’s lives to wellness.

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We sell an incredible product. We sell wellness. We sell nutritious food, we sell exercise, we sell recovery.

So it’s an incredible product and it’s a product that, when they use it, customers see a tangible benefit.

That’s really the biggest upside for me on a personal level in terms of what I do every day. It’s great that from a commercial point of view the wellness sector and the wellness trend has taken off. There is a major shift in consumer behaviour towards wellness.

What it really means for us is we see our business grow.

When I see Kauai grow and I see more transactions in Kauai, or if I see Virgin Active grow, what it’s telling me is more and more people are using wellness, are embracing wellness – and lives are improving.

So from my point of view, from a personal point of view, it’s the impact we make.

Obviously being a global business, we don’t only get to make an impact in South Africa. South Africa is really important to me. There are still so many people that don’t have access to quality and healthy food, so that’s a particular interest in South Africa.

But what we do is at scale, and we want to make a global impact. We want to change as many people’s lives as possible across the globe.

JIMMY MOYAHA: Dean, let’s change people’s lives. What’s your favourite smoothie?

DEAN KOWARSKI: [Laughing] You put me in a difficult position there. There are new smoothies we’ve recently launched, but I think you always go back to the traditional.

I train hard, so I like protein. A peanut butter bomb is still up there with some of the classics like a strawberry stinger. Some of the OGs [originals] are what I like.

But at the same time, there’s some amazing new smoothies. We’ve got an amazing product-development team. The new summer menu has just come out, and I encourage everyone to go try some of the new smoothies.

Often, like myself, we default to what we know, but when you look at some of the new smoothies on the menu and get a little more adventurous, there’s amazing stuff out there.

But for me personally, I train every day. It’s a big part of my life, and I like to get as much protein in as possible. So generally the protein smoothies work best for me.

JIMMY MOYAHA: Dean, if we were to ask your children, are you the fun parent or are you the strict parent – what would you say?

DEAN KOWARSKI: [Laughs] I would say probably the strict.

Strict is the wrong word, I would say, because I’m not strict at all – but not necessarily the fun person.

So I suppose it’s somewhere in between. I’m certainly not strict.

But at the same time my wife is definitely the ball of energy, the one who brings the jokes, the fun. I’m a little more serious, but I certainly [don’t] want to say that I’m strict. Disciplined maybe is more the word they would use.

JIMMY MOYAHA: I think if we ask the kids, they’re going to go with the word ‘strict’.

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Dean, how do you incorporate family time into your busy schedule? Running a business the size of the Virgin Active Group – I can imagine that in and of itself is quite the task.

Across all of the different locations, across every responsibility you carry, how do you find downtime?

DEAN KOWARSKI: Look, I’m a firm believer in – we spoke about the word discipline – hard work, and that requires sacrifice.

So I’ve had to make choices, and my choices are my family and my work.

A lot of the social activities that I used to do, those are the things I’ve had to sacrifice in order to be able to prioritise, put my family first. And I also put Kauai and Virgin Active at the top of the list.

You can’t do everything. I want to be successful, and I want to be part of everything that happens within my family – and at the same time I’m absolutely dedicated and determined to grow this wellness business.

So those are the things I put all my energy to. I think if you want to be excellent at something, you’ve got to put the hard work in, you’ve got to make other sacrifices.

I like to say that instead of trying to achieve balance in my life and doing everything half-heartedly, I like to burn the candle at both ends.

So I do as much as possible when I’m with my family, with my kids. I’m 100% with them and focused on being with them; and then when I’m at work, I burn the candle there and I do whatever is required at work.

So there is sacrifice, Jimmy, but that sacrifice shouldn’t come at the expense of your family.

There are other things in my life that I was able to stop doing that weren’t high priorities for me – the need to go out to a restaurant or socialise during the week.

I come home from work and my priority is to be with my kids on weekends, my priority is take my son surfing, watch my daughter play water polo – those come at the top of the list rather than going to do some of the social activities which, when I didn’t have kids, I didn’t have a family, I looked to do.

So two priorities: work hard, extremely hard at both my work, and my kids, family and my wife.

JIMMY MOYAHA: Dean, I know you love fresh food and highly nutritious food, but where do we stand on a South African braai?

DEAN KOWARSKI: As for protein, I said earlier I enjoy a protein smoothie, a good-quality piece of meat.

One of the things Kauai and Virgin Active are not – is we’re not prescriptive.

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We’re about lifestyle choices and we recognise everyone has different goals, different aims, different bodies and responds differently to different lifestyles. So we’re not prescriptive.

We serve a huge amount of vegetarian and vegan options in our restaurants. For me personally, I eat very, very broadly.

I absolutely love a good braai. I’ve grown up in a family where my father was an excellent braaier. He passed it on to me.

My wife is not South African; but she now braais and we have incredible braais.

So I love a good braai, a good-quality piece of meat or chicken on the braai, or fish on the braai – but generally stay away from the heavy carbs with that. So really good protein on the braai and a fantastic Kauai salad on the side.

JIMMY MOYAHA: Dean, before I let you go, if you weren’t passionate about health and wellness and well-being, what do you think you’d be doing today?

DEAN KOWARSKI: I absolutely love travel. I think the experiences and being able to travel with your family, seeing countries, places, having real-life experiences with your kids is absolutely phenomenal.

So if I wasn’t in in the exercise, healthy food, wellness space, [it would be] something around travel, real-life experiences.

I’m sort of able to combine a bit of that with Virgin Active and Kauai’s global footprint. I get to do the travel, I get to do the exercise and I get to eat healthy while I’m doing it.

JIMMY MOYAHA: Dean, the favourite destination you’ve travelled to – or that you are waiting to travel to?

DEAN KOWARSKI: I’m a big sun-and-sea person; that’s how I like to spend my time.

So generally somewhere where there’s a beautiful beach, with something to do on the beach – whether there are a nice waves or some sort of water sport.

And because I’m working hard and travelling a lot, somewhere I can really switch off; so with nothing to do.

I don’t want to get in a car. I want to put on a pair of board shorts in the morning, get to the beach, somewhere like the Maldives, somewhere like the Caribbean’s St Barts.

I’ve been fortunate to travel to some absolutely beautiful small islands, and that’s my first choice if I’ve got to switch off and take some time out with my family.

JIMMY MOYAHA: Pursuing passions with absolutely everything that you have, and ensuring that along the way you prioritise what is important to you.

We’ll have to leave the conversation on that note. Dean, it’s been lovely getting to know you. Thank you so much for taking the time. Dean Kowarski, group chief executive officer at the Virgin Active Group, joined us for this week’s Executive Lounge.

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