James and Madeleine Roberts-Thomson: Next-gen at TRT Pastoral
James and Madeleine Roberts-Thomson help run the powerhouse $500m cattle enterprise across Victoria and Tasmania. This is how they do it.
Not many brothers and sisters can work together closely, helping their father run a large sprawling agricultural company, without tensions or cracks in family relationships appearing.
But James and Madeleine Roberts-Thomson, aged 35 and 32 respectively, appear to have found the winning formula.
Together they work alongside their father, Tim Roberts-Thomson, 64, operating TRT Pastoral Group, their family’s fast-growing cattle business, which runs one of the largest privately owned herds of Angus beef cattle in Australia.
It’s a commitment they have both only made in the past few years, after first being employed in the commercial world outside the family business in quite different roles.
James studied for both science and business-finance degrees at university before becoming a business banker with NAB’s Agribusiness section, a role helped by his experience on the family’s Mansfield farms and their two large former cattle stations in central Australia and the Riverina. Then he moved on to management consulting with Ernst and Young.
In turn, Madeleine studied business marketing at university, before working as a media planner and in digital marketing in both Melbourne and London. She then took a major role for five years as commercial manager with the family’s former cleaning business, Mermaid Property Services, in charge of its 400 staff and major commercial contracts.
“It’s something I have always insisted on; that any of my three children must work for a minimum of at least five years in the corporate world, before they are allowed or choose to come back into the family businesses,” says proud father Tim Roberts-Thomson.
“It’s just great that James and Maddy have chosen to be part of TRT Pastoral; the two are now a completely a vital part of the (agricultural) operation.”
Older sister Georgia works in the fashion industry.
“And I find it very satisfying doing it together with them; I couldn’t do without them, given how fast we have grown, where our different aggregations are now located and the number of staff we have,” Tim Roberts-Thomson says.
James well-remembers the day he realised his future was going to be in the family cattle business.
In late 2017, he was still working with Ernst and Young and considering an overseas move. Until his father took him aside and said: “hold on for a bit, I think I’ve just bought five farms and 5000 breeding cows on King Island and I’m going to need you!”
So, in the first week of 2018, James switched a smart suit and a high-rise office for working clothes and the dusty stockyards on King Island, counting the Angus herd TRT Pastoral had just acquired with its stellar $45 million purchase of the Sustainable Agricultural Fund’s King Island beef cattle portfolio.
He’s never looked back, since completing a Master of Business Administration, being appointed a director of TRT Pastoral and becoming totally immersed in the strict rotational grazing pasture systems that have allowed the group to massively increase its cow carrying capacity across all of its 19,000-hectare farming portfolio.
“I like being in agriculture; it’s a very future-proof industry for Australia because you can’t outsource food production or agriculture,” James says. “But you have to do it properly.
“Sustainability and animal welfare are integral to everything we do. Nothing is about (token) box-ticking.
“It’s the right thing to do but it’s also good for us to do. Paddocks that are all measured and monitored for pasture growth and the cattle rotated accordingly – regeneratively grazed – will grow more grass, just as cattle that are low stress and well treated will always perform better.”
Madeleine says that while she has been in the farming side of the family businesses for less time than James, she is learning the agricultural ropes fast.
She handles the company’s recruitment and its 50 staff, looks after sustainability and environmental accreditations, and, increasingly, analysis of the feast of production and genetics data being gathered across the 25,000-head herd.
She describes herself as entrepreneurial – like her father – but with an analytical side driven by data-based decision-making. Dairying is also a new-found love.
“Dad always said we each have to prove ourselves, both before coming into the business and since,” Maddy says. “It’s not about made-up fake jobs for us; we know we each have to add value to the business and have a legitimate role.
“James and I have very different personalities so working together works for us, and we focus on slightly different things so we don’t overlap. It’s a loose structure now while we are still learning and going through the new acquisitions; as we become bigger that might change.”
Their father says there has not yet been any clear division of responsibilities between Maddy and James within TRT Pastoral, although staff, housing, marketing, environmental and sustainability issues tend to be shouldered by his daughter while James looks after buying inputs such as feed and fertiliser for the business, cattle movements and shipping logistics.
Both of them are immersed in the financial side of the $500m-plus business, across company’s cash flows, loans and balance sheets.
“I’m lucky they work well together and look after different parts of the business, which play to their strengths,” Tim Roberts-Thomson says.
“But I make sure they both get exposure to everything – they both come to all the meetings with the banks and financial institutions – so they’ve got the same idea of the vision and the big picture as me.”
Maddy is not surprised at how much she is loving her involvement in TRT Pastoral. The family grew up spending every weekend on their Mansfield farms in North East Victoria, riding horses, mustering and drenching cattle, going to local shows and pony clubs, fly fishing in the Delatite River, and always talking cows and farming.
“But what I like most now is that we are part of feeding the future; food is a necessity,” Madeleine says.
“But sustainability is very important to us too; I’m of the belief that future proofing the meat industry and meat eating will be all about animal welfare and looking after the animals.
“If you are going to eat meat or dairy, knowing how the animal is treated and handled will be very important. We want to be a responsible business and we are also proud of what we do and how well our animals are looked after – they have a happy life.
“I think as a beef producer, if you are not on that train, ahead of the curve, you won’t survive.”
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