Entrepreneur (retired) – Roche Group
‘If it is to be, it’s up to me.’
Imelda Roche is widely recognised and honoured as an inspiring businesswoman.She was named one of the fifty leading Women Entrepreneurs of the World. An exceptional woman in her own right, she was appointed by Prime Minister Paul Keating as Australia’s representative to the Business Forum of the Asia–Pacific Economic Co-operation (APEC), and subsequently by Prime Minister John Howard as a representative to the successor organisation, the Business Advisory Council to APEC. She is the recipient of two honorary doctorates and the Australian Centenary Medal.
With exceptional passion and enterprise, Imelda and her husband, Bill, grew the iconic Nutri-Metics business in Australia to become the most profitable division of the American company’s multi-million dollar international business.The Roche family acquired the entire Nutri-Metics Organisation in 1992 before selling it to the Sara Lee Corporation six years later. While the Roche Group is now largely a property and tourism venture, Imelda’s story shines a light on one woman’s amazing ability to succeed in business while not losing sight of the important things in life.
Interview
BRETT KELLY: What do you think are the most critical issues facing Australian businesses?
IMELDA ROCHE: Notwithstanding the present decline in employment overall, there are skill shortages in many geographic areas and specific sectors of the Australian economy which will take decades to overcome without more focus on specialised training and skills-based immigration. The high Australian dollar is having a very uneven effect across the economy, the obvious problems being the impacts on inbound tourism and exports, especially for our manufacturing and rural industries.
BK: What are your views on immigration?
IR: In my view, immigration is vital to Australia’s future. While recognising the obvious difficulties, ideally our intake should be through managed sources and as large as we can afford to integrate into our diverse communities in any given year.We are a small nation occupying a very large land area. To secure and progress our nation and to keep us economically competitive in the years ahead, we need to significantly expand our population. To do this we need massive investment in new infrastructure, the most critical of which would be in the capture, storage and distribution of water.
Over the years we have heard many times that Australia, being the driest continent, cannot support more than twenty-five million people. It is my view that this assertion is, and has been, largely based on the judgement that without a substantial increase in our national income, we will not, in the foreseeable future, have the financial capacity to make the necessary infrastructure investment for major water capture, storage and distribution projects.
Though much of Australia is subject to cyclical weather patterns, in most years we do have a high enough rainfall on much of the east coast and across northern Australia to irrigate large areas of the continent, if the necessary infrastructure was in place.
Our national ability to invest in or to attract investment for essential infrastructure is constrained by the size of our population. It is rather like the conundrum of the chicken and the egg. Which comes first?
BK: What impact did the GFC (global financial crisis) have on your business?
IR: It depends on which aspect of our business we focus on. We are now largely a property group, however, our portfolio includes three Irish pubs, the Hunter Valley Gardens and two cattle breeding stations.
The GFC had minimal impact on our hotels, the Gardens or the cattle stations, however, it continues to have a major impact on our property business. Compared to the financial sector, the property sector is heavily taxed. There is no stamp duty on share transfers while transactional taxes and stamp duty are levied on the property sector and are significant. We pay annual land tax on our properties and stamp duty for any property we purchase. We believe that there should be a more even playing field between the different sectors.
‘We are a small nation occupying a very large land area. To secure and progress our nation and to keep us economically competitive in the years ahead, we need to significantly expand our population.’
BK: What are your views on debt in your business and life?
IR: Conservative in both business and private life, we are continuously assessing our debt, however, we are very mindful of progressing our diverse business entities and the lives of all who work within our business. In my private life I remain financial y conservative and have never had a difficulty in recognising the difference between needs and wants.
BK: What is your view on tax and how has it affected you?
IR: Dealing with the philosophical first, paying tax in any aspect of our lives does not usually represent fun. There are, however, moral issues imbedded in our attitude to tax.
There are, and always will be, critics of any tax system and of any changes to it. There are inevitably winners and losers. However, the reality is that no modern society can effectively provide all the services needed and expected, and meet its financial responsibilities without the majority of the population and all business entities paying their fair share of tax – Greece is a prominent example of a nation with an ambivalent attitude to tax. There will always be competing sectional interests and conflicting views as to what is fair and reasonable.
How much do we need to be taxed for? Amongst other things:
BK: Is there one thing that you think that anybody who wants to succeed in business should definitely not forget?
IR: Yes. That it takes work and commitment and usually involves some sacrifice. It helps to have a passion for what you do and to be able to think outside the box.There are of course a few basics. First and foremost is the importance of the example you set.
In any successful business the leadership must maintain a strong work ethic, generate high energy and maintain a constant focus on productivity goals while never forgetting to recognise the contribution of all who work within the business. A successful business must also be well-researched and have realistic, short, medium and long-term flexible action plans.
BK: Is there anyone that you have looked at, who has really inspired you?
IR: The person who stands out to me most in recent history is Nelson Mandela.Here is a man who had a great deal to be bitter about, however, he emerged from his twenty-seven years of imprisonment with his focus on the advancement and well being of his countrymen. It was about his country, his people and his community – with forgiveness in his heart – not about himself.
BK: Imelda, tell us about the business that you started, where it developed and how it was eventually sold.
IR: My husband Bill and I met in Canberra in early 1957. We were both representing our companies at the opening of Canberra’s first self-service food department.Bill was with the Kellogg Company and I was with the National Cash Register Company. I was there to train staff in the operation of the store’s new-style cash registers.
Within a few months of that meeting, both Bill and I decided we had found our life partner. However, we needed to find a way to earn more than our salaries provided before we could even think about marriage. We started to brainstorm ways to earn substantially more money. (I was already working a second job three nights a week, and had a third working weekends, babysitting.)
As it happened, Australian television had made its first broadcast just a few months earlier in September 1956. It is funny to think about it now, but soon after TV was introduced, there was a popular theory circulating in the community that if you did not have a soft light on the set while you were viewing TV, it could injure your eyes. Everyone seemed to believe it, including us.
Bill came up with the idea that we could make television lamps and that he could take orders from country furniture stores for them to include lamps in the sale of their television sets. He secured orders with his first few calls, so we set to work creating mini-workshops in both of our mothers’ living rooms and co-opted all the female relatives we could persuade into helping us. I laugh when I think about it now; they were awful – coloured raffia or plastic ribbon wound around wire frames.
We continued selling them into country stores until Bill’s oldest brother, who had some direct selling experience, asked, ‘Why don’t you sell them direct to the home?’ He offered to organise a small sales team. We decided we would sell them with a deposit of five shillings, then two and sixpence a week until paid off.Bill’s other brother, who was a very handsome young man, volunteered to do the collection rounds on Saturday mornings.
I think the ladies quite liked him and did not mind handing over their two and sixpences. He reported to us that while doing his rounds he was repeatedly asked, ‘What else do you sell?’ That really set us a challenge. What else could we sell? We tried manchester, unsuccessfully, as we could not compete on price with the department stores.
‘In any successful business the leadership must maintain a strong work ethic, generate high energy and maintain a constant focus on productivity goals while never forgetting to recognise the contribution of all who work within the business.’
Soon after, we decided to try fashion and with inspiration from The Australian Women’s Weekly and Vogue, Butterick and Simplicity pattern books, I became an instant fashion designer. We found several small companies who made garments for the trade and they agreed to manufacture for us and advised how many garments we should order, in each size. I selected the fabrics and put the range together with the manufacturers. Not high fashion, just timeless basic designs.We employed several teams of saleswomen to sell Roche Fashions direct to the home and from a modest start Roche Fashions was in business for over ten years.
As we expanded from Sydney to Newcastle and Melbourne, we needed additional finance and entered into an arrangement with Waltons Department Store to sell our newly opened accounts to them. This provided us with working capital, and enabled Waltons to expand its direct-to-the-home business. This worked well for a time, however, as Waltons salesmen took over collecting on the modest debts we had established, they substantially increased the indebtedness of many customers by further selling carpets, lounge suites, refrigerators and washing machines, etc, on time payment.
We had no control over how these accounts were credit rated, increased or managed and when customers defaulted on their weekly repayments, Waltons deducted the full amount of the original debt from the payment currently due to us from new accounts. This made our arrangement with Waltons unworkable, so it was back to the drawing board for us.
By now it was 1968 and I started researching who else was selling direct to the home and how they operated. This was the beginning of phase two of our independent business lives. As I researched the fledgling industry I found there were several small Australian direct selling companies operating in Sydney and two international majors, Avon and Tupperware, both reasonably new to Australia. Whereas Roche Fashions had salaried sales teams who worked for extra commission on sales, all these companies worked on commission alone, which helped control overheads.
Those old enough to remember will recall that in 1968 there were still two afternoon newspapers in Sydney, The Sun and The Daily Mirror. Coincidently, during my research, The Sun ran an advertisement seeking management for a California-based direct selling company planning to expand to Australia. I responded and, hearing nothing back, had almost forgotten about it, until early one morning, months later, I answered the phone to the most captivating voice I had ever heard. Any mother of small children will know it is hard to be captivated at 7.30 in the morning with two toddlers and a baby in a high chair demanding breakfast.
The voice belonged to Lee Trent, who I later discovered was the original radio voice of the Lone Ranger in the 1930s and early forties. He introduced himself, said that he was staying at the Wentworth Hotel and asked if I would come to the hotel that day for a meeting. I went and was absolutely fascinated. He stood about six feet five inches tall, was pencil slim and had a shock of silver hair.
He told me that he was in Sydney to establish Con-Stan Industries, a company which marketed nutritional products, skin care and cosmetics in the United States and Canada, and that he was in Australia on behalf of the President and owner of the company, a man by the name of Mulford Nobbs. He explained that a deal had been concluded with a Sydney businessman to establish Con-Stan in Australia and that products had been shipped from California. However, when he and the products arrived the Sydney, the man did not provide, as had been agreed, the finance needed to release the products from Customs, nor his agreed share of the start-up costs. I immediately recognised that this could possibly provide us with the opportunity to take on the challenge of this start-up.
I was intrigued by both the concept of the business plan and the products.The business plan gave women who were principally homemakers a wonderful opportunity to set their own flexible work timetable and to contribute to the financial well being of their families. However, it was the product itself that truly captured me. The concept of a totally natural range of skincare products (a first for Australia) was exciting. I was convinced it had the necessary elements to make it a success. The product was unique, the timing perfect, and both subsequently worked very well for us.
BK: So it was very similar to your own situation. you had already been direct selling for ten years at that point?
IR: Yes, and I was anxious to tell Bill about it.
BK: I was going to ask – what did he say when you said you were going to sell skincare?
IR: He took some convincing that this could be a winner in an already crowded skincare market, however, I convinced him it was worth investigating as this product was unique. Bill met Lee the following day and they hit it off immediately.They both had a very relaxed and ironic sense of humour and enjoyed one another’s company enormously.
They worked together closely over many years until Lee passed away, a very sad event for us. The decision to take on the start-up of Con-Stan in Australia (Nutri-Metics as the worldwide company was to be renamed in 1983) was made right there at that meeting. We decided then and there to provide the funds to retrieve the product from Customs and to hand over the running of Roche Fashions to Bill’s two brothers.
Under Lee Trent’s guidance we started from scratch to develop a field force for Con-Stan in Australia. In the first week we attracted five people who came from the business of the man who had originally intended to partner with Con-Stan.
From the beginning we divided the responsibilities. My focus was sales and marketing and front-of-house activities, primarily attracting and training the field force. Bill took on the responsibility for overall management. Within a year or two, we had set up local manufacturing both in Australia and New Zealand and Bill added new component and packaging design and product development to his overall responsibilities. He was always very creative and loved the opportunity to be involved in design.
As we expanded the Australian and New Zealand businesses he personally supervised the design and building of two training and product distribution offices and warehouses in Auckland and Christchurch and in each of our six State capitals, where possible in a garden setting. As you know, he has gone on to develop Hunter Valley Gardens (with the help of experienced professionals), however, it was his vision, his concept and his creation.
Back to the beginning … In the first few months, three sales trainers came in rotation from the United States to assist and to train me. From the original five people in Sydney, we rapidly expanded throughout Australia, and by 1972 we were operating in New Zealand and Singapore. During the next decade we also expanded to Japan, Malaysia, Brunei, Thailand, Indonesia, China and Hong Kong and later dispatched Australians to manage start-ups in several countries in Europe.
BK: you had the rights to take Nutri-Metics anywhere apart from the US and Canada.
IR: We didn’t have any specific or designated rights, however, as opportunities presented, we went ahead and expanded the business. Of course Mulford Nobbs was delighted with the fact that we forged ahead on literally just a promise and a handshake. It was not until 1984 that we formally achieved any percentage ownership of the business. Up to that time, we worked solely on an agreed percentage of sales revenue.
BK: Of the US business too?
IR: No, nothing from the US, just from the businesses we created.
‘I was intrigued by both the concept of the business plan and the products. The business plan gave women who were principally homemakers a wonderful opportunity to set their own flexible work timetable and to contribute to the financial wellbeing of their families.’
BK: So, you had been in the business since 1968. Around 1991 you went to the owner of the business in the US, who was then in his mid-eighties, and said,‘We are prepared to buy the worldwide group.’ He agreed a price, a price that wasn’t necessarily a function of financial mathematics but more, as is often the case, the number that the owner wanted. you guys struggled to raise the money but eventually found a willing banker. How confident were you in the business? How nervous were you about the transaction? Because you are not twenty-one at this point; you guys are in your late-fifties …
IR: We were taking on a huge commitment, a business operating in sixteen countries. However, we were confident because we knew what the Australian business was capable of and we knew what the international businesses we had established and developed around the world could be capable of and we were already directly managing most of them. And yes, we knew there was considerable risk in taking on a huge debt burden, however, we believed we could handle it and we did.
BK: you then decided that your main focus would be in the markets that you had established and not in the US. Was that because of the level of competition there?
IR: No, not necessarily. There was a great deal more strength in several of the other markets, so we initially focused on building on strength.
BK: What happened then? you sold the business in 1997 …
IR: Yes, we acquired it in 1991 and sold it in 1997.
BK: Was the plan always to buy it and sell it?
IR: In 1991 the plan was to continue it as a family-owned company. It had been a family-owned American business and we intended to continue it as a family-owned Australian business.
We made what some would regard as a not-too-bright decision. We immediately headquartered the business in Sydney. This involved us in a very substantial tax bill which, had we maintained the overseas corporation, would have been handled differently. However, we had decided that we wanted Nutri-Metics to become an Australian-owned corporation that would be kept in the family. Over the next six years we continued to build the business both in Australia and internationally and during that time, in 1993, I became Chairman of the World Federation of Direct Selling Organisations. It was the first time for an Australian and the first for a woman.
It was then that we came to the attention of several of the major direct selling companies, and one in particular, the Sara Lee Corporation. Representatives of Sara Lee made contact with us at a World Federation Congress in Berlin and suggested it might be interested in buying Nutri-Metics. We told them we were not interested in selling. However, they continued to make contact regularly over the next three years and on several occasions broached the subject of a possible joint venture into India.
They were particularly interested in the businesses we had developed in Asia as they had very little presence in that region. They were also intrigued by the fact that we had a reasonably strong business in France, which is regarded by many as the home of quality skincare, fragrance and cosmetics. We also had modest businesses in the United Kingdom and Ireland and a strong business developing in Greece managed by Greek Australians. From the United Kingdom we were sending product to several European countries including The Netherlands where we had a strong sales team led by an Australian, and from Greece we were sending product into Cyprus.
In addition to the overtures from Sara Lee, it was becoming apparent that not all of our children saw a career for themselves in Nutri-Metics. Two were already thinking about other things and this in itself could have introduced complications down the track. We began to think that maybe the best thing we could do to assist our children, or young adults as they were by then, would be to provide financial support for each of them to develop their own career paths, and not necessarily tie them to something that Bill and I had created.
A direct selling business is very different in character and style to many other businesses. It is more than usually personality-driven and dependent on very committed, dedicated leadership. In direct sales leadership, you become more than usually involved in the lives of the people working with you, as you endeavour to help them set their business goals and priorities.
I would know much of what was going on in the family lives of many of our senior field leaders because it was necessary to understand their challenges to know how to assist them to set and reach their goals, which of course were a vital part of the overall corporate goals. While always recognising they were not employees, rather independent associates running their own businesses. We needed to motivate, encourage and inspire our field force to want to do what was needed to grow their businesses and enjoy all of the benefits that Nutri-Metics had to offer them.
You can give direct instructions to salaried people and expect them to do as you ask them to do. You cannot give instruction in the same way to people who are self-employed. Motivation and encouragement are the key and this requires an enormous commitment of time from the leadership. Recognising those industry distinctions, gave us pause for thought. Bill and I had lived the business, sometimes at the expense of our family life, and we did this, not only because of our passion for the business, but also to create a better life and for our children, as they grew older, the freedom to make their own individual choices about their future work/life balance.
BK: Is Bill the same age as you?
IR: He is a year younger and I have never been allowed to make a secret of it, even if I had wanted too. Bill regularly enjoyed making a joke of telling the Nutri-Metics consultants at our annual seminars that he married an older woman – to which I would respond, ‘He needed the wisdom.’
BK: So, you are sixty-three at the time, approaching an age where people do think about these things. There is an opportunity. What happens then?
IR: The decision to sell did not go down well initially, or create total harmony within the family, because for our children, it was completely unexpected. So there were challenges.
‘We began to think that maybe the best thing we could do to assist our children would be to provide financial support for each of them to develop their own career paths, and not necessarily tie them to something that Bill and I had created.’
BK: How did you handle that? Did you sit everyone down and have a discussion?Did you say, ‘It’s our business and we’ll do as we like.’?
IR: We would never say to our children, ‘It is our business and we will do as we like with it.’ That was never part of our thinking. Our major difficulty was that absolutely no premature hint of a possible sale could be revealed to anyone in case the discussions amounted to nothing. That would have been very destabilising.
BK: So the possible sale was a secret from everybody.
IR: Yes, everybody. We could not take the risk of anything leaking until a deal was concluded. So there was no discussion with any members of the family until after the contracts were signed, and that caused some heartache. The thought that we would sell the business without consulting them was hard for them to come to terms with and the decision was both difficult and, in its own way, painful for Bill and for me.
Within that same week we brought together our senior corporate management from around the world, together with the most senior and influential leaders of our field force and made the announcement to everyone at the same time. It was all done very quickly once agreement was reached.
As the shock of it all settled down, we worked to make sure there was a good level of confidence, security and understanding with all of our corporate people and senior field leaders.
As Bill wanted to move on to other horizons, I agreed to stay on for three years as Chairman of the company, primarily to help with the transition from being a still comparatively small multi-national family company, to being part of a very large multi-national.
My role was to assist a smooth transition and to ensure that we would maintain everybody Sara Lee saw as valuable going forward, as obviously there were bound to be changes in the way the business would be conducted. There were of course some people who were not happy with the change and decided to move on. Fortunately, we did keep the most important players at the senior corporate level and all of our senior field leaders, as I knew would be the case, as all had so much invested in their own independent organisations. Many are still with the company today.
BK: They had invested a lot of time and energy in their own organisations?
IR: Yes and that concerned us. We really needed to ensure that the transition to Sara Lee management was as comfortable as possible for everyone and that both our corporate staff and field leaders saw a positive future for themselves going forward. Working effectively with Sara Lee personnel, it all went smoothly.
BK: So, you get through that. Obviously going from the challenge of a situation where you and Bill couldn’t get married because you didn’t have sufficient money, to forty years later selling a very successful business and cashing a large cheque, that’s a very different scenario entirely. What did you do then?Did you have a clear plan?
IR: We had over the years acquired several substantial landholdings that we never had the time or the money to start developing. They had remained just landholdings for many years. In addition, a few months after we sold the business we acquired a property at Pokolbin, that eventually was to become Hunter Valley Gardens. Bill was inspired from the time we first visited the Butchart Gardens in Canada some thirty-five years earlier to create something similar. He had said to me during that visit, ‘One day I want to do something like this.’ That thought was reaffirmed for him each time we visited the Butchart Gardens in subsequent years.
It was on a drive back from Broke, where we had for some years attended Opera in the Vines, that we passed a ‘For Sale’ sign on a vineyard in Pokolbin.We saw that the property had a wonderful 360º view of the valley and the Brokenback Range. It was planted with very old Shiraz vines and we thought we should buy it to have as an out-of-town retreat for the family.
Within weeks of acquiring the vineyard, the property next door, which is now Hunter Valley Gardens, came up for sale so we added that too. Then Bill discovered from an old map of the district that there had been a slice of the original property cut out on Broke Road, which housed the only pub in Pokolbin, and suggested we should also acquire the pub, as it was built on part of the original land grant, and this would enable us to put the original property back together again.
He gutted what was a very ‘ordinary’ hotel and converted it to a family-friendly Irish pub. We have since gone on to build two more Harrigan’s Irish Pubs in two of our residential community developments – one on the mid-north coast of New South Wales and one in south-east Queensland. So there are now three Harrigan’s Irish Pubs. They are all family-friendly; absolutely a pleasure to be in.
BK: One of the challenges I regularly see that people have is how to live together and work together. How did you guys do it?
IR: Well Brett, my first response to that would have to be, ‘With difficulty!’ You would know, it’s challenging enough to stay married for over fifty years and raise four children without, at the same time, being in business together for most of those years. I would have to say that you manage through compromise and by separating responsibilities, and by trying not to second-guess one another.
Bill’s approach to many situations is very different to mine so we needed to give one another space. If the issue was important enough we would talk it through until we agreed or agreed to disagree. If it involved his area of responsibility the ultimate decision would be his and vice versa. We each understood enough about the overall business that if Bill was overseas and a decision needed to be made in his area of responsibility, I could handle it and he could do the same with sales and marketing. In most instances we avoided second-guessing one another and discouraged staff and the field force from going from one to the other if they didn’t get the answer they wanted.
‘My advice to the women who worked with me, and to any I spoke to who wanted to succeed in business, was to employ as much help as they could afford. It is not possible to maintain being a wonder woman indefinitely.’
BK: How did you manage the domestic end?
IR: In the very early days my mother filled in for me whenever I needed her, especially when I was away from Sydney, and I always supported her with as much domestic help as we could afford. What I really needed from her was for her just to be there with the children when I was away. She would see them off to school, cook dinner at night and tuck them into bed.
I had a number of people help with the house cleaning, the washing, the ironing, the gardening, the window cleaning, whatever! My mother was not a young woman at that stage and she had raised six children of her own and worked hard all of her life. She made it possible for me to work and to travel while retaining peace of mind, knowing our children were well cared for. I was deeply indebted to her.
My advice to the women who worked with me, and to any I spoke to who wanted to succeed in business, was to employ as much help as they could afford.It is not possible to maintain being a wonder woman indefinitely. You can’t be all things to all people all of the time and you cannot meet all of the expectations of family life while continuing to do everything in the home yourself. It is just not possible. You must prioritise what is important to you and your family.
It is good to remember that your husband really doesn’t care who irons his shirts unless they are not done to his satisfaction; your children don’t care who cleans the oven and scrubs the floors as long as you don’t ask them to do it.So really, it is a matter of proper organisation and delegation. ‘A happy wife is a happy life’. It is OK to provide paid work for someone else, to do the jobs around the house you do not have the time or the energy to do – it all helps to spread the wealth.
BK: Did you have live-in help after your mother could no longer do it?
IR: Yes, from time to time I did, mostly when my children were young. As they grew older, they all went to boarding school for a period of time, which they mostly enjoyed.
BK: So, you were the public face of Nutri-Metics, Bill was working in the business with you – what was the domestic scenario? Who was the boss?
IR: Bill usually made the major investment decisions both in the business and for the family. I tended not to become too involved because it was not necessary.He has made good decisions over the years.
Brett, there were times when I wouldn’t have known exactly what the business was earning. That wasn’t my focus. My focus was marketing and sales, recruiting, training and expanding our consultant base – developing and working closely with our field leadership, travelling constantly to consultant reward and recognition meetings and arranging local and international sales conferences.Cars and travel were a very important part of the Nutri-Metics achievement reward program.
Bill made all the investment decisions as he saw appropriate. Of course he did consult me from time to time! One of the happy aspects of our married life is that we have never had an argument or even a disagreement over money, even when we had very little. There have of course been a number of other issues we could find to disagree about, but never money. As long as we had what we needed to educate our children, live in a comfortable home and pay the bills, I was happy.We have never been particularly extravagant.
BK: No private jets or fast cars? What about boats?
IR: Well, boats are quite a different story. Bill has been known from time to time to be a small fleet owner, which is something of a family in-joke. There is the large family catamaran which he bought as just a hull over twenty-five years ago then designed and had built. He still loves that boat. Over the years he has acquired other smaller boats and has spent next to no time in or on them. However, he has always loved boats, they are his main recreational interest.
BK: But other than that, not a lot of trinkets?
IR: No, not really. The family still has the car Bill bought for me in 1979 which I am reluctant to ever sell (one of my daughters-in-law currently drives it). The car I now drive most of the time has been in the family for twelve years.
BK: Would you describe yourself as frugal?
IR: On some levels I suppose it could be said that I am. One of my sons once described me to his mates as having a Depression-era mentality. They were watching me flatten out brown paper bags, as I had seen my mother so often do, to use again for school lunches. I saw her re-use everything. She rarely threw anything out.
The lessons you learn and the things you observe in your early life are hard to shake off – and in truth, I really don’t want to shake them off. I would say, though, that overall I think I am more financially conservative than frugal, and I tried to raise my children to have those same values.
BK: you have four children and they are all well-adjusted and happy. you were committed to raising your children and you built a business – those two things are not normally as compatible as they have been here. What are the values you have tried to give your children?
IR: In a nutshell, to lead wholesome lives.
BK: What does that word mean for you?
IR: It means being a person of integrity, being trustworthy and truthful, with a goodness of heart and a purity of mind and spirit. A healthy self respect with good moral standards and values; nothing contrived or superficial.
BK: How do you guard against a sense of entitlement in children, where there is financial capacity around or there’s success right in front of them?
IR: Setting an example is more important than anything else. Expressed in another piece of homespun wisdom I value, ‘Your actions speak so loudly I cannot hear what you say.’
‘For most people, something unearned is rarely valued.Something produced with your own hands or earned through your own effort creates a healthy sense of achievement …’
BK: Do you give your kids things, or do you let them go and earn it themselves?
IR: I have to admit that none of our children had to earn a dollar for themselves until they had left school or finished studying at university. I sometimes reflect on this, as Bill collected bottles at the local oval as a kid to earn a few pennies and we both left school and started working at fifteen.
However, our four children have all turned out to be really good citizens, wonderful parents and have all chosen excellent partners in life. We have four very stable young families and much to be thankful for. I would think that my best advice to parents would be to really safeguard against an automatic or unrealistic sense of entitlement. For most people, something unearned is rarely valued.Something produced with your own hands or earned through your own effort creates a healthy sense of achievement and a legitimate sense of entitlement.Somebody said to me when I was a very young woman, ‘Remember this: “If it is to be, it is up to me.” Keep that in your mind. You are not entitled to hand-outs, what you want and need, you need to go earn.’ That thought has influenced my attitude to life. I have also learned along the way that if you are prepared to give more than you expect to receive, you will rarely if ever be disappointed.
BK: your whole life?
IR: Well, for most of my adult life those two things have guided my attitude to life and business. I don’t believe I felt that way as a child or young adult. In fact, I am sure I didn’t. These attitudes and thoughts developed over time with experience and maturity.
BK: OK, how is the family business run now?
IR: After we sold the Nutri-Metics business (Sara Lee later stylised the corporate name to Nutrimetics), over time we had a number of family members involved in what became the Roche Group. We had a brother-in-law, two sons and two sons-in-law. By that time the girls were all busy with babies or young children.
When Bill and I decided to retire, our sons were forty-ish and more than ready to take over. It was time for us to stand aside and not wait until our boys were well into middle age. It was not easy for Bill to decide to hand over the reins. Brett, I’m sure you’ve heard it said many times, that it is easier for a woman to stand aside than for most men.
BK: yesterday’s man. It’s a difficult concept.
IR: Yes, it is difficult. Particularly if sons might say, ‘Dad, we’ve got it, we discussed that last week; don’t need to go over it again.’ During most of his business life, Bill worked with a personal assistant and never had the need to use a computer. Nor did I for that matter, although I have since learned to send emails. Bill was very used to spending time in regular face-to-face meetings with the people who worked directly with him. Personal computers have introduced to business a whole new world that we did not grow up with.
BK: Now you are happily retired and have thirteen grandchildren. Does Bill have a current work focus?
IR: He is focusing a lot of his time on the Hunter Valley Gardens. He loves it.
BK: He’s got a passion for it.
IR: A well-kept garden of any size is always a work in progress; that is especially true of a large tourist garden.
BK: It is never finished?
IR: Bill loves that garden and loves being involved in its continuing development.
BK: So your business and personal life have been an extraordinary journey; an example to many.
IR: Brett, in my life I have been fortunate to visit many countries, to see many amazing things and to meet and work with many interesting people. With a little personal discipline and some measure of sacrifice and hard work – and with a fair share of luck thrown in – we have managed to achieve a few things. Though it is interesting to note, like so any others, the harder we worked, the luckier we were.
‘We all have responsibilities, we all have abilities and we al have opportunities in many different ways to make a contribution, to make a difference. And it is up to each one of us to make that difference.’
BK: What’s next? I mean, you’re only seventy-eight!
IR: Thank you for remembering, Brett! Happily, there is a lot of ‘next’ to look forward to, on many fronts …
BK: So keep going?
IR: Yes certainly keep going, but learn from where you’ve been. As people and as a nation, we must embrace change and innovation, value productivity and maintain a positive work ethic and we must always remember to give recognition and value the work of others.
BK: Compassion, fair play, wholesomeness–
IR: Where we are all going together does matter. We all have responsibilities, we all have abilities and we all have opportunities in many different ways to make a contribution, to make a difference. And it is up to each one of us to make that difference. While little of lasting value is accomplished alone, we need to remember in leadership, ‘If it is to be, it is up to me.’