"The best hour of the week"!

Introducing President Rob Thomas, and a view of the Adelaide Rotary Club year ahead

Speaker’s Host: PP D’Arcy Walsh

Rob joined the Rotary Club of Adelaide in 2001 and was Secretary in 2013/14, Vice President in 2014/15, Director Fundraising 2015-16 and Director Administration & President Nominee 2016-17. His outstanding service was recognised with a Paul Harris Fellowship in 2014. He has a Bachelor of Business degree and post-graduate studies in strategic planning, marketing, and coaching.
Rob started at the grass roots level as a clerk in South Australian Railways. At 17 years Rob faced his first personal challenge with the death of his father and mentor and went on to support his mother and five siblings. His critical thinking skills led to promotion in procurement and shortly after to project roles focused on inventory supply and logistics, and rail freight efficiency. His work won a National Transport Award for cost effective business process re-engineering. Subsequent work in procurement, accounting, information systems and strategic planning facilitated the merger of SA, Tasmania, and Commonwealth Railway corporations into Australian National and its later privatisation.
In 1992 Rob became an independent consultant advising Queensland Rail, had a brief period at SA Police on information systems development and then moved into the electricity industry with ETSA, joining as a mentor and leader of an information systems focused business process improvement team. Moving into a commercial and market research role prior to the creation of the National Electricity Market his research work informed key market strategies supporting power generation in the national electricity market. At Flinders Power, he negotiated major energy contracts with key industrial customers (BHP, Santos and Adelaide Brighton). As Business Development Manager for NRG and then B&B Power he focused on power generation acquisition opportunities in Australia and South-East Asia from Adelaide, Brisbane and the establishment of a Singapore office.
Now retired from corporate roles, Rob has consulted in the energy market and pro-bono to non-profit organisation boards on business planning and strategy. He has a passion for cycling, theatre, foreign movies, ballroom dancing, keeping fit and running a share-market investment club. He is the proud father of four children, including twin daughters.