Aussie CEOs confess to their early blunders

AUSTRALIA’S top CEOs confess to the mistakes they made early on in their careers. And it could have cost them everything.

BOSSES are meant to know what they’re doing and lead their teams to success.

But even chief executives started somewhere and the road to the top is peppered with mistakes. Here, some of Australia’s top bosses confess to the stuff-ups they made along the way, but also what those errors taught them.

CIARAN DAVIS, CHIEF EXECUTIVE, AUSTRALIAN RADIO NETWORK:

“I’ve worked in radio for 15 years now and have certainly learnt a few things since those early, green days.

I once ran a promotion that shut a major international airport and I spent the afternoon being questioned by police.

The radio station was giving away lots of cash and we were looking for maximum exposure. We gave a clue out on air about the cash location, clearly identifying Dublin Airport. We just didn’t anticipate the level of chaos and potential security breaches we would cause!

But we got the exposure and our ratings went up so all was well in the end. And, importantly, I learned to always think through potential consequences of any decisions.

We all make mistakes every day and hopefully learn from some. But it’s by taking commercially astute risks and by being prepared to do and think differently to everyone else that gets results.”

ANTHONY HAYES, MANAGING DIRECTOR, AAT KINGS:

“When I was much younger, maybe 23 or 24, I landed myself an extraordinary job as events marketing manager for Qantas. Wow! Such a brilliant opportunity, and it would be hard to explain how much fun it was. But there was a moment when I thought it had all come to an end…

I am very proud to say that under my watch in Events Marketing, Qantas became the very first mainstream corporate company to sponsor the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras. It was a deal worth millions of dollars in new revenue, particularly for our North American office. My only mistake was failing to run it past our managing director before I signed us up.

The sponsorship was well within my financial delegation, and it provided some terrific signage and publicity benefits for the airline, but I had failed to discuss the potentially negative publicity ramifications with those above me before I went ahead. There were ultimately several letters of complaint from the strongly conservative part of Australia who thought our sponsorship was inappropriate.

Back in the day, more conservative Qantas customers weren’t too happy with the airline’s sponsorship of the Mardi Gras.

I came home work one night to find a message from our managing director, James Strong. He wasn’t big on surprises — fair enough. And the bright pink Qantas logo in the Mardi Gras program probably didn’t help either! Fortunately for me, Geoff Dixon was our commercial chief at the time, and he was entirely supportive of the deal, and the revenue. He explained it all to James, and James was fine with the deal too. So I survived.

The key lesson for young players? Take a deep breath and think through your decisions from every possible angle. Think and communicate. My decision was entirely correct from a financial perspective, and as I said earlier I am extremely proud that I did it because I believed it was the right thing to do. But in hindsight, I could have managed the process in a slightly different way and saved myself a serious amount of angst.”

ADAM JACOBS, MANAGING DIRECTOR AND CO-FOUNDER, THE ICONIC:

“I’ve always believed that our careers are more defined by our failures than victories. When I think back to the early stages of The Iconic, a particular challenge comes to mind which ultimately served as one of our greatest learning opportunities.

Outsourcing its warehouse functions led to many stuff-ups for The Iconic.

Our most tangible “do or die” moment came a few months after we launched when we were seeing huge revenue growth and so decided to outsource our warehousing for scalability. Unfortunately it was the wrong call and the hardest six months of my life! Having one of our most critical business functions in a vendor’s hands did not work — leading to chronic issues in incorrect deliveries, late deliveries, waves of unhappy customers and an expensive operation. On top of that we had to move warehouse four times within six months to just support the growth. For a business that places customer experience as our top priority, it was a near disaster.

After camping in the warehouse night and day for months to try to plug the holes, we took the hard decision of in-housing and built our own new warehouse operating complete with a large team, home-built systems, racking, processes, the works.

While learning how to manage growth was painful back then, it was also rewarding and our all-in response set us up for sustained success and customer loyalty. And fewer warehouse moves!”

NICK VERYKIOS, MANAGING DIRECTOR, DISTRIBUTION CENTRAL:

Nick Verykios: “Trust your instincts.”

“If it were only one mistake and if it were only when I were younger.

Thankfully my career wasn’t that limiting! Mistakes are what happens when I choose not to have a crack. It’s not a mistake to get something wrong — that is an absolute opportunity for a correction.

The first mistake I ever made was not trusting my instincts over external advice and not checking out a patent situation to a new technology when I was in FMCG in my early years. I paid for that dearly as a large batch of product was rendered unsellable. I learnt to always DO what feels innately good, even if I get it wrong — the correction will outshine the early damage. And I know I’ve had a crack.”

Mr Davis, Mr Hayes, Mr Jacobs and Mr Verykios are all finalists in The CEO Magazine’s 2014 Executive of the Year Awards. Winners will be announced at an awards evening at Sydney’s Hilton Hotel on November 27. The rest of the finalists can be found here.