What is your job and what does it involve?
I’m the chief customer officer at OneStop. It’s a diverse role; I manage the entire customer experience from marketing and sales through to implementation, customer service, project management, account management and a little bit of industry engagement. I’m responsible for a team of about 40 people, who do a great job of giving our customers a seamless experience.
Which of those functions do you enjoy the most?
The commercial side of things is interesting because I’m a commercial person by trade. As a salesperson transitioning from a shipping line to OneStop, I was exposed to the Australian supply chain, and there have been so many opportunities to learn from customers. The industry engagement innovation section is a new function, and the process excellence department has been a really good experience for us. We’ve been unpacking the best ways to service and engage customers, leveraging technologies, skills, personalities and the concept of processes.
Tell us about your time with Maersk.
I would love to tell you I went into my interview with Maersk knowing that they were the biggest shipping line in the world at the time, but I had no idea who they were when I first did my interview. I was hired into a sales support department at Maersk initially. It was an entry level role, and a really good experience coming out of my time at the reserve army. Eventually I transitioned into a sales executive role, and I moved to Queensland to look after Maersk’s exporters up there. That was probably the biggest development in my career. A lot of the customers took me under their wing and showed me how logistics works.
Tell us more about your time in the Army Reserve.
I have nothing but great things to say about my time there. Some days were rougher than others, but it taught me a lot of life skills and different ways to approach business. The army operates in a similar way to the supply chain. It’s very process based, and I think a lot of the skills are universal. Look, they yell at you a lot while you’re rolling around in the dirt, but it opens you up to the way the world works. I came home and mum was like, “You can iron a shirt now!”
What’s an important lesson you’ve learned over your career?
Failure is never a failure if you learn from it. You can be working 20 hours a day to try and fix a mistake you’ve made, but it’s okay so long as you take what you’ve learned from that unfortunate outcome and apply it for the future. If something didn’t go your way, think about what you can learn for the next time that situation will occur – because it will. You’re not going to make every single customer happy, but that’s okay. If you don’t get the outcome you want, learn from it, so that next time you are ready for that situation.
What’s something you want others in the industry to know?
The importance of the people you meet along the way and the lessons you can learn from them. I think it’s important for people entering the logistics industry or currently working in it who are a little bit younger to leverage the people around them and build mentor and mentee relationships. There’s so much people can teach you, and I don’t think people coming into the industry today really understand it’s available to them. There’s a lot of work we need to do as an industry to move forward, and the only way we’re going to do that is by learning from the people around us.
What are some of your skills or hobbies?
My parents say I’m good at talking nonsense. I enjoy Saturday sport and getting out to play soccer or cricket. I can play a few instruments (not very well) and I like movies. I’ve recently taken up surfing. Actually, I’ve got a surfboard. I’ve been in the water and I’ve been on the surfboard, but I can’t exactly say I’ve been surfing.
What kind of music are you into?
The instrument I play most is bass guitar. I’ve dabbled a little bit with normal guitar, but my brother was always better than me, and I didn’t want to compete with him. I’ve also mucked around with drums. As a teenager I listened to punk rock. I still listen to punk rock. My favourite band of all time is Blink 182. They recently reunited, and I was probably the happiest I’ve been in years.
If you had to live in any movie, which would it be?
If I’m the main character, it’d be Indiana Jones. I would love to whip my problems away or just run away from a boulder someday. None of my teachers were ever as cool as Indiana Jones. But if I wasn’t the main character, it’d be Star Wars.
This article appeared in the July 2023 edition of DCN Magazine
