A passion for supply-chain knowledge sharing

It’s great to have a passion for your work, and Rob O’Byrne, CEO of management consultancy Logistics Bureau, certainly has that in spades – particularly in the supply-chain education area.
One way O’Byrne chooses to support the industry is through providing free education programs to the industry.
After 20 years at the helm of Logistics Bureau, O’Byrne’s passion in recent years has turned to helping others, he told Logistics & Materials Handling. His businesses, for example, all share some of their income with charitable organisations around the world and, in 2012, he established a social enterprise in the southern Philippines that provides outsourced administration services.
O’Byrne explained that his interest in promoting education has grown over the years. “I think it’s an age thing!” he said. “Once I got into my fifties, I found I was getting much more interested in helping to educate our next crop of supply chain leaders, and so I established a ‘members only’ academy to do just that, the focus being on personal development as well as technical and management topics.
“It then seemed a natural next step to bring our passion for education to a much broader audience and so we established ‘Supply Chain Leaders Insights’ in 2016. It’s a public event that brings 200 delegates together with 20 industry experts and leaders to share knowledge in a small-group coaching environment. It’s proved immensely popular.”
O’Byrne added that the event is intentionally low cost – tickets cost just $87 – and all proceeds go to charity on the day. “In this way, it feeds our other passion for helping those in need too,” said O’Byrne.
He said that for 2017, the Supply Chain Leaders Insights event will provide participant with an added, continuous-learning module. “In trying to add more value to our delegates this year, I thought it would be fun to provide them all delegates with a 12-month online education program as another useful resource and a thank you for attending,” he said. “Why not, I thought – it will really help them in their roles and careers.”
In talking to O’Byrne, the passion really shines through and it’s obvious where he gets his greatest satisfaction these days – like many Australian business leaders, it’s through giving others a helping hand.
Supply Chain Leaders Insights 2017 will be held on 17 October in Melbourne, and 19 October in Sydney. Find out more here.