Ziggy Switkowski perfects art and science of leadership

YOU’D be forgiven for thinking Ziggy Switkowski was being listed among the science fraternity in this year’s Queen’s birthday honour roll.

Ziggy Switkowski

WITH his Starman name and a doctorate in nuclear physics, you’d be forgiven for thinking Ziggy Switkowski was being listed among the science fraternity in this year’s Queen’s birthday honour roll.

But this nuclear physicist-turned-businessman today becomes an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) not for rocket science, but for his services to the art world, tertiary education and telecommunications sector .

“It’s an honour and I’m pleased to receive it, but I feel mildly guilty for being recognised for doing stuff that I actually enjoy,” he says.

Dr Switkowski wears many hats, from being the chancellor of Melbourne’s RMIT University, to chairing insurance giant Suncorp and the company overseeing the National Broadband Network.

But it’s his work with educational institutions that he relishes in particular. “I’m a formerly frustrated academic, so being the chancellor of RMIT has been a wonderful experience. It’s great to be surrounded by smart people and interesting students at a time in the tertiary sector where much is changing,” he says.

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Dr Switkowski made his transition from the science world into corporate boardrooms early in his career. “In my younger days, I was pointed at being a research scientist at a university,” he says. “I even went overseas to work research jobs in California and Denmark. I thought I would be a career academic, but it wasn’t to be.”

Instead he ended up at the then camera giant Eastman Kodak.

“They were technologically sophisticated and were regularly recruiting technically capable people and transitioning them into management roles. What shaped me most as far as business goes were my years at Kodak,” Dr Switkowski says. “I never regretted leaving the scientific career there and fast forward a few decades, it has served me very well.”

Since then Dr Switkowski has played pivotal roles in steering the direction of the nation’s $35 billion-a-year telecommunications sector, serving as chief executive at Optus and Telstra throughout the 1990s and into the new century.

Dr Switkowski has also served as the chairman of Opera Australia, the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation, and on a prime ministerial taskforce to review uranium mining processing and nuclear energy use in Australia.

But he arguably faces one of his toughest tasks as chairman of NBN Co, which is overseeing the nation’s largest ever infrastructure project. “I’m quietly confident that we will get on top of this in the years ahead, but I don’t for a minute underestimate the magnitude of the task,” he says.

“When NBN is stabilised and when it picks up serious momentum in the next year or so, we will all feel like we’ve made a real contribution to the nation.

“I think the big highlights are still ahead of me.”