Gemma Acton
He was a computer geek at school, who learned to code from reading magazines. Now, he is the CEO of Logicalis Australia with a strong focus on sustainability, gender parity, and diversity and inclusion. Anthony Woodward is a leader on a mission.
And he also raised $65,000 to help prevent homelessness, taking part in the Vinney’s CEO Sleepout for 13 years running. So is he a game changer? Let’s find out. I’m Gemma Acton. Welcome to Game Changers, in partnership with Logicalis – the architects of change.
Gemma
Anthony, welcome to Game Changers, I’ve got a lot of questions for you today.
I think we’re gonna go right back to the very beginning. Tech has been all the rage for the last decade or two decades but you were a really early starter in this space. Tell us about what happened the day your dad brought home, the Sinclair ZX 81.
Anthony
Yeah, hi, Gemma, nice to meet you and talk about that time. It really was the start of the journey for me. And as I remember it, and in fact, there is a picture of me sitting at this handmade desk, with a Sinclair ZX 81. It had one kilobyte of memory. And it was hooked up to a black and white TV. And in those days, what you had to do to get software was either to buy them on a cartridge, or what we used to do was get a computer magazine, and at the back of those computer magazines were games that different people had contributed and written in and provided. You just had to type the whole thing in using basic programming language. So that’s kind of what taught me to program. And it was that experience of building programs and making them work and troubleshooting them that really got me into computers when I was 12.
Gemma
Okay, and you were hooked from that point on, and it’s never really left your system since then?
Anthony
No, I think I decided pretty much almost immediately that I wanted to do something in that space. And then a little bit later, at high school. In year nine, a few of us got together and managed to get hold of the single Apple to a computer of the school. And we kind of ditched science class to make a software program that was kind of science related, but it got us out of some of the more boring science topics as well.
Gemma
Apple TV, that’s something I certainly had at home. So now now we’re talking about the same thing. And you came out to Australia with your father on one of the last boats to bring a lot of 10 Pound Poms out. And he was the one who brought home the computer how formative was his influence on your decisions in your career?
Anthony
So many, my dad was a motoring journalist too, sort of self made. Later in his life, he managed to be recognised as an engineer with the Society of Automotive Engineers through his own study. But there were decisions that he made or we made together that have really been instrumental in my career. One of those I remember having a fight with him about was what language I would study at high school. I wanted to learn German because it was easy. And he insisted, based on his influence in the car industry and his his experience there, that I should do Japanese. And that was really what made me take that that route and learn Japanese and I was very lucky to be at a high school where Japanese was taught.
Gemma
And you really took that Japanese background and ran with it. Tell us about your time in Japan.
Anthony
Well, after I finished high school, I studied Japanese at University as a co major while I was also studying computer science. And the last year of that degree was in the form of a traineeship, which our Japanese lecturer was lucky enough to be able to organise, to send us to Japan for a year to experience Japanese corporate life as a trainee. And I was lucky enough to be admitted to Mitsubishi Electric’s research organization, which was at that point, the particular lab I was working in, had about 7,000 employees, so not a small thing. And again, in the computer science field, I worked on some really interesting projects around human computer interaction, which was very much leading at that point in time. But it also exposed me to Japanese corporate thinking and the way that Japanese companies were at that time run and this was 1990.
Gemma
It was unique. I think when it comes to Japanese corporate culture, bureaucracy, leadership styles, it’s very much unique and truly, what have you learnt from the time you spent of the Japanese corporate with regards to leadership?
Anthony
Well, it’s emblematic that very early in my traineeship, I was invited into a room where the group were discussing what we would actually build as a research projects that I could be part of. And it was very clear that there were very senior people in that conversation. And there were also a number of other trainees. And we had a conversation and I came up with this idea to think About a metaphor for the desktop. So if you’ve ever used any kind of GUI, then you know what that’s sort of like. But I wanted to take it a step further and go into the 3d world because they had access to some very big computing power to do that, I thought it was a crazy idea didn’t think it would get anywhere, there was a lot of other conversation, and then the most senior person in the room said, ‘Good, then it’s decided we’re doing this’. And that was amazing to me, because I didn’t really know how that decision had been reached. But one of the philosophies that I did pick up was that the leadership in Japan is through seniority. But that’s not where the ideas are expected to come. Those are expected to come from those newer people who come into the organization with a fresh mind with fresh ideas. And then they bubble up. And that’s really stayed with me through my career. Yeah,
Gemma
I’m going to park that thought and come back to me and talk about your current role leading Logicalis. But let’s just talk in the middle about something else you’d have learned in Japan. And that would have been the innovation piece because, of course, particularly 1980s 1990s, Japan, really was the beating heart of innovation. You went on to found two highly successful companies of your own. What did you learn about innovation that helped you in in driving these startups to success?
Anthony
I think the thing that a lot of people miss about the way innovation works in Japan is their curious and inquisitive minds – really asking the question of why is it this way? Why do we do it this way? Is there another way and really thinking quite outside the box. And that’s really stayed with me. So in terms of starting those businesses, it’s really been, what’s the current status quo? How could we do that differently. And that’s really what stayed with me through those startups that I’ve built over the years.
Gemma
Any major lessons you can share with people who want to hear advice for their entrepreneurial journey?
Anthony
Stick with it, I think, is probably the most important one. You know, we’ve been talking to many people over the years about resilience, and the startup journey is a lonely one. And it often can be make you question every day, why do I keep bashing my head against this brick wall when it’s just doesn’t seem like it’s succeeding, but push through. Because it will. And resilience is a key piece, you have to learn it, you’re not really born with it. And you have to learn it through going through those difficult times. And how do you get out the other side of them.
Gemma
And as you say, you develop this skill now this muscle of being resilient. And then you chose to go from the entrepreneurial world back into a big corporate, a lot of people find that transition difficult going from running their own show to being part of a bigger operation. How have you found the transition to Logicalis?
Anthony
Well, it’s a bit unique in corporates in a corporate sense, from my perspective, because Logicalis is quite unlike a lot of global corporate organizations in that it hasn’t got an organization where there is a central strategy, that everybody must now follow blindly. Instead, it is quite an entrepreneurial organization across the globe. It’s been built through acquiring lots of businesses around the world, in the US and in America, and in Asia, and everywhere else. So a lot of the leaders have an entrepreneurial spirit. And there’s a fair bit of autonomy that’s given to those regional leaders in how they execute on the global strategy. So there is an overriding strategy. And then there is what you do in your local region that works that fits with that strategy, but also fits with your market, which means that you can be quite agile, quite creative in how you do that. And that’s what really attracted me to the role when it was put in front of me, and
Gemma
How have you taken advantage of made the most of that opportunity to have your own autonomy?
Anthony
Well, Logicalis, Australia, among the Logicalis businesses around the world has been going through a transition from being a more traditional value added reseller, where we’re sort of very product centric into a much more services led business. And luckily, in Australia, there was quite a big services led business in place, but it’s really being able to make that standardised and map it out and bring it to the entire market, and have us known in the market as a services lead organization, rather than necessarily a product reseller. So that’s been the trends transformation that I’ve been trying to lead, and you serve as an extraordinary amount of clients.
Gemma
I look at the I think it’s 10,000 or so clients Logicalis looks after, across Cloud connectivity, collaboration, security, big meaty areas, what’s the real thread the common binding thread that runs throughout the services that you provide to your clients?
Anthony
Well, as architects of change, we really see ourselves as the enablers for transformation for businesses, so as so much business digitizers and as businesses change their business process, what they need is safe, secure, and reliable underpinning technology to make that work. And that’s our role is to really make that happened for our customers across the globe. So that is why we call ourselves architects of change, because you can’t just sort of snap your fingers and have change happen. You have to build the underpinnings to enable it to happen.
Gemma
It’s about empowering your clients. Logicalis, and the values are very firm, which is really interesting given that, as you mentioned, Logicalis has been built up of lots of smaller companies which have come together, and sometimes you get competing values doesn’t quite work out. But speaking to some of your clients this morning, I’ve heard that actually the values is one of the strengths when you put forward a proposal. What are those values that underpin how Logicalis does its work?
Anthony
Well, the main thing is that really, we are there for the customer. And that might sound flippant, but actually, the joy that people at Logicalis get is in seeing how customers have been able to achieve what they want, without help. And that’s what gets people up and coming every single day of the week. In Australia, we have a vision, that we are the partner of choice for our customers, for our people and for the planet. And that is really a reason to get out of bed every day. And the reason for that is if you look at some of the great projects that we’ve worked with our customers to deliver, they have changed communities, they’ve changed outcomes for people in everyday life. So it’s not esoteric, it’s really very practical.
Gemma
Let me pick up on the planet point. Logicalis is known for being sustainable having a focus on sustainability in its projects, and in the solutions it provides. Why is it just so important to what you do?
Anthony
Well, it’s not just because Bob Bailkoski, who is our global CEO, has made it a mission of his, but also because we really have a role to play for our customers in helping them become more sustainable. And rather than just building the underpinning technologies to allow that to happen, we also know that we also need to demonstrate sustainability in practice and principle as well. So we’re very focused on first of all, measuring, you can’t change what you can’t measure. So we’ve spent quite a lot of time building measurements, and we’re now part of the science based targets Institute, from a measurement perspective. So we can be loud and proud and say, here’s where we are, this is where we want to go. And then we’ve made pledges about how we intend to be carbon neutral over our scope one and two, emissions by 2025, which is not that far off, and net zero into the future as well.
Gemma
Another big piece for you is diversity and inclusion. How central is that to the way that Logicalis operates?
Anthony
Well, one of the problems of the IT industry is its representation across various diverse cultures and and obviously gender. As an industry, we have about 20% representation. So from my perspective, that’s leaving 30% of the population out of the picture. And what how much are we missing out on that diversity of opinion, and diversity of views and ways of working is how you innovate is how you come up with new things that are truly out of the box. And that almost goes back to my experience in Japan, of welcoming in and embracing different and diverse opinions and views, that all go into a mixing pot and ended up with something that’s really truly unique. So that’s really what drives our diversity agenda from a representation perspective. And we know that we’ve got a lot of work to do, at the very early stages of when girls and women are thinking about what their career will be, because they can’t be what they can’t see. So we’ve got to work on on making that representation, very clear to them and moving the needle on that.
Gemma
What’s their role in then, as you say, spreading the word and bringing more women into the into the sector?
Anthony
Well, the number one thing that must happen is they must feel safe and included. And so that is really on us as workplace governance to make sure that those pieces and those structures, and that governance is in place to make sure that they feel safe and included. And that comes down to behaviors and some of them are learned behaviors that we need to unlearn and approach things in a different way. Once that happens, and once they experience an inclusive workplace where they feel safe, then we want them to be those advocates not just for our business but for the industry. And that’s how we change the numbers. That’s how we change the outcomes.
Gemma
Let’s talk about another community that feels excluded, he also seek to help and that’s the homeless community, which tragically is growing in ranks in Australia as we move into the third year of the cost of living crisis. Now for 13 years in a row, you’ve slept rough as part of the CEO Sleepout with Vinnies, tell us about why you do that?
Anthony
Well, I really find that homelessness and all of the things that lead to homelessness are much more factors of bad luck than they are through choice. And I think that’s not particularly well known. And often it’s the case that as things start to slide for someone who is down on their luck, it actually gets increasingly hard for them to reverse that luck and start to come back as an example. You know, once you don’t have a home, it’s actually impossible to get any government support, because you can’t get it without an address. And so then how do you come back from that? How do you even you know, find where you’re going to stay the next night for women escaping domestic violence, often with their children. 100% of their time is focused on where are we going to sleep tonight? What are we going to eat, and then repeat it all tomorrow. So Vinnies is a really important part of the glue, that helps keep that community starting to get itself back onto its feet. And it’s very much aimed at helping people reverse the trend that their luck is taking them in, so that they can avoid homelessness in the first place.
Gemma
And what do you learn from during the actual Sleepout?
Anthony
Well, it’s pretty tough on the ground at six, six degrees overnight and laying on the concrete and a sleeping bag. And I wonder, what would that be like if you had to do that every night. And not only that, worried about your safety and your possessions because you’re not protected? As we as a bunch of CEOs are in that particular setting. You’re you’re out there in the elements on your own, there’s nothing to protect you. That would be absolutely terrifying, and to bring a family into that scenario, even more terrifying. So that really drives me to keep coming back and suit until I see that homelessness is a thing of the past. I’ll keep going back a dozen years and counting.
Gemma
Do you have any idea how much you’ve raised for Vinnies?
Anthony
Over something like $65,000 so far, of the 90 odd million dollars that they’ve raised over their 20 year history. Next year is their 20th anniversary, so I think it’s going to be a big one.
Gemma
That’s a very inspiring note to finish on. Anything. Thank-you so much for your time today.
Anthony
Cheers. Thanks Gemma.
