Robert’s career foundation was forged in professional services, focused in the Accounting and Legal practices. After a while however, he struggled with the notion of providing a service and wasn’t having the impact he was passionate about. He wanted to work within a business, for a business.

He talks through his decorated career and details the most exciting project of his career – working for Cadbury Schweppes in project managing the sale to Asahi Beverages. Managing the business structure, operational decision-making and corporate strategy set him up for the diverse career he’s had with Asahi - spanning CEO, COO, CFO and Legal Counsel.

He describes his career path to be not necessarily one of design, but rather a mix of luck, timely opportunities and a willingness to step outside of his comfort zone. Robert focused on using his energy to make the most of his opportunities, rather than mulling over them. Robert describes such opportunities as the various merger and acquisitions he was involved in and the scope it allowed him and the team to apply the methodology of their strategy and scale to other businesses in the portfolio. 

He adds that a key ingredient to his success is his strong desire to learn. Learning about himself, learning from others and learning to apply those takeaways to the challenges he faced. Robert believes in providing a solution to every problem he faced, and he equipped himself with the resources to do so.

Covid-19 is an important topic in everyone’s lips, Robert shares his thoughts on how technology has empowered his employees and provided them with the resourcing and scope to add value in different ways. He also details how he plans to navigate the roadmap in the ‘new normal’ that will start to shape our world, particularly as far as the growth of eCommerce is concerned.

He believes that the impact of Coronavirus shook the business world, and what came out was a true reflection of the relative strengths and weaknesses of our organisations.