WC CFO TheStrategicCFO#44 Online NZ Final - Flipbook - Page 1
Ian Gilbert
Journalist
Ian Gilbert is a Melbourne-based journalist who has worked for newspapers in Australia
and the UK, including The Age, The Australian, The Guardian and The Independent.
He has worked across news, sport and business, interviewing everyone from celebrity chefs
to international rugby players. Ian is also an accomplished journalism trainer, devising
and delivering courses for clients such as Sky Sports (London). Away from the keyboard,
he is a keen cook and a published recipe-writer.
Sometimes, perfect timing can be as important as solid business acumen.
When it comes to making an educated bet, Geoff Dolphin has impeccable timing.
The CFO of Telstra Ventures has had an
uncanny knack for being in the right
place at the right time, whether that’s
moving to Eastern Europe just after
the Wall fell and opportunities rose,
or riding the first dot-com boom.
Now, in a world where tech is the target,
his organisation is perfectly placed to
throw its venture capital weight behind
agile innovators.
We’ve shifted to what we
term the eyes and ears –
we gave Telstra a second
horizon about where the
industry might be going,
Geoff says.
”
Those ‘eyes and ears’ were finely tuned
back in the early 1990s when Geoff
realised what opportunities were on
offer as countries prospered in a postSoviet dawn.
Geoff had studied at the University of
Sydney before landing a job with KPMG,
and when the chance of a posting to
Prague came, he didn’t hesitate.
“Back in the day if you worked for a
Big Four accounting firm (or Big Eight
as it was then) and you wanted to go
overseas, you went to New York or
London,” he says. But Geoff had visited
the Czech capital on his travels and fate
decreed he would soon return.
Geoff says: “Six months after I got back
to Australia, KPMG said, ‘Eastern Europe
is exploding, and is there anyone who
wants to work there?’. I immediately
put my hand up – firstly because Prague
was such a lovely place to live, and
secondly, it was where the action was
back in the early 90s – new markets
opening up, and lots of opportunities
for fast-paced growth.”
After two years in Prague with KPMG,
he became finance lead with drinks
giant Allied Domecq for the Czech
Republic and Slovakia.
“The drinks industry was booming,” he
says. “We had phenomenal growth, and
managing that was exciting, interesting
and a lot of fun and games.”
He also met his wife, Katarina (herself
a CFO with home-loan company uno)
and soon their romance and careers
blossomed: both won green cards in the
US lottery, taking them to San Francisco.
Geoff saw first-hand the growing
impact of technology when he joined
Three Deep, an electronic inventory
management system for the hospitality
industry. Using PalmPilots with infra-red
scanners, Three Deep revolutionised
cumbersome stocktaking.
“Inventory management in bars
and clubs was usually a nightmare
because you usually had the junior guy
wandering around with a pen and
paper scratching away, and someone
had to type that into a spreadsheet –
we completely digitalised that process,”
he says. “That’s where my tech world
opened up.”
At Telstra Ventures, investments were
initially tailored to Telstra’s core
business, but now as an independent
fund manager it has the flexibility to
invest wisely but also widely. Geoff’s
experience in the US start-up ecosystem
plays to his strengths, as 70 per cent
of the portfolio is US-based.
Collectively we have
100 years of experience
of venture capital
experience sitting round
the table. We’ve all done
bad deals as well as
good, and the scar tissue
and the antennae are
pretty finely tuned, so
we can pick up on the
no-good deal,
he says.
”
CFOMagazine.com.au
