Coles veteran director Terry Bowen to stay with Coles after abandoning shift to US unicorn

Terry Bowen will stay on the Coles board after deciding against retirement and a senior executive role with US-based technology unicorn Rokt.

Veteran director Terry Bowen will stick with the board of Coles after changing his plan to retire and take up a senior executive role with US-based technology unicorn Rokt.

Mr Bowen has advised the Coles board that due to personal circumstance he would be unable to relocate to the US to take up the role with Rokt, a New York-based software firm founded by his former fellow Jetstar executive, Bruce Buchanan.

“As a result, Mr Bowen’s retirement as a non-executive director of Coles has been deferred,” Coles said on Tuesday.

Mr Bowen, a former finance director at Coles, will continue to be involved with Rokt as a non-executive director.

Mr Bowen retired as a director of both BHP and Transurban last year in preparation to accept the role of president and chief operating officer of Rokt.

Eighteen years after they worked together to launch Qantas’s low-cost carrier Jetstar, Mr Bowen and Mr Buchanan had planned to reunite to pilot the next stage of growth of Rokt – including a potential public listing of the company.

Mr Bowen, a highly respected company director, would have been based in Rokt’s New York office and reported directly to Mr Buchanan.

He said he was disappointed he could not take up the role, but it was a full-time position that would have necessitated a move to the US.

Mr Bowen, who is based in Perth, said the director role with Rokt would still require travelling to New York four or five times a year. He is a partner and chair of operations at BGH Capital.

Mr Bowen last year said a significant part of the decision to join Rokt “was the people you want to work with”.

“Bruce is one of the most outstanding executives I have worked with in my career,” he said. “The leadership team at Rokt is super high quality. I have found in my career that success follows great teams.”

Rokt, which Mr Buchanan founded in 2012, provides transaction marketing software which uses artificial intelligence to present customers with offers for complementary products and services after they purchase a product online.

“Omni channel sales are a more significant part of businesses now than five years ago and are growing significantly,” Mr Bowen said.

“You look at the problems Rokt is solving for the customer and for the advertisers and the partners; the network effect of doing that across billions of transactions is very powerful. This business has an enormous outlook.”

Mr Bowen has more than 25 years of financial, strategic and operational experience across several of Australia’s top consumer-focused companies.

In addition to leadership roles at Wesfarmers, he has served as finance director of Coles and was the inaugural chief financial officer of Jetstar Airways in 2004 when it was run by now former Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce.

At the time, Mr Buchanan was a Jetstar executive on the rise and took over from Mr Joyce in 2008.