10 years ago I was consulting to two second generation family businesses; W Short Hotel Group and Harris Farm Markets. It was 2016, I had founded Human Tribe three years earlier and I was all about supporting these businesses with their management and leadership capability. Before I facilitated certain workshops, I would conduct a few mystery shops – just so I had an understanding of what was happening in their businesses from a customer’s point of view.

It would have been sometime in May or June 2016, that Emily Van Wessem (then the HR Manager at W Short Hotel Group) asked me if I would mystery shop their venues ongoingly. I had no business saying yes but for some reason my instincts took over and I said “absolutely.”

In July 2016, we conducted our first round of mystery shops – the first one ever completed was at The Glenmore Hotel.

In August, I had a conversation with Shona Tarrant, then Director of People and Culture at Harris Farm Markets. I was telling her about what I was doing with W Short Hotel Group and before I knew it, she asked if we could start a mystery shopping program with their stores.

Within a few months, we started getting more referrals to more clients, all while still running my consulting business, Human Tribe.

And then at the beginning of 2018 came the data analysis that changed the game for me. After a deep dive into our mystery shopping data against key business metrics, was the evidence I always knew to be intrinsically true. There was a clear quantifiable connection between focusing on mystery shopping feedback, coaching conversations and business results.

At that moment, I realised Human Experience was actually the business I had been training for my whole life, I just didn’t know it. I had worked in retail at McDonald’s for six years as Crew, a Crew Trainer, Assistant Manager and then Training Manager. I then had a career in Human Resource Management across the hospitality, banking and television industries. For fun, I threw in a masters degree and the moment I graduated, moved on to owning and operating three Fernwood Women’s Health Clubs. Between my second and third child, I worked for a Learning & Development company before I took the chance and started my own consulting business, Human Tribe.

In December 2018, my wise and wonderful wife, Lisca McClanachan encouraged me to take a leap of faith and fully focus on Human Experience.

In June 2019, I sold Human Tribe to Jess Weiss, who has grown it from strength to strength every day since.

Of course (like a lot of businesses) Human Experience got smashed in 2020 and 2021, as most of our clients were forced to shut down. But two incredible clients still cared about the service they were providing their customers through both lockdowns; Harris Farm Markets and Fish in the Family continued to mystery shop all throughout – yes they were an essential service but they also truly cared all the way through about their customer service. Huge shout out to Luke Harris and Veronica Papacosta – I don’t know if we would have survived that period without our partnerships.

In 2022, we started to rebuild and grow to the business we are today.

In 2024, Human Experience officially became a family business, when Lisca joined as our Head of Client Solutions and Analytics. When your wife happens to be an ex-Bain Management Consultant and extraordinary business operator in her own right – magic can really start to happen.

Now, in 2026, we have an incredible team of 15 people in our support office. We have close to 10,000 registered Mystery Shoppers across Australia and New Zealand. We complete over 1,000 mystery shops every month across retail, hospitality, fitness, professional services and care industries. And most importantly, every day we support businesses to deliver exceptional customer experience – consistently. Delivering a great experience for their customers and a great result for their business.

I thought about letting this milestone pass quietly but then I thought “F#$k it”, a decade in business deserves a party. So later this week we’ll be celebrating with our team, clients, suppliers, family and friends #hbhx

And to think… It all started with one conversation and having the instinct to say yes.