By Evelyn Karatzas
Con Kittos is the Asuria Executive Chairman with a passion for helping people.
Born in the early 60s, Con grew up in Sydney with his brother, sister, and parents, who migrated from Cyprus in the early 1950s.
For the last 25 years, he has been working in the human capital space for governments around the world.
“My organisation (Asuria) assists governments to help those that are less fortunate than us, which includes people that are unemployed and people that may have health and medical issues,” Mr Kittos told The Greek Herald.
“We build community development programs to help in disadvantaged communities that have no opportunity, and we also assist entrepreneurs get their business ideas off the ground and up and running.”
Mr Kittos shared that he bought Asuria back in 2016, from UK shareholders who already had the business up and running here in Australia.
“Since acquiring the business, we’ve been on a massive turnaround,” he said.
“It was a small business when I bought it, with less than $7 million in revenue and about 100 people, and today, we have revenues of over $100 million a year, and we have thousands of people around the world.
“I feel quite fortunate to have been on this journey since 2016.”
Mr Kittos said prior to becoming the CEO of Asuria, he had undergone interviews for several different jobs and companies.
“I had an interview for the role of CEO of this company and I didn’t get it. They originally didn’t hire me for whatever reason,” he said.
“A year later, they called me saying, ‘look, we still don’t want you as CEO as we don’t think you’re the right CEO for the business,’ but then I was asked to take on board the role of the non- executive director for Asuria.
“From there, I decided to buy the company as I saw it had potential and it was an opportunity to turn it around.”
Since then, the Asuria Executive Chairman said his work has been life changing.
“The work we do helps disadvantaged people that have had misfortune in their life, or bad luck, or have been in families that have been dysfunctional,” Mr Kittos said.
“We aim to change people’s lives and we change tens of thousands of people’s lives every year, and that is such a rewarding feeling.
“That to me is not work. That’s joy. To wake up every morning feeling like I’m doing something that helps so many people every single day is truly a blessing, I just love doing it.”
Mr Kittos said he loves to support the Greek community where he can, while embracing his pride for his heritage.
He recently got involved with the Saint Elesa’s Food Initiative which runs out of the Greek Orthodox Parish and Community of Kogarah, after hearing about the great work they do for their community.
“Every week, their parishioners create meals and distribute food to over 300 homeless people. They then distribute that food at Martin Place in Sydney, to young people in and around Potts Point and the Kings Cross area,” Mr Kittos said.
“Once I heard about this initiative, I thought ‘wow, I really want to get behind and support this.’ I then decided to provide some financial support to them, so they could do even more and feed more homeless people.
“I had six or seven staff assist with the packing and distribution of the meals recently too as I just wanted to help give back and it’s just such a pleasure to be able to do so.”
Mr Kittos said this was the first time he had donated to the St Elesa Food Initiative and he now aims to make annual contributions.
“I’m just lucky that I’ve got a business that can do this,” he said.
“There’s an old Greek saying that goes ‘you can’t take it with you when you die,’ so I intend to share as much as what we create, as far as I can, as I think it’s the right thing to do.”
As well as working with disadvantaged communities and local Greeks, Mr Kittos shared that he does a lot of work in supporting Indigenous communities across the country too.
Mr Kittos said he can’t wait to expand Asuria’s services to more countries around the world.
“We’re currently in South Korea, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and Saudi Arabia, and I really want to expand to Greece and Cyprus, they need our help,” he said.
“I can’t wait to start working with and assisting people in those countries.”
He said he will be on the look out for more opportunities to support the community however he can.
