New Defence SA chief executive Matt Opie speaks about his journey from Army cadet to the top job

Matt Opie was once the poster child for a life in our armed services. Now, he’s the head of Defence SA and charged with the role of taking our industry to the world.

Back in the mid-1980s, Matt Opie was the fresh-faced poster boy for Australia’s defence forces.

The young cadet’s picture was splashed across magazines all over the country as the face of the future for the Australian Army.

“They seemed to have seen something in me,” says the now 58 year old, who was selected from a huge platoon of Defence Force cadets for the ad campaign that appeared in the Bulletin and Time magazines.

Fast forward 40 years and the boy from Salisbury High School is now the face of the future for Defence SA.

New Defence SA chief Matthew Opie in the mid-80s as the poster boy for our defence forces. Picture: Supplied

With a career drilled in the discipline and teamwork of 13 years in the military, and armed with another 25 years of civilian experience working at defence titans BAE and SAAB, and pioneering the sector’s academia at UniSA, Opie has been chosen as the new chief executive of the state government’s Defence SA.

His five-year tenure with the agency puts him at the helm of South Australia’s defence projects, helping to steer the state’s continuous shipbuilding projects of Collins Class submarines and Hunter Class frigates and the future construction of nuclear-powered submarines under the AUKUS agreement.

It’s a crowning moment for the Bank of Adelaide manager’s son who moved from Yorke Peninsula to Coonalpyn as a young boy with his parents and three siblings, before settling in Salisbury.

“It’s absolutely the most senior role I’ve ever held and it’s the No.1 defence position in the state,” says Opie, who left the Army with the rank of Major in 1996.

“Generally you get one or two generals out of a class in Duntroon (military academy).

“I chose not to go down that path but I’m very proud to have risen to a senior executive level in the defence sector to support those guys who did become generals.

“Every job I’ve had … almost serendipitously got me to a point where I was well qualified for this role. When I saw this job come up, I thought ‘everything I’ve done has actually made me qualified for the role’.”

Defence SA chief executive Matt Opie has been appointed on a five-year term. Picture: Russell Millard

Opie’s new boss, Defence and Space Industries Minister Stephen Mullighan, agrees, describing the “highly qualified industry executive” as the “ideal person to help South Australia capitalise on lucrative defence opportunities”.

When Richard Price resigned after six years as Defence SA chief executive at the end of last year, then-defence and space industries minister Susan Close promised an “extensive international recruitment process to find a replacement”.

That global hunt led them right back to South Australia, with the former Salisbury High School student’s career in military, industry and academia ticking all their boxes.

Matthew Opie, third row, sixth from right, at Duntroon. Picture: Supplied

Opie’s journey to this point started straight out of school, when the 17-year-old – a sports fanatic who loved football and tennis and did well academically – found himself looking for “adventure”.

He enlisted at Duntroon, where he pursued a science degree that included nuclear physics – something that will come in handy in his latest role.

“I just thought that was a good thing to do, you got paid to study as a cadet and you had a guaranteed job and it sounded like a bit of an adventure,” Opie says.

“And it was all that. (Being a cadet) very much pushes you, stretches you mentally and physically. You’re taught military discipline, you become extremely fit, you’re taught to be very well organised and that can come as a culture shock when you come out of school at 17 and you’re off to a military college.”

At 22, Opie graduated from the new Australian Defence Force Academy and joined the Royal Australia Corps of Signals.

His first gig was taking charge of a troop of 30 Brisbane-based soldiers in 1 Signal Regiment.

“It’s just a boy’s own adventure,” says the man who graduated near the top of his class from the new academy in a cohort that included Nova Systems founder Jim Whalley.

“You’re doing PT with your troop in the morning, then having breakfast in the mess and you’re off to work.

“Periodically you’re going on exercise in the field all over Australia.”

That first post launched a military career that took Opie all over Australia and to the other side of the world.

Matthew Opie on exercise in northern Australia. Picture: Supplied

In 1993, he became the first Australian Army officer to be posted to Cyprus with the British Army, serving in the political heat of the bitterly divided island at the RAF’s remote Ayios Nikolaos Station.

He and his young family lived at the Aegean base for two years and daughter Emma was born in the local hospital.

At the time, Greek Cypriot and Turkish observation posts were positioned just metres from each other and the British Army occupied the neutral zone.

“It was quite an adventurous posting,” says Opie, an avid runner who established the Ayios Nikolaos triathlon club for defence servicemen and women and locals in Cyprus, completed 50 races – 20 of those during his time with the British Army – and earned British colours for the sport.

Opie’s military service in Cyprus took him to Buckingham Palace in 1994, when the Australian officer and his wife, Susan, met Queen Elizabeth II.

“Because I was in an Australian uniform and had the slouch hat on we were quite popular, so lots of people wanted to talk to us,” Opie says.

“The Queen does the rounds and she said ‘are you enjoying your visit here’. I said ‘yes ma’am, very much so, I’m enjoying working with the British Army in Cyprus’. That’s all it was.”

Matthew Opie with his wife, Susan, when they met Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace. Picture: Supplied

After a daring two years, Opie and his wife Susan – teenage sweethearts who met in Adelaide – were keen to come home to raise their children.

“Our son, Elliot, was starting grade one when we decided to leave the Army. Susan and I had decided we didn’t really want to bring a family up moving around and decided to settle down,” he says.

The young family moved back to Adelaide, where Susan became a fertility nurse specialist at Repromed and Opie finished his MBA and began building his civilian expertise.

He started with BAE Systems at Edinburgh in 2002, working on defence communications and electronic warfare projects.

Five years later, Opie joined SAAB as its business unit manager in strategy and industry development, travelling regularly to its Swedish headquarters.

He led its industry development strategy, giving local businesses opportunities to win work on international projects.

Opie is also a keen surfer, triathlete, cyclist and mountain biker. Picture: Russell Millard

At the end of 2017, Opie made a pioneering leap into academia, becoming the University of South Australia’s first director of defence and space.

This new role charged him with developing research and education opportunities to help cater for the state’s growing hunger for graduates in the sector.

Opie says his military years gave him disciplines that he brought to his civilian life.

“You learn the importance of working as a team,” he says.

“You learn the importance of people wanting to do a good job, it doesn’t matter if they’re in uniform or not. People want to do their work and go home thinking ‘I’ve done a good job today’.”

Opie brings his Army-style drive and execution to his own pursuits.

One of the founding members of the Fatboys Cycling Club, which now boasts more than 100 members, the keen cyclist and mountain biker takes to the road and the dirt trails with military precision.

The devoted surfer also loves heading to the coast to “clear my mind” every weekend and practises yoga and meditation.

It’s a drive that Opie, vice president of the Kensington Cricket Club, shares with his family – son Elliot, 33, is a former state cricketer and Emma, 30, represented SA in water polo.

Living in Adelaide has also reconnected the ex-military man with his old Duntroon mate and former chief of the army, Rick Burr.

Opie’s good mate and former Vice Chief of Army Lieutenant General Rick Burr, speaking in 2022. Picture: NCA Newswire/Gaye Gerard

The two Aussie rules-loving soldiers became fast friends in the military academy, as did their then-partners – and now wives – Susan and Bronwyn.

At the end of their officer training, they went separate ways – Burr spending his career climbing the Defence ranks and Opie into the civilian world.

But now, with Burr’s 2022 retirement from the Army and return to his home state, their paths have come together again.

And the former Army General is not surprised to see his old mate in the most senior defence role in SA.

“It’s very well deserved,” says the 59-year-old, who is now working as a strategic adviser with the University of Adelaide and tech-related companies.

“Matt’s highly regarded, he ticks all the boxes. Having worked in all three areas (military, defence industry and academia), he has got a good sense of how each of them comes together in his role … to keep driving it forward for the state.

“I think knowing your state, having a deep understanding of your own state within an international and national context is very helpful. Matt’s deep experience and passion for the state in a balanced and constructive way is very helpful.

“Back at Duntroon, Matt was a bit of a natural, he was smart, a good character and fitted in well. He was a positive and capable person who learnt quickly and was destined to become a good officer in the Army and, of course, a good person, good at whatever he ended up doing beyond Duntroon and that certainly proved to be the case.”

The boy from Salisbury is now helping to propel SA’s defence industry – which “absolutely” punches above its weight, employing and attracting seven of the world’s top 10 defence companies – to even greater targets.

“In SA, we’ve got 7 per cent of the population but approximately 30 per cent of the nation’s defence industry here,” says Opie, whose role also puts him in charge of Veterans SA and the Defence Innovation Partnership, which works with universities researching the “next big thing in technologies”, such as uncrewed aerial vehicles.

“AUKUS is receiving massive attention around the world and SA is arguably the epicentre of AUKUS in the world,” he says.

And just like he did as the military poster-boy when he was a young cadet, Opie’s job is to sell that message to the world.

“Defence SA is such a strong brand, it’s a global brand,” he says.

“We are the most prominent, best performed, best marketed defence and space agency in Australia and for good reason, because we’re very, very good at it … and quite frankly the envy of other states in terms of what we do for the defence and space industries.

“We want to support the economic development and economic prosperity of SA by supporting local industry and making sure we’re well placed to allow industry to take advantage of the opportunities that AUKUS presents.”