Top 100 CEO Interviews
Issue No. 37 - October/November 2007
Roadside crew chief takes next step
A local institution for 104 years, the Royal Automobile Association of SA interacts with more than 566,000 members as SA’s peak motoring body.
The RAA is one of SA’s major employers, is a major battery retailer and monitored security service provider.
During the past financial year it helped 445,125 members stranded on the road — 90,405 in regional areas — handling more than 2.2 million calls for emergency assistance, membership, insurance, holidays and more through its Adelaide-based call centres.
New Chief Executive Ian Stone became General Manager RAA Insurance Ltd in 2004 and took up his current role this August.
“In many respects, it has been quite daunting taking up this role – particularly when I consider that I am only the fifth Chief Executive in the RAA’s 104-year history,” Ian says.
“With our diverse business portfolio, coupled with very smart investment strategies, there is little doubt that outgoing MD, John Fotheringham, has handed over an organisation that is not only well placed financially, but is in the enviable position of being poised to move forward to the next phase of its development.
“The role appealed to me for a number of reasons – particularly the challenges and diversity that it holds. It’s one of the few senior roles around where you not only get the normal chief executive challenges of dealing and working with a board, but also at an operational level the organisation has an iconic emergency roadside assistance business that has been the platform of the Association’s history.
Ian says a significant portion of the RAA’s workforce has spent 20-30 years, if not their entire career, with the association.
“In the coming years a number of senior, key staff will approach retirement, so organisational development will be high on my list of working priorities,” he observes.
“As this generation leave the workforce, they take with the...
