Geelong Grammar School (GGS) and our community remember Rod proudly and affectionately as an exceptional student (1938-50), active Old Geelong Grammarian, member of School Council (1975-85), Chairman of Council (1979-82), and an enthusiastic supporter of our School. We celebrate Rod as an innovative leader and businessman, who believed in the “courage and confidence” of young people to shape a better world. “They can inspire us with their youthful enthusiasm to work for a better Australia, to work for social cohesion — for a common building together and against divisiveness,” he said at our School’s Speech Day in 1982. Rod also believed the transformative power of education. From receiving the Charles Murray Maxwell Prize for Science at Corio, Rod went on to complete a Bachelor of Science at the University of Melbourne in 1954, a Master of Arts and Diploma of Agricultural Economics at Oxford University in 1957 (where he also served as president of the Oxford University Boat Club) and a Master of Business Administration from Harvard University in 1959. “It is in our own best interest to see the whole of education and schooling as vital to our national future,” he later explained.
Rod became a consultant with McKinsey & Company in 1958, working in both the USA and Europe under the tutelage of legendary American business theorist and management consultant Marvin Bower, who described Rod as a “very brilliant young Australian”. Rod established McKinsey in Australia in 1962 and returned to New York in 1967 to become a director of the multi-national strategy and management consulting firm. He was appointed Executive Director of Finance at Conzinc Riotinto of Australia (CRA) Limited in 1970 and would grow CRA to become Australia’s biggest mining company as Chairman and CEO from 1974 until 1986, expanding its iron ore mining in the Pilbara (becoming the first Australian company to export iron ore to China), growing its Bougainville copper-gold mine, and developing the Argyle diamond mine in Western Australia. “He was an icon of the mining industry, both in Australia and globally, and was a remarkable leader and a true pioneer,” Rio Tinto CEO, Jakob Stausholm, said.
After leaving CRA, Rod served on numerous boards, including as Chair of property group Hudson Conway, as President of the Business Council of Australia, as a founding member of the General Motors Australian Advisory Council, and as a director of ANZ, John Fairfax Holdings, Lexmark International, Macfarlane Burnet Centre for Medical Research and the CSIRO. Rod was made a Knight Bachelor in 1978 “in recognition of service to industry” and a Companion of the Order of Australia (AC) in the 2003 Queen’s Birthday Honours “in recognition of service to the promotion of innovative leadership and to the development of competitive practices in business, both national and international, and to the community, particularly in the health and arts fields.”
On behalf of the Geelong Grammar School community, we send our condolences to Rod’s family, particularly his three children, Mark (P’79), Charles (P’81) and James (P’84), and seven grandchildren.
Christus nobis factus sapientia