So I did something I think was a little bit courageous, perhaps naive, even stupid.
I knew it wouldn't be popular, but I did it anyway because it was the right thing to do.
I remember someone saying to me at one point, you might want to think about racing can be
undertones of things being seedy or whatever, and I thought, well, no, I'm not seedy.
I don't have any of those undertones, and quite frankly, I love it.
Hi, I'm Sally Patton, editor of BOSS from the Australian Financial Review,
and welcome to 15 Minutes with the BOSS,
a podcast about success and failure and everything in between.
And along the way, we're hoping to get some really great advice from our leaders.
I'm here today with Geoff Dimory, the chief executive of Alinta Energy.
Hi, Geoff, how are you?
I'm very well, thanks, Sally.
Thank you so much for coming into our Melbourne studio.
Now, Geoff, you're the CEO of Alinta Energy, a power generator and retailer
with nearly a thousand employees and over 1.2 million customers.
You sound like a pretty busy guy.
Very busy. I love what I do.
It's been really satisfying to watch Alinta grow.
I've been doing this job now for 13 years, which is pretty unusual,
and the transformation that's going on in the energy industry is phenomenal.
Amazing. OK, let's get started.
Our 15 Minutes with the BOSS starts right now.
My first question is, how do you start your day? What happens?
Are you one of these CEOs that gets up and runs half a marathon before breakfast?
No, I would like to tell you that I am, but I'm not.
When I'm at home and not travelling, the first thing I do is reach
for the side of the bed and grab my mobile phone.
And I spend around about half an hour scanning through overnight emails,
looking at all the press clippings that have come through,
finding out points of relevance to the industry, what our competitors are doing.
So from the moment I wake up, my headspace turns to,
what is the environment I'm about to walk into today?
And what time do you do this?
It varies, because often I do have to get up quite early to travel.
But normally the clock starts ticking around 7am.
So do you have coffee or tea in the morning? And if so, what do you have?
In the morning, I prefer to go with a skinny cappuccino.
And from lunchtime onwards, it's a skinny piccolo.
When you say lunchtime onwards, how many cups of coffee a day are we talking?
Up to four. I find it helps keep me alert.
It's a legal substance that I can inject into my body
to give me the energy to get through the day.
I quite understand. OK, my next question.
Tell me about a pivotal moment in your career
that somehow changed the trajectory of your career or shaped you as a leader.
I was working as a sales representative in a competing energy company.
I was head of sales, and I was sitting in risk meetings
listening to the people that were responsible for the procurement of our energy.
In essence, I felt like they were taking way too much risk.
So I did something I think was a little bit courageous,
perhaps naive, even stupid.
I went to the boss and highlighted
that we were taking unreasonable and unnecessary risk.
And the way that that risk would materialise
was that we were selling product to consumers that we hadn't procured in advance.
So that if the cost of that product would arise in the interim time,
that would leave the company severely out of pocket.
And did it take you a lot of thought and a long time to summon the courage to do that?
How did that come about?
It came about because I was of the opinion that if people
up the chain were more informed, they wouldn't be doing this.
So if they want to consciously take that risk, then that's one thing.
I knew it wouldn't be popular, but I did it anyway, because it was the right thing to do.
Were you nervous?
Very nervous, exceedingly nervous.
And what did your boss say?
And I guess he was a little bit circumspect to begin with,
because he was the guy from sales telling him that there was problems in the trading outfit.
I basically armed him with a set of questions to ask at the next risk committee to tease these issues out.
He then came back to me and said, well, thanks for pointing out we've got a problem.
How about being part of the solution?
And that was the pivotal moment where my career changed.
I moved out of the sales function into the upstream energy markets,
wholesale, trading, risk management, part of the business.
Well, so I guess the lesson there is really to have courage and just go with your gut instinct.
OK, my last question for the first section.
What is the best piece of career advice you've ever been given?
From that very same person I was a bit of a whistleblower to at the time,
the piece of advice I had from that person was be yourself, which I try to be every day.
It's pretty hard to be someone you're not and to do that constantly.
So, you know, my strong advice is be who you are, be yourself.
Quite frankly, if you find that in being yourself, you don't fit in, then move.
Go and find an environment where you can be yourself and you can put your best foot forward.
And that's appreciated and accepted.
And the other was around the value of time and that things are never done until they're done.
In the trading world, there's a value on options that they can be quite expensive.
And one of the key elements in pricing an option is time,
because between where you are and where you need at the time you need to get there,
many, many, many things can happen to influence outcomes.
And so make sure you take and use that time afforded to you to get to the right outcome.
So how does that get applied in your job now, for example?
If I look at just how quickly the energy industry is transforming itself
and I think about, for instance, the transition to net zero by 2050, we have to get to net zero.
Where I differ from our politicians, many of them,
is the trajectory that we would take to get to net zero, how quickly we get there.
Life's always about trade-offs.
You can get there quicker, but it will cost you more.
Trading off, you know, getting lower emissions quicker versus increase in energy bills.
Right now, certainly my radar is telling me that cost of living is so important,
given pressures around rising interest rates and everything else,
that perhaps we should be using that time in a different way and taking advantage of,
you know, the target was set for 2050.
OK, so let's be mindful about how quickly we transition, given the other pressures around us.
So the advice around the value of time was the trade-off between time and cost?
In this particular instance, yes, that's the case, it's time and cost.
And the reason I received the advice was I'd just finished a management course in Switzerland
and I'd relocated my family to New South Wales.
My first wife at the time was really struggling because we'd moved away from her support network.
Her mum, her sisters all lived in Victoria.
And so it was really tough. We had a young family.
After I returned and I'd been in Switzerland for around eight weeks studying,
I was greeted on arrival with, I can't do this anymore, I can't live without that support, we need to go home.
So I went in to work the following day and I said to the boss,
look, I'm going to have to resign, I love it here, but family pressures,
there are some things that are more important.
I mean, he said, just give me some time, give me some time to work on this, we don't want to lose you.
And I'm sure we'll find an opportunity for you back in Melbourne.
Within the space of eight weeks, they'd created a new executive role
and that job could be done from anywhere.
So they set me up in Melbourne.
So I guess the link in both those cases is be patient.
Where you do have the luxury of time to consider outcomes, then take it.
I love that piece of advice.
Now, Geoff, stay right where you are.
We're going to take a short break.
When we come back, we'll open the chatterbox.
All will be revealed.
Welcome back to 15 minutes with the boss.
I'm here with Geoff Dimory, the CEO of Alinta Energy.
Now, Geoff, this is our section called chatterbox.
Geoff, in front of you, you will see there is an extremely glamorous brown box,
inside which are 20 questions all folded up on little bits of paper.
I'm going to ask you to have a forage around in the box,
pick out three questions, hand them to me, and I will ask you to answer them.
Are you ready for your grilling?
OK, first question.
How do you make tough decisions or manage conflict?
That's a really good question.
And it's probably it is without doubt the most difficult part of the job
is making tough decisions.
The one thing I would say is that those tough decisions don't get any easier
if you delay them or you prolong them.
In fact, often it gets harder and harder.
So the first piece of advice is when you've got a tough decision
and you make the decision, get on with it.
Any decision I make is based on an assessment of the consequences
of not making the decision, the consequences of making the decision.
So how do I do it?
I guess I rationalise in my own mind the need for that decision to be made.
Making the decision isn't the hard bit.
It's implementing or then following through on the actions required
to support the making of that decision.
That's where it gets tough.
So do you find the business, the capital, the deal decisions are hard ones
or the people decisions the hardest ones?
It's all about people.
They are the tough decisions.
And the hardest one of all, I think, is, for instance,
if you've got a person in your business that has all the right intent
and the right ambition, they display the right values,
but they're just not up to the job, that's the really tough one.
It's much easier where you have somebody, quite frankly,
who is well and truly up to the task, but they don't fit your corporate values.
Those decisions are much easier.
So with the person who is not performing so well,
but has got great values and is trying really hard,
what do you think in your head before you have to go and deliver that?
Because you might have made the decision, but it's the delivery that's the hard part.
Once you make the decision, I think, firstly, delivering it in person
and delivering it quickly and what you don't want and what I don't like
and cultures I've observed in the past where rumours start to filter
through an organisation and things like that, I think they're quite cancerous.
So treating the person with dignity and respect,
sitting down with them and being honest, I had a person who worked for me
who was quite brilliant, but didn't fit the organisation culturally.
And so I felt much of the time I was putting out spot fires
as their manager in other departments and whatnot,
but they were getting good results, but it wasn't sustainable.
And I sat down with this person and I said to them,
look, you don't fit the culture of this organisation.
You're actually quite brilliant.
And I know there's an organisation out there that's really going to value
not only what you do, but how you do it.
You need to go and find that home.
That individual has gone on to be a very successful CEO.
We weren't the right fit for that person.
Yeah, so ultimately find the right fit.
But as you say, people decisions are by far the hardest.
Absolutely the hardest.
OK, Jeff, next question.
So what's your favourite podcast or streaming show and why?
I'm a huge fan of Ted Lasso.
For those who don't or haven't seen Ted Lasso,
essentially a lady inherits an English football club team
as part of a divorce settlement from her ex-husband
who was quite passionate about that team.
And so she goes out of her way to hire an ex-American football coach
to come to the UK to coach the team with the ultimate goal to watch the team fail.
But Ted's character is so infectious and the life lessons along the way
leads everybody at the club to believe in themselves and become better people.
And as a consequence, enjoy a lot of success along the way.
And we share a similar outlook on life.
If my executive were to describe me as a CEO,
I don't know whether they watch Ted Lasso or not,
but I'd hope they'd say, oh, Jeff's a lot like Ted.
The question about what's the hardest thing and it's the people.
We invest in people and we want them to be their best
and we want to watch them grow.
You want to see them happy because I absolutely believe that a happy
and motivated workforce will give you so much more discretionary effort.
And so the company in itself does better as a consequence of that.
But it's not just about growing balance sheets.
It's about growing people and growing them so that you watch them grow
and become confident and mature in how they go about life.
Balance sheets, assets are one thing, but yeah, people.
It's all about people, always about people and Ted's about people.
I must say, I also love Ted Lasso and I love the first series in particular.
OK, let's move on. Third question.
There you go. OK.
Who is a leader, business or otherwise, whom you really admire and why?
This will be a bit left field for many people, but John Singleton.
He started life in the advertising game,
building up one of the most successful advertising agencies in Australia.
He then went on later on to own a number of pubs and, in fact, a brewery itself.
But John is a really outspoken, proud Australian
and he's vocal about how he thinks the world should be.
And his views are not always populist views,
but they're his views and he sticks by them.
And so I remember very early on in my career,
particular interest with thoroughbred racing.
I own a horse stud and I remember someone saying to me at one point,
look, you're a smart guy, you're going to do really well,
but you might want to think about, you know, racing can be undertones
of things being seedy or whatever.
And I thought, well, no, you know, I'm not seedy.
I don't have any of those undertones.
And quite frankly, I love it.
So why would I why would I not do it?
Then Jerry Harvey is another one.
You know, they've been able to maintain their passion in that space,
which I share with them, but have that quite separate from being commercially successful.
So just watching people that I think live a full life
and combine great corporate success with individual passion
and to also have enough of the personality
and be bold enough to speak out and have opinions on things.
So I guess, yeah, be bold, speak your mind, don't be afraid.
Absolutely. Don't be silenced.
Don't be silenced. I love that.
So, Jeff, on that note, we will now close the chatterbox.
My last question is, if you had a month off, unencumbered,
you could do anything you liked, what would you do?
I would grab my wife, board a plane, fly to Europe,
find an isolated Greek island somewhere that's not overly touristy
and rent some accommodation for a month and sitting on by the ocean,
just watching the waves lap at the shore.
And is that because Greek is your favourite food?
Greek's right up there. I love Greek food.
No, it's the people.
I find their attitude, it's de-stressing the way that they think
and go about their life.
I think there's a reason that, you know, they have the oldest demographic
in the world, that they live the longest.
And there's much we could learn from that.
Excellent. I guess you won't invite me, but it sounds rather good.
Jeff, on that note, our 15 minutes is up.
I've loved chatting to you and hearing about your attitude
towards being outspoken and speaking your mind and not being afraid,
or at least, you know, summoning the courage to not be afraid.
And I particularly love the fact that at the end of the day,
it's all about the people and that's what really matters.
And that's how you're going to get the best out of your workers
and create the best environment.
Thank you so much for allowing us to spend 15 minutes with the boss.
I've really enjoyed our conversation today.
And thank you to everyone for listening.
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This podcast was hosted by me, Sally Patton,
produced and edited by Lap Fan.
Our theme is by Alex Gouw,
and our executive producer is Fiona Buffini.
The Australian Financial Review.