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Strong: A life lived at full throttle
·(from The Sydney Morning Herald - Matt O'Sullivan)
It was five-time motorcycle champion Mick Doohan who summed up best his friend James Strong, one of Australia's leading business figures.
''He lived life at full throttle - and he's the only bow-tie bikie I know,'' he told a memorial service for the former Qantas boss in Sydney on Monday. ''If he was a motorcyclist, he would be the world champion. And he was obviously a world champion in the business arena.''
More than 1000 mourners from across Australia's business, arts and sporting fraternities gathered to pay tribute at Sydney's City Recital Hall to the man known for his signature bow ties.
Earlier in the afternoon, as a salute to the former chief executive of both Qantas and Australian Airlines, a Qantas A380 superjumbo flew low over Sydney's CBD from north to south. It was a fitting farewell for a man who played a key role in shaping the country's aviation industry.
Attendees at the memorial service included federal government ministers Simon Crean and Peter Garrett, former Liberal senator Helen Coonan, former Reserve Bank governor Ian Macfarlane and NSW Governor Marie Bashir.
Other senior figures were Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce and his predecessor Geoff Dixon, Woolworths boss Grant O'Brien, Telstra director Geoffrey Cousins, former NSW premier Nick Greiner and Fairfax chairman Roger Corbett.
Mr Joyce told the service that Mr Strong made the flag carrier ''ready for the future, uniting the tribes into one cohesive whole ... and leading Qantas through its successful rebirth as a public company''.
''He was a true gentleman but also a fighter; an opera buff and a revhead, a mountain climber and a bookworm; a businessman and a dreamer,'' Mr Joyce said.
'James will be remembered forever as a giant of Australian aviation and of Qantas history.''
Future Fund chairman David Gonski remembered meeting Mr Strong than 20 years ago at a function where he was easy to spot because he was the only person wearing a bow tie, and the ''only person with a scrum of people around him''.
Mr Strong, 68, died in Sydney just over a week ago of lung complications from surgery. He leaves behind his wife, Jeanne-Claude, and his sons Nick and Sam.
Sam Strong told the service one of his father's enduring qualities was his generosity in giving advice, and he had lost count of the number of people he had mentored. ''No one gave advice like dad,'' he said.
Likewise, his father had a willingness to listen. ''When you spoke to Dad, you felt like you were the only person in the world.''
Other attendees included former world motorcycle champion Casey Stoner, Sydney celebrity chief Neil Perry, former director of the Art Gallery of NSW Edmund Capon, Leightons chief financial officer Peter Gregg, UGL chairman Trevor Rowe and Business Council of Australia president Tony Shepherd.
Known as ''Mr Bow Tie'', Mr Strong had a near five-decade career that spanned multiple industries including aviation, law, retail and insurance. Apart from his role as Qantas CEO, his senior positions included chairman of Woolworths, IAG, Rip Curl and more recently Kathmandu.
He shot to prominence running Australian Airlines in the 1980s.
(James resigned from the RMC in his third year in 1963. He then completed tertiary studies at the University of Queensland and the University of Sydney. He qualified as a barrister, and was admitted to the New South Wales Bar in 1976).
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Brian Willis
Farewell James Strong: From farm boy to Qantas chief
Tuesday, 05 March 2013
Angela Priestley and Myriam Robin
James Strong, one of Australia’s most influential and iconic business leaders, died in Melbourne yesterday, aged 68, after complications following surgery.
From 1993 to 2001 Strong was the CEO of Qantas. Until November 2012, he was the chairman of Woolworths, as well as Kathmandu Holdings and the motorsport authority, V8 Supercars.
Strong was renowned as a down-to-earth leader. In August 2010, he wrote in Boss magazine that “it is all too easy” to underestimate the ability of people to gauge the sincerity, credibility and trustworthiness of their leaders.
When our sister publication, The Power Index, ranked the most powerful business leaders in Australia in 2012, Strong featured prominently. He personally called reporter Angela Priestley to arrange a chat for the piece. Here is a shortened version of that article, which can be found in full here.
James Strong knows how to keep entertained. He bikes, climbs, wears bowties, and chairs the boards of three very different entities: Woolworths, Kathmandu and the federal government’s peak arts funding body, the Australia Council.
Some might call the adventurous businessman Australia's very own Richard Branson – except that he's got some humility, not just entrepreneurial zest.
Add to the CV his latest appointment – chairing the ICC World Cricket Cup 2015 – alongside his role as a non-executive director on the board of Qantas, and Strong's almost got the full spectrum of life covered.
"There are so many interesting and stimulating things all around," he tells The Power Index enthusiastically. "You meet so many different people, in business, the arts and in sport."
Strong's the real deal people person. He doesn't rely on a PA to schedule in time for our chat, but rather calls up to talk himself. He even tells us to "send his regards" to the competition when we mention we're interviewing Wesfarmers chief, Richard Goyder.
No wonder he's one of the country's most in-demand chairmen, up there with the likes of his good friend and fellow arts fanatic, David Gonski. And no wonder, having breathed some life into the once struggling outdoor clothing specialist Kathmandu alongside his role at the 191,000-employee strong Woolworths, he's got the ear of some of the business community's key players.
Strong's little black book of connections must be a motley mix of contacts. He likes to build relationships with people well away from the boardroom.
He rides motorbikes with logistics tycoon Chris Corrigan, recently making it from Sydney to Phillip Island – and making a pit-stop along the way to sign some Australia Council documents on the side of the road. He flies planes (he owns a twin engine Beechcraft Baron that his wife pilots) and drops into Broome for a surf during the dry season with Dymocks chairman John Forsyth.
But his more distinguishable pastime is climbing. He met Rip Curl creator Brian Singer on a mountain on Antarctica back in 1991, after striking up a friendship with Sir Edmund Hillary's son Peter at a fund-raising event.
"He [Peter] came and did a talk on his first climb of Everest, and I said, 'Is there anything a village idiot can do?' He rang me two weeks later and said, 'How would you like to climb the highest mountain in Antarctica?'"
Sir Edmund himself was also a great mate and "one of the most wonderful people you'll ever meet", who emulated Strong's most admired qualities: modesty and humility.
Strong grew up on a farm in Lismore where his days were "dominated by the cows" – he milked them by hand in the morning before heading off to school. And long before he ever considered himself interested in business, he liked having things to do.
"Laughingly, my mother once said, 'You just had a paper run, you were a telegram boy, you used to do gardening for fees, you used to look after the tennis courts for fees. No, you weren't interested in business activity at all!'," he chuckles. "Your parents sometimes say things to you that you're not even aware of yourself."
Of 6000 applicants, a 16-year-old Strong was selected to undertake officer training at the military academy, Duntroon. He dropped out prior to completing his fourth year, having difficulties with the "command and structure of the military" that were suitable for battle conditions, but not for him.
The short stint Strong later undertook working in an abattoir where his father was a superintendent proved more influential to Strong's business career: "I learned more from him than anyone in my life," he says. "How you treat people and how you deal with them and how you behave is what most determines what they think about you and the job you're doing."
And that applies to how he works with boards. "He is intuitive about the balance of discussion, information and decision-making," Kathy Keele, who Strong backed as CEO of the Australia Council, says. "This allows boards to get to know each other, to develop a collegiate environment and do more substantial thinking in the lead up to their decision making."
Strong's term chairing the Australia Council comes to an end later this month [June 2012]. It's been a "rewarding and productive" working relationship, according to Keele. And despite all that multi-tasking, she says he's always been available.
Leaving the government body will offer a little more spare time for life outside work. In true Strong style, he's struck up a friendship with one of the globe's most renowned counter tenors, Andreas Scholl, and will travel to Salisbury for the Opera Festival to stay with, and watch, Scholl sing in Julius Caesar later this year.
As Keele puts it: "One never knows where you're going to find him."
This article first appeared on LeadingCompany.