Like the transport and logistics industry, flux, flow and change are the facts of life. Now General Manager Southern Region for Silk Contract Logistics, David O’Brien’s career started in his hometown of Ballarat, spurred on by his own constantly changing life. “I had my family young, so I had to take responsibility at an early age,” he says. “I’ve got three daughters and a wife I’ve been with since 1985.”
With responsibility – and before his logistics career blossomed – O’Brien faced the same existential search familiar enough to many of us, studying, working and looking for something that fit. “I did my HSC,” O’Brien says. “I worked in the bank. I worked in real estate for a while. I went back to night school and got a tertiary qualification in accountancy as well – I just wanted to better myself. So I just wanted to say, well, how can I take the next step in life?”
For a man who grew up in Ballarat, accountancy wouldn’t end up the right personality fit – O’Brien needed movement, direction and a greater sense of accomplishment. “I found that [accounting] wasn’t as interesting as I thought it’d be,” he says. “I like to be in operations, managing teams and making things happen. ”That desire would see O’Brien move into and out of logistics roles, including stints as National Manager with Toll Chemical, Supply Chain Director at OfficeMax and implementations manager at Linfox. Though he has no plans to give the game away just yet (“I’ve still got another 10 years, I reckon, so I’m not planning to retire anytime soon,”), O’Brien has reached the stage where he can look back on a long and varied career with plenty of highlights.
“I’ve covered most areas of logistics, even overseas logistics, ocean freight, local transport, PuD, rail, intermodal, warehousing – I’ve been pretty lucky,” he says. “I think what I’ve enjoyed is implementing some very big projects, designing distribution centres, fitting them out, automating them, and I’ve done a lot of travel during my time.”
So I think you become a little bit more circumspect as you get older and learn to appreciate and understand various points of views from other areas.
David O’Brien, General Manager Southern Region for Silk Logistics.
As for challenges, someone in O’Brien’s position has seen a few – even excluding the difficult COVID years. For O’Brien, success and moving up the ladder has meant taking the rough with the smooth. “It’s always a challenge in the corporate world,” he says. “I’m very much a straight shooter, so I think that’s always been a big challenge for me. I think you become a little bit more circumspect as you get older and learn to appreciate and understand various points of views from other areas.”
Though he’s got no plans to move on anytime soon, it’s fair to say that there are still stops for David O’Brien on the supply chain of life. “I really enjoyed my time managing large supply chains, building supply chains and building capability,” he says “I’ve still got that in the ticker, I’ve still got that energy and that desire to do that. Whether I go back down that path or not, remains to be seen.”
