About The Cazzie Connection
Concept - Model - Book
People whose heritage lies in the tiny Greek island of Castellorizo often call themselves ‘Cazzies’. The main title of this book, The Cazzie Connection, reflects the fact that people who identify as being ‘Cazzie’ have a remarkably strong connection with the island and tend to be passionate and even parochial about it. The Cazzie Connection is also a reference to a concept we have developed that helps explain this strong attachment and how this Cazzie Connection may have been a contributing factor that helped many Castellorizians and their descendants achieve high levels of success in Australia.
The Cazzie Connection is a concept, a model and a book that helps explain the High Attraction and High Achievement of Australians with Castellorizian heritage.
About David Koutsoukis
David Koutsoukis CSP, is an award-winning speaker, author and consultant known as the Exceptional Teams Architect. He has spent more than 20 years showing leaders and their teams how to build exceptional workplace cultures.
David calls himself a ‘Born-again Cazzie’ as he only discovered the richness of his Greek heritage after his Father, Albert passed away in 2004. As a speaker and consultant who specialises in developing high-performance cultures, David was intrigued by the high levels of achievement of many Castellorizian migrants and their descendants, so he embarked upon a journey to try and identify the cultural characteristics that may have enabled this. Further research led to the discovery that people with Castellorizian roots called themselves ‘Cazzies’, and not only was there a trend towards high achievement, they were proud and passionate as well!
David has presented in 12 countries, won many speaking awards and written more than 20 books including The Behaviour Management Toolkit and Click! Why you click with some people and others drive you crazy! He is also a Past National President of the National Speakers Association of Australia and is currently the Chief People Officer at Linear Clinical Research.
About Dr John Yiannakis OAM
Dr John N Yiannakis (OAM) has been an educator in both the secondary and tertiary sectors for many years, with leadership roles at both levels. As an historian, he has for the last 35 years focussed his research on the Greek presence in Western Australia becoming an expert in his field.
He has written several books and articles on Greek, particularly Castellorizian, migration to Western Australia. Some of his work includes Greek Pioneers in Western Australia, Odysseus in the Golden West and Vlase Zanalis: Greek Australian Artist. In 2015 and 2016, John successfully launched a co-authored volume Black Night, White Day: Greek women in Australia; A longitudinal study. His recent collaboration at Charles Darwin University has resulted in further publications, particularly about the early twentieth century nexus between Greek settlers in WA and the NT.
John is a Life Member of the Castellorizian Association of Western Australia.
