• All Posts
  • Featured
  • Funerals and Funeral Planning
  • In the Media
  • Other
  • Uncategorised

Get to know Greg

Greg Inglis is the business brain behind Picaluna with a background in hospitality, events and sales in a range of diverse companies. His experience includes managing a corporate hospitality team at Nine Entertainment, delivering results at Sensis Yellow Pages, establishing a startup in the news agency space and working with a TV station in Fiji. He’s skilled at sales management, seeking out new opportunities and executing sales plans across different mediums and is adept at inspiring enthusiasm by listening and engaging.

As one of Picaluna’s co-founders, he’s been with the company since its inception, and is one of the driving forces to achieve change with the funeral industry.

Working in the funeral industry was never on Greg’s agenda. But a significant factor in his entry into the industry was the death of his mother.  He explained, “I lost my Mum in 1999 from cancer. It was just four months from diagnosis to death.”

He describes it as a “very negative experience” but a transformative one, too. “If you’d told me years ago I’d be in the funeral business, I would have said you’re talking nonsense!”

“My Mum loved the races; she and I used to go all the time. Knowing what I know now, we would have had her cremated, held on to her ashes for a few weeks to get over that really sad, deep grieving period, and then I would have bought a hundred tickets to Randwick Race Day. Everyone dresses up to the nines; we drink champagne, eat caviar, tell funny stories about Mum and then (with permission) scatter her ashes at the winning post. Now THAT would be a great send off for Mum. That would be authentic to who she was, not the 45 minute service we had in the chapel two days after she died. That’s why I’m in it.”

90% of families don’t have a funeral director in mind when it happens, and are unsure of what to do. And Greg’s own research found many people who had organised funerals with a range of providers, felt exploited. “They are looking for compassion and clarity, and I don’t think the current industry is providing either.”

Greg is also a keen surfer and can often be seen riding the waves near his home on Sydney’s Beaches.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *