Super Retail boss Anthony Heraghty on daylight saving, learning to swear as a kid and plans for the business

He learnt to swear from an early age and scrapped through high school but now this Logan lad is the CEO of one of Queensland’s biggest largest companies. Q&A WITH ANTHONY HERAGHTY

Anthony Heraghty, 46,

Super Retail Group Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer

What did you want to be when you were younger?

My dad ran his own show for his whole working life so I was always really interested in running a business. We lived in Logan just as the area was beginning to take off and my father ran a small earth moving business. Our place was filled with excavators and backhoes that were used in the development of the City of Logan. After many years running the earth moving business, he became the John Deere dealer in Logan. We provided all the mowers for the golf clubs and tractors for the strawberry farms. I admired the way he managed his employees and dealt with customers and clients. My uncle was a solicitor, also running his own small firm, and I thought that looked like a good career choice. I’m not sure I would have been all that well suited to probate law and conveyancing but I did think my uncle was very cool.

Tell us about your early years/family background/schooling.

Given the number of large earth moving machines at home I learnt to drive quite early age – unofficially – as my father let me move the equipment around the property. I also learnt to swear at quite an early age from earth moving operators. I remember as a five- year-old slipping over in the bath and letting out the F-word.

After literally washing my mouth out with soap, my mother asked me where I had learnt to say that word and I do recall dobbing in one of the operators. I saw him for many years after that so my mother was very forgiving.

Most of my schooling was at [St Joseph’s College] Gregory Terrace in Brisbane where I did the rugby, rowing and generally-not-applying-myself-hard-enough thing. I think I was quite a poor student – I was too busy doing too many ‘non-core’ activities – but I came good in the back end. I scraped into university and then did OK after applying myself to the task a bit more conscientiously. I did a Bachelor of Business at the Queensland University of Technology and in second year started working with the advertising agency McCann Erickson.

Anthony Heraghty in 2007 when he was marketing director of Fosters, in Sydney.

What was your first job and what did you learn?

I had two first jobs and in some respects they were the polar opposites. Job one was in the Myer book department at the Logan Hyperdome. I was a Christmas casual at Myer and at the same time I juggled working on a building site at Springwood driving a roller for Dad’s business. I think the thing I learned most is that I wasn’t cut out to work on building sites or book shops.

Your appointment came after four years of a process SRG called succession planning – are you a patient person?

So yes, I had been with Super Retail Group for four years prior to becoming CEO but I don’t think it’s fair to say there had been succession process underway for that entire period. I came in to be the Managing Director of the Outdoor division, which I did for four years and then there was a process to look at internal and external candidates for the CEO position. I was thrilled to be successful in that process and to now be running one of Queensland’s great companies.

New CEO Anthony Heraghty at the Super Cheap store in Lawnton. Picture: AAP image/John Gass.

What’s the biggest challenge now for you as a CEO in your industry?

At Super Retail Group, we’ve been pretty successful in delivering a ‘super retailing’ experience in the analogue, bricks-first world. We have consistently outperformed our competitors. Our challenge now is to digitise the business to deliver the same super retailing experience in an omni-retail world. Our bricks and mortar stores will remain fundamental to the business - our future is about taking our in-store strengths into the omni-retail world. Retailers will need to offer consumers more than just an extensive range, competitive prices and good service to survive in the modern retail environment. Customer experience and engagement is the new retail battleground and this is where Super Retail Group has a competitive advantage.

You’re very passionate about ‘omni-retail’, what does it mean to you?

It’s pretty simple really, it’s about meeting the needs of the customer. Customers like omni-retail. It’s about choice - giving customers choice about how they do their research, how they shop, in-store or online and how they get the products. Would they prefer home delivery or do they want to click and collect? Consumers are making it clear omni-retail is what they want. At our Investor Day earlier this month, we explained how Super Retail Group is refitting our business to be a modern omni-retailer. Pure “bricks” or pure “clicks” is not the model of the future. To survive in an omni-retail world, it’s all about the customer experience, whether in-store or online.

Do you actually go boating, camping or fishing? What’s the biggest fish you’ve caught?

I had a great experience recently up in the Tiwi Islands off the top of the Northern Territory for a good mate’s 50th birthday. We caught some great barramundi. I caught a 75cm barramundi, which is not huge by barra standards but good enough for me. We were in the northern part, near Milikapiti, it’s an extremely remote part of the world. We were also doing estuary fishing, which was very cool. I’d actually been up to Milikapiti before during my time with Foster’s many year ago, when we were doing some research for an indigenous program.

What does success look like to you?

The future of retailing is all about the customer experience, whether in store or online. We have brands where our customers have a visceral relationship with us and that separates Super Retail Group from a general merchant. We want to retain that advantage. If we can ensure Super Retail Group can replicate its in-store success in the omni-environment, our customers will be happy. Our six million-plus active club members is a differentiator for our business, what I call our “special sauce”. If we can leverage this membership base then it’s the main game for revenue growth.

Opening of Super Retail Group building at Strathpine.

Any interesting hobbies?

Outside Super Retail Group, on my weekends I run a full-time ‘transport operation’ for two children, ferrying them between netball, cricket, rugby, rowing and cello practice. And of course helping with schoolwork. We’re on to ratios and percentages recently.

Sometimes it feels like I am repeating Year Eight.

Your team tells us you keep your regular communications to 200 words or less, why?

Communications is important, especially as a leader. You need to get your point across in a way that engages your team. At Super Retail Group we have 12,000 team members who have busy jobs.

If you could change anything about doing business in Qld what would it be?

I know it’s a fraught issue but running a national business from Queensland, particularly one that is one centred on the eastern states, I can’t begin to describe the productivity losses we suffer because we are out of step on daylight saving over the summer period. It’s unnecessarily unworkable. If you don’t mind, I’ll now prepare for a flurry of correspondence from The Courier-Mail readers.