Tim Sauer is a senior business executive both at government and private level and has more than 20 years in senior executive management positions. His experience in senior management roles spans the public and corporate sectors both in Australia and internationally. He is a person of substance. Tim has experience and a deep insight into many sectors including:

Government and politics

Tim has worked with two State Premiers in Australia and three Opposition Leaders. He has been a close confidante and coach for these leaders. He was a key player in all major strategies during this time. In 1994 he was approached to rescue a State Government that had slumped so badly in the polls (27 per cent popularity) it would have been thrown out of office in an election. Within two years the Government had been turned around and won - albeit minority - office at the 1996 election (42 per cent popularity). During this period Tim was a key coach and sounding board to the Premier and a mentor to Ministers and senior staff in the team.

He travelled with Premiers on business internationally, to Japan and Taiwan, as a key adviser. In 2006 he was again sought to act as Chief of Staff to a new Opposition Leader, to establish and lead the office and provide coaching and advice to the Leader and all staff. When he left that position in mid 2007 political research revealed the Opposition Leader was almost twice as popular as the State's Premier. Tim has had strong links with the Office of the Prime Minister and several Federal Australian Ministers regularly attending events with these people.

Banking and Finance

As Chief Manager, Group Communications, Tim directed strategy and communication for State Bank of South Australia in one of the most unstable periods of Australian banking history in the early 1990s, during which time the bank was facing capital loss of more than AUD3 billion. Despite its losses, through excellent strategy and communications, the bank came out of this period with more customers than ever and maintained its premiere position in the South Australian banking market. A significant role was the coaching of the Chief Executive Officer in handling the management of internal and external stakeholders.

More than 1,000 staff were provided with coaching materials so that they could answer key customer questions and retain their confidence in the organisation. Successfully interacting with customers and employees was vital to success.

Power

In the late 1990s Tim was offered a senior management position with the Western Power Corporation in Perth, Western Australia. His principal role was communications development and management. He also sat as an observer on the corporation's Board, providing coaching to Board members on internal and external communications - particularly in relation to negotiations with unions over working terms and conditions.

International Directorships

Tim was a Director in a group that is the world's second largest in beverage industry, the French owned and based Pernod Ricard. Pernod Ricard is a company of more than 14,000 employees. In his role as Director of Orlando Wyndham he was also Director of the management of corporate public relations, nationally and internationally. He was part of a small international management team established by the Pernod Ricard Holding company in Paris to direct and manage high level communications and identify related business needs for the organisation, including the provision of high level coaching materials for senior management. Tim also was a member of a Pernod Ricard Holding team managing the multi-billion Euro takeover of Allied Domecq by Pernod Ricard in 2004.

Media

Tim has been a leader in the media in Australia. He has reported in Australia and overseas (UK, US, Japan and Continental Europe), been part of the elite parliamentary reporting team, headed up major metropolitan newspaper bureaux (Sydney and Melbourne) and had the senior management role of News Editor in the most successful commercial radio network in Australia, the Macquarie Network. His role and the effectiveness of Macquarie station 5 DN in South Australia was acknowledged by the Premier who named the station as the best news station in the South Australian market in the mid 1980s, pushing the government owned Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) into second or third position. He was the first commercial radio journalist to travel with the South Australian Premier and report internationally. A reason for the success of Radio 5 DN was the mentoring and coaching of staff, provided by Tim. Tim also has covered some of Australia's most significant Royal Commissions and was nominated as 'The Negotiator' for the Speaker of the House of Assembly in the Parliament for the right to record and broadcast of the State parliament. Tim was nominated by the Premier of South Australia to be the head representative of the media with Princess Diana and Prince Charles and in 1990, Tim won the prestigious Society of Business Communicators Award for The Most Outstanding Professional Achievement and Best Communicator in Australia. Tim was also invited by one of the world's leading magazine, The Drinks Business, based in London to be on an international panel assessing global marketing campaigns. All the major world companies involved in this business were eligible to enter for this prestigious award. Tim has interviewed major international names including Prime Ministers and Presidents and some of the biggest names in the entertainment of world.

Additional interests

Tim is a pilot and is involved in aerobatics. He has played rugby at a high level and retains a keen interest in most sports, government sector efficiency, politics and aviation.

With an MBA and a second Masters in Industrial and Employee Relations, Alan is a highly acclaimed leader and mentor around the world. Alan has worked at the highest levels of government and the private sector level for decades. He has an extensive mentoring background and has been an executive coach for most of his career.

Alan is a graduate of the Royal Military College, Duntroon, where he was initially trained in Australian Government and Defence Department procedures and systems. He was trained and employed in logistics management, personnel and information technology. While serving on assignment with the US Army, he attended the USA military's executive policy formulation course at Ft Belvoir, VA; and mentored regimental groups of officers in the United States Army at Army Headquarters in Washington DC. During this time he worked with the US Army HQ Washington, DC in a policy and procedures role in military personnel management for the Deputy Chief of Staff - Personnel (Pentagon Staff), where he was awarded the USA Meritorious Service Medal for systems development. He also mentored senior Australian Field Commanders from his Australian HQ role in soldier career management before being attracted to the private sector with an appointment in KPMG.

One of Alan's distinguished achievements was his involvement in the Australian Federal Government's Labour Market Strategy Program where he worked with CEOs, members of the Boards and Directors of Business Units to improve corporate productivity with strategic planning. Alan was appointed to mentor and coach senior business people in Australia to achieve significant increases in domestic productivity as part of the Government strategy to upskill the nation and increase economic growth.

Earlier in his career as an executive with Development Dimensions International and KPMG, Alan was responsible for the conduct of major restructuring events utilising behavioural assessment, selection and organizational development. While at KPMG he was appointed by the Australian Federal Government to a Round Table committee advising on the direction and impacts of Government policy. He was funded by the Federal Labour Government to work with corporations such as Pacific Dunlop, a manufacturing conglomerate, and other medium to large businesses (such as Inghams -Agricultural, David Welsh Engineering, Melbourne Ship Repair Group, Olex Cables) to create strategic plans. At DDI, he was the project director for a major restructuring of the ANZ Retail Bank, he ran the supervisory training project for Crown Casino and provided business strategy and restructuring advice to the internationally known Italian company Parmalat in Melbourne, Australia. He was retained as the mentor to the CEO of Parmalat's Southern Operations for many years subsequent to this.

Alan was a Director on the Board of Senetas Corporation Limited, an Australian public company listed on the Stock Exchange. He was also employed as the Chief Operating Officer and established the business operations for Senetas and the companies that Senetas invested in with business operations throughout Australia, Asia and the USA. This role involved him in providing advice and mentoring the CEO's and Boards of invested client companies, including taking executive and Director roles where appropriate. He has experience in the public markets of Australia, Singapore, and the USA; including an Australian IPO listing. He has participated as a Director in a successful hostile takeover on the Australian exchange, and has considerable operational experience in M&A activities. He is a Certified Company Director from the program at the UCLA, USA, and a member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.

Most recently, Alan has been mentoring, and reorganising businesses and implementing organisational restructures and strategic growth plans throughout Australia, the United States, and Asia. He also has current client companies in Australia, Singapore, India, Canada and the USA. He was been a member of the Austrade and Victorian Government Trade Delegations to the UAE for ICT in 2006 and 2007. For many years, Alan has been the mentor and executive coach to the Chairman and CEO of a group of Australian telecommunications software companies that have operations throughout the world. In this business he has also directed the sales and distribution channels to successfully expand the mobile communications software business into the Middle East and Africa. Through this relationship, Alan was introduced to participate as a mentor on a highly valued Victorian Government - company incubation program. More recently he has been working to the Macquarie Bank and other financial institutions such as ING (Sydney), Angeles Capital (Los Angeles USA) and Vision Capital Advisors (New York) providing advice and mentoring to CEOs and the Boards of target companies (such as Granite Investment Group of Irvine, California which has USD$1 Billion of property assets). He has worked with these individuals and boards coaching them on how to position themselves to be eligible for funding and fine tuning their information briefs to capture worldwide funding opportunities.

Alan has a strong background in the operational management of business process and people. He has a practical approach to government and business, insightful strategic planning skills, creative problem solving skills, and a history of facilitating solutions to complex business and process issues. He is considered one of the bright lights out of Australia as he has the practical and the theoretical knowledge and is able to translate complex issues into everyday language. His counsel is highly valued throughout the world.