18.04.18 – LINDA SEWELL: growing from the ground up
Linda Sewell is currently Chief Executive Officer of OneFortyOne Plantations. Previously she was CEO of Hancock Plantations Victoria and of Carter Holt Harvey’s subsidiary Futurebuild in Auckland.
OneFortyOne Plantations (OFO) was established 5 years ago by a consortium of superannuation investment funds and a single employee (Linda), OFO has embarked on an incredible growth path and is now the largest forestry and wood products company in Australasia. Shortly the business will have over 600 employees in two sectors and two countries and will be over 4 times the size of the company at inception.
Linda will share stories of her journey – her experiences as one of the few senior women in her industry, her observations as a CEO working in both NZ and Australia, and how her leisure pursuits have had a profound impact on her career. She will also share a number of anecdotes from her recent roles – the key elements of success in building a substantive company in a short period of time, what it takes to lead an organisation through the country’s largest national disaster in history (in her first week back from maternity leave) and how to overcome adversity to build a struggling greenfields mill into a long-term profitable business venture.
Linda Sewell
Before joining OFO, Linda was the Chief Executive Officer of Hancock Victorian Plantations (HVP), which has a 245,000ha softwood and hardwood plantation estate in regional Victoria. The company experienced the largest commercial loss of a private company in Victoria during the Black Saturday bushfires in 2009 – a loss of $50M in just 8 hours of fire, taking over 7 years to replant and rebuild.
Prior to HVP, Linda worked for Carter Holt Harvey(CHH) in both NZ and Australia, with her last role with the company being the inaugural CEO of Futurebuild, CHH’s laminated veneer lumber (LVL) subsidiary. She led the organisation through the commissioning of the $130M greenfields LVL mill in Whangarei, developing international markets from scratch to enable the rapid ramp up of production, and overcoming the challenges of establishing a significant new business.
Born in Taumaranui in the Central North Island, Linda moved to Auckland when she was six years-old and lived there until she left to live in Melbourne in 2004. Linda has strong connections to both NZ and Australia and considers herself a Kiwi living in Australia. Linda has a BSc (Botany) and BCom (Accounting & Finance) from Auckland University. In her spare time, Linda is a mother, yoga enthusiast, marathon runner and meditation practitioner.
Come along for fascinating insights into the business and personal journey of a successful CEO on both sides of the Tasman. See you there for a memorable night!
Tickets are just $15. Register and pay (it’s a two-step process) now so you don’t miss out.
RSM
WEDNESDAY 18 APRIL 2018
from 5.30 to 8.00PM
THANKS TO OUR EVENT AND WOMANZ SPONSORS