our story
Making a Difference in
Regional Australia
We’re building a hospitality group that celebrates the character, beauty, and spirit of regional communities across Australia. A country organisation at heart, the mandala only works as a whole when every element holds.
John Zeckendorf talks about opportunity, about people, about the regional properties where he still feels most at home.
“We’re country people at heart,” he says without hesitation.
His business partner, Ryan Shaw, is more deliberate. “As anyone who’s met the two of us would realise, we’re not terribly similar,” he laughs. “That’s why it works. The things he’s good at are the things I’m not and vice versa. He leans into marketing and strategy. I’m more interested in detail, in keeping things grounded.”
Where John brings energy, Ryan brings structure. It’s a dynamic that has quietly shaped Mandala Hotels and Resorts, an Australian hospitality group focused on operating, managing, and investing in regional hotels, resorts, and boutique stays across the country.
“Most people say we're like a married couple and we bicker like a married couple, but we're kind of stuck together,” says Ryan.
“John and I recognise if we were trying to do this on our own, we wouldn't be able to do it.”
The partnership began far from hotel lobbies and regional main streets. The two first crossed paths in insolvency at PricewaterhouseCoopers, where Ryan had arrived on an international transfer from London.
John would later move to London himself, and then to Brunei where he was tasked with helping reconcile the spending of Prince Jefri Bolkiah, the younger brother of the Sultan, who had reportedly burned through $40 billion. It was the aftermath of Brunei – during a weekend in Stockholm – that the idea for something of their own began to take shape.
Their first hotel acquisition was at Berry, a small village in the Shoalhaven region of the New South Wales South Coast. It was a calculated leap — and a trusting one. “Ryan had already exchanged contracts before I’d even seen it,” says John. “That’s the trust.”
Over lunch with former colleagues, what began as a casual conversation about buying a second hotel in Orange unexpectedly became their first informal fund. “We weren’t inviting them,” John laughs. “We told them, ‘This is our gig!’” But they were in. The returns were strong — strong enough that many of those early investors remain with Mandala today. What followed was not overnight scale, but steady conviction.
Today, Mandala operates 35 properties across 22 regional locations, managing a significant portfolio of regional accommodation.
From the beginning, Mandala was built from the ground up.
In the early days, there were no support teams. Ryan and John recruited staff, worked reception, and, occasionally, ran entire properties themselves. “My secret trick is I can make a room faster than most housekeepers can!” John grins.
That hands-on start shaped a culture they now describe as “happily different” and one where hierarchy matters less than honesty and contribution, and everyone from cleaner to CEO plays a part. “We tend to attract people who might have felt a little out of place elsewhere,” says John. “That suits us.”
Ryan believes Mandala’s early, hands-on years shaped something deeper than operational knowledge. The partners gained a perspective few competitors could claim. “In the beginning, we did everything ourselves,” he says. “Now, of course, we can’t do that. But because we’ve done it all, there’s no part of the operation we don’t understand.”
From running reception to managing renovations on what Ryan calls a “shoestring”, those early experiences still inform how decisions are made today. “When we renovated in Mudgee, I was the one sourcing bath fittings at the best possible price,” he says. “So when someone tells me now what something’s going to cost, I know what questions to ask.”
Like their steady and considered approach, the company’s name is not accidental. A mandala, John explains, represents harmony – separate elements interlocking to form something stronger than the sum of their parts. “That’s always worked for Ryan and me,” he says. “It’s been our own little mandala.” Today, that philosophy is expressed through what the founders call “the four Ps” – planet, patrons, people and partners.
“If you damage the community you operate in, you lose your social licence,” says John.
“If your customers are unhappy, you don’t have a business. If your people aren’t supported, nothing works. If your partners, our investors, aren’t looked after, the model falls apart.”
At a leadership conference in 2022, John illustrated the concept with a simple metaphor: a four-legged bar stool. “When all four legs are balanced, it’s stable,” he told the room. “Shorten one leg – it doesn’t matter which – and the whole thing tilts.” The point was clear. Growth without balance is fragile.
Growth inevitably changed that dynamic. As Mandala expanded, reporting lines were formalised to enable us to have sustainable growth and allow us to continue to do what we both. We don’t just talk the talk, we talk the walk.
“It freed up time to grow the business,” he says. “But it also took us a step away from the heart of it.” In recent years, he has been deliberate about reconnecting with the grassroots of the company.
"Hospitality is about people, if you remove that, you may as well be a booking platform"
While others chase scale, Ryan and John focus on creative, considered deals and opportunities that align with their values, even if they don’t command headlines.
For two founders who once reconciled royal excess in Brunei and later bought a hotel before one of them had even seen it, Mandala’s trajectory feels less accidental than aligned. The future, they suggest, will look much like the beginning – measured, relationship-led and quietly ambitious.
The mandala only works when every element is in balanace.
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