Mother’s support allows her sons to fly high
David Baxby’s rise from Goldman Sachs banker to running Virgin’s global empire was inspired by his mother’s remarkable story, which he now carries into his latest venture.
Nanette Carroll’s life changed forever when she was 27 years old, living in Sydney and seven months’ pregnant with her third child.
“One day out of the blue Geoff (her then husband) announced he had been having an affair and was leaving. It was the turning point for our lives and was a real wake-up call for me. I had to protect my family,” she now recalls of ending their seven-year marriage.
With limited options after leaving school at year 10, she moved to Queensland and lived in the Holy Spirit Convent at Aspley in north Brisbane with her three boys.
She left out details of her former marriage and children in her resume when she applied for work as a secretary in December 1980 with recruiting business Slade Consulting Group.
She only fessed up to the reality before her interview, which was with founder Geoff Slade and his then business partner, fellow recruitment industry doyen Andrew Banks.
“I remember a tad confused Andrew Banks asked me in the interview, ‘Are you a nun that has run off the rails?’ Carroll muses with a wide smile.
“The final shortlist was Miss Australia 1979 and me. I got the job!”
The eldest of her three boys is now best known for his career in investment banking at Rothschild and Goldman Sachs in London and Sydney before running Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Group in the Asia Pacific and then the British billionaire’s entire global group as co-CEO, based in Geneva.
In 2017 he returned to Australia as managing director of Wesfarmers’ industrial division.
His name is David Baxby.
For the first time, this story reveals his challenging heritage and his admiration for his now 72-year-old mother.
“As I saw David take each step in his career, there was just this huge pride all the time. He could have got really carried away with the success he achieved at a pretty early age,” Carroll says.
“Going to Bond University and graduating with a double degree – honours in law/commerce – at the age of 21. It was pretty amazing.
“But I think at the same time, he’s very down to earth. He is also always my sounding board if I’m thinking of investing in something or doing something.”
While raising her three boys on her own, Carroll rose up the ranks at Slade Consulting before it was purchased by UK group Blue Arrow/Manpower in 1988.
When ultimately Manpower decided to quit Australia in November 1990, she and business partner Kathryn Devine led a management buyout of one of its subsidiaries called Brook Street Bureau.
Its turnover at the time was around $1.1m and over the next nine years they grew revenue to $25m with 1000 temp staff.
Carroll was awarded the Australian Telstra Business Woman Of The Year for business owners in 1996.
She then called on Baxby’s advisory skills in July 1999 when Brook Street was sold to the Nasdaq-listed TMP Worldwide. Ironically, Andrew Banks was then the acquirer’s global director.
She stayed with TMP until November 2002, capping a 30-year executive career in the recruitment industry.
For 16 years until November last year she also sat on the board of Australia’s largest privately owned workforce services business known as WorkPac Group, where Baxby is now chairman. They spent six years together on the board.
Baxby says the biggest lesson learned from his mother is simple: “Just being true to yourself.”
“There is a degree of transparency and openness that I think she has always provided in our lives,” he says.
“We are not particularly good at playing poker, we are not particularly good at running angles.
“We tend to say exactly what we feel, when we feel it. I think it stands us in pretty good stead because there’s no deception. We are what we are.”
Carroll’s youngest son, Luke, now leads Deloitte’s Health and Human Services practice and her middle son, Matt, is the Asia-Pacific boss of a unicorn fintech called Revolut.
The latter’s childhood experience of being raised by such a strong woman has shaped his leadership style at the group.
“The parts that ring true are almost the ‘leadership basics’. Nan’ built trust by doing what she said, stayed true to who she was and forged a unique loyalty by treating her team with respect and being transparent. Nan’s directness means you know exactly where you stand – that definitely hasn’t changed,” he says.
“Nan was probably a bit ahead of her time in fostering a positive culture, from enhanced family leave, how she rewarded people, the environment in the office and how she celebrated success. She was a great role model for me.”
Strong bonds
Carroll once carted her boys around in a Volkswagen that was so old, she had to hold on to the driver’s side door around corners to stop it flying open.
She will never forget the night she got her first promotion.
Her young sons cooked a special dinner of microwaved frozen turkey with gravy and vegetables purchased from the local Franklins supermarket. They weren’t allowed to touch the oven.
Her eldest hung a white sheet from the ceiling to give the room a restaurant-feel and draped a cloth nappy over his arm as a waiter would to serve the meal.
The youngest, Luke, was in charge of the drinks – red cordial – which was poured into Wedgwood crystal wine glasses. David proposed the congratulatory toast to his mother.
“That night I knew we would make it as a family. We were such a solid unit,” Carroll recalls.
Baxby says the boys were used to looking after themselves at home until their mother came home from work, so always had something semi-prepared for dinner.
“But that was one of those nights where we went that extra level,” he says.
He believes being in charge of the household forced him to grow up fast, but also stresses he never felt “heroic”.
“It is amazing what people can do when they are presented with the need or the requirement to do something. They step up. So from the earliest times that I remember from my childhood, it was always about ‘Well, step up, step into the breach’.”
Matt Baxby adds that he never felt like he was in a particularly unique situation growing up or that he was different to anyone else, which illustrates the environment that his mother created.
After seven years on her own Carroll remarried, taking the advice her eldest gave her when he was just 12. “Mum, you will never meet Mr Right if you stay at home every evening,” David told her.
Her new husband, Michael Carroll – who had two daughters of his own – was even offered a job by Geoff Slade, so the new husband and wife worked together for a time.
They were married for 30 years. But in 2007 Michael was diagnosed with cancer. Carroll nursed him for more than seven years before he died in December 2015.
“The relief I felt was that he no longer had to suffer. But I did feel guilty that I was relieved. I also had the care of my mum for over 30 years. She died three years ago at the age of 97. A remarkable woman,” she says.
Baxby says his stepfather was the polar opposite to his biological father, being a tad strict, structured and at times, authoritarian.
“We certainly had some early moments of tension. But he was the right guy for the time and he cared deeply for us,” he says.
“There is nothing he would ever not do and he had a real sense of service and wanting the best for us.”
His biological father, Geoff, now lives in Noosa and they speak roughly once every two months.
They share common interests like bike riding and swimming.
“I’m a real believer in having no regrets in life and I think that if I didn’t have any relationship with him, that would be a real shame,” Baxby says.
“I regard him as someone who I just love to catch up with every now and again, someone I’ve known for a long time, but it is certainly not that normal sort of father-son relationship.”
His mother was always determined that her sons had complete freedom to form their own relationship with their father.
She says of all her achievements in life, her sons are her greatest.
“Without doubt, my three sons are great men, terrific husbands and gorgeous fathers; I am so blessed as a mother to have the boys that I’ve got, given my relationship with each one of them and the relationship they have as three brothers,” she says.
“David obviously did lots of things, but Matt and Luke have also gone on to achieve huge success as high-profile businessmen.
“There’s never been any jealousy among the three boys, which gives me as a mum just the best feeling in the world.”
Branson’s influence
David Baxby’s latest venture is a private equity firm called Coogee Capital, which partners with founder-led private companies and family businesses to help them along the path to liquidity events.
His partner in the business is Tom Hardwick who founded the Guardian Early Learning group in 2004, growing it into a $500m business.
Baxby says the firm specialises in what he calls “institutional private equity”.
“At the outset we asked, ‘Is there a way of actually having a relationship with five or six key entrepreneurs who we can help see around a few corners and make fewer mistakes than we made, and help them grow by providing them with some capital and being involved. That’s why we put Coogee together,” he says.
The firm has several investments, including a medical rehabilitation business called Redimed Health Group.
It is also currently finalising a deal in the industrial services sector with a 76-year-old founder/entrepreneur who they have helped transition out of his business and hand the baton to a new generation under new ownership.
Baxby says his time working closely with Sir Richard taught him to value people in businesses and how to be a human being as a leader.
“I came out of Goldman which was phenomenal. But you are insulated from the ramifications of decisions on people,” he says.
“You are in an ivory tower and you give the very best advice that you think you can. But there’s nothing like running a team of 1000 people on a day-to-day basis, and seeing the impact your decisions have on them.
“Richard taught me how to take that extra one or two steps for someone to bring them along the journey of where we needed to go.”
Baxby last made national headlines in 2020 when he was involved in Canadian infrastructure company Brookfield Asset Management’s attempt to buy Virgin Australia out of administration.
He will never forget fronting one meeting with 20 union officials, including Transport Workers’ Union national secretary Michael Kaine.
“Mike rang me afterwards and said ‘That is the most open, honest and straightforward assessment of the pain that we all need to take and I just want to thank you for your honesty. No one else has told us that’,” Baxby recalls.
“I think there was at least a degree of recognition that we weren’t coming in trying to be too smart by half and that we had a definitive plan for the airline. That we were going to be straight up about it and treat people as human beings on the way through.”
That style goes back to life lessons from his inspirational mother, which he now puts into practice in his marriage to wife Selina.
They have three daughters: Zara, Imogen and Amelia.
“As a family we have always had very honest conversations with each other. I’ve always had that with my brothers, my mum and now I do it with my own family,” he says.
“There’s a real openness and honesty that means you don’t carry baggage. There’s no grudges, no hidden agendas. People just lay it on the table.”
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