ownerdriver.com.au AUGUST 2019 81
INSIDE THE DEN
As the long-serving executive chairman of Linfox Logistics, Peter Fox is
guardian of a diverse, multi-billion dollar family enterprise and much
like his larger-than-life father Lindsay, commands a powerful presence
with a well-etched reputation for tough tactics. Yet his standards are
high, reaching far beyond trucks and Australian shores, as he explains
in this revealing and exclusive interview with Steve Brooks
I
N SOME RESPECTS, Peter Fox is very much like his father and in other
ways, different. Significantly different.
Lindsay, of course, is the founder who did the hard yards. One man,
one truck, and a fierce determination to build something bigger. From
here on, the life and times of Lindsay Fox need no help from me. It has
all been said before.
Yet there are those in the corporate sector who say – albeit very
quietly – Peter is perhaps too much like his father. Brutal in business,
an uncompromising character. Too tough according to some!
Personally, I don’t see him that way. But then, I’m not trying to sell him
anything or competing for a contract – matters that would, I’m sure,
change the dynamic dramatically.
Nonetheless, there is something about Peter Fox I find completely
engaging. On the record or off, in a random meeting or, as in this instance,
an interview many months in the making, his views are vast, varied and
invariably framed by ‘the big picture’.
Second of Lindsay and Paula Fox’s six children, he is now way closer to
his 60th birthday than his 50th and easily recalls the family’s early years
and his father’s immense work ethic. An ethic which appears to have
comfortably carried from father to son.
Fortuitously, while Lindsay was working and building, their eldest son
was watching and learning from the ground up. There were no shortcuts
but from the outside looking in, ascension to the top of the family business
was perhaps inevitable, so long as the resolve, the aptitude and the
commercial smarts stacked up.
Obviously they did and by age 30, Peter Fox was installed as executive
chairman of Linfox. For Lindsay, succession planning obviously started
ea rly.
Succession is also on Peter’s agenda but there’s certainly no rush. After 26
years as chairman, he concedes the baton will be ultimately passed to the
third generation but right now, “It’s too early. There are 14 grandchildren,
they are only just coming out of college.
“It’s a decision that doesn’t need to be taken for the next 10 or 15 years,”
he says frankly.
Yet as much as fruit never falls far from the tree, it also sprouts a life of
its own and the simple fact is that Peter Fox is a generation apart from the
82 year-old father and founder of the sprawling Linfox empire. It would,
however, be a monumental mistake to misjudge the depth of the bonds
that bind.
To the core of its being, this is a family business. And in this family,
family is everything.
Even so, walking off the street into Linfox House is perhaps little
different to strolling into any other high-end edifice on Melbourne’s ritzy
St Kilda Road.
Once inside though, things change fast when you’re headed for the
big office upstairs and after pre-arranged bona fides are established,
you soon enough find yourself inside another sanctum, surrounded bystunning Australian artworks, not least a series of breathtaking Albert
Namatjira landscapes.
Seated at a large desk down the end of a confronting long and open
office, surrounded by company mementoes, Peter Fox appears glued to a
bunch of papers before disappearing into a small alcove and seconds later,
the unmistakable sound of a paper shredder. I can’t help thinking, ‘Game
over for something, or someone.’
He soon emerges bearing a broad smile, strong handshake, warm
welcome and a day’s growth on his face. He looks tired.
“Sorry, just catching up on a few things. Only f lew back in last night.
Let’s talk in here,” he says, striding past the big desk where it’s impossible
to ignore the photos of Peter or his father with a few well known faces.
Like several US presidents, or a couple of prime ministers from here and
elsewhere. This is, indeed, the world of movers and shakers.
In an ornate, small room walled by beautifully bound books spanning
everything from Australia’s earliest history to a first print of Darwin’s
‘Origin of Species’, Peter appears to quickly relax, recalling the last time we
spoke, a few years earlier during an impromptu few minutes at the Tokyo
Motor Show where electric vehicles, and specifically Fuso’s development of
electric light trucks, were high on the agenda.
Technology would again figure highly during this discussion, for very
good reason.
The Linfox business spans many enterprises but none more, of course,
than the transport and logistics operations at the core of the company’s