In Dynamic Duos, Mumbrella each week asks two colleagues with a professional and personal affiliation to share with readers the importance of workplace relationships in an increasingly hybridised world of work.

Lyndall Spooner:

It was the late 1990s, I was still hanging onto my big hair from the 1980s and had just started working in the market research arm of a technology consultancy called Invetech. David worked in the suit-wearing and clean-cut strategy team.

At the time Invetech specialised in helping companies commercialise a wide range of emerging technologies, and the research and strategy teams came together regularly to work with a broad range of clients. It was a company filled with incredibly smart and quirky people, lots of scientists and engineers in Melbourne and researchers and data geeks in Sydney.

I spent a lot of time working with David on everything from sheep shearing and power distribution to agricultural pumps and food ingredients. It might not sound sexy, but it was exciting, challenging and demanding work and I got to know David very well over many take-away dinners and long hours writing reports (yes, back then we wrote, and people read, written reports!). We became a great team, and while we were obviously attracted to each other, we also developed a strong mutual respect and trust in each other.

Move forward a couple of years: we had both left Invetech, David had moved to Sydney, we had eloped in Italy, bought a house, had a baby and I was deeply unhappy in my job at a research agency.

David 100% supported me to leave my job and start our company Fifth Dimension (now rebranded to 5D). It was a big move, and I would never have done it without his unwavering support. To give it the best chance of success David gave up his job and we were all in. New baby, large mortgage, no clients, the threat of legal action from my previous employer if I went out on my own — what could go wrong?!

We knew we wanted to bring together the best of the research world and business consulting along with a passion for technology. We established 5D in 2006 with just a laptop, and in February 2026 we will have been going for 20 years and have over 50 staff across three countries.

It has not been easy. Anyone who starts a business from scratch........

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