Kerry Stokes
Kerry Stokes
Kerry Matthew Stokes ACis an Australian businessman. He holds business interests in a diverse range of industries including electronic and print media, property, mining, and construction equipment. He is most widely known as the chairman of the Seven Network, one of the largest broadcast repeating corporations in Australia. He was awarded Companion in the General Division of the Order of Australiain recognition of his contributions to Australian business...
NationalityAustralian
ProfessionBusinessman
Date of Birth13 September 1940
CountryAustralia
With WesTrac, you have real people doing real jobs with real problems and real opportunities, and you touch the metal, and it's like being grounded.
You can be involved in media, and you can be involved in all the handbag hurling that goes along with it, and it's a different world.
At one stage, I didn't have any money, so I slept on the streets for a few nights. It wasn't uncommon in the 1950s, and it wasn't uncommon to be out of money. There wasn't anywhere to go to get money.
Every father loves their children. I love my two sons very dearly. The only thing that is important to me is that they do what they want to do. They shouldn't feel a sense of obligation.
I am a pretty tough nut, I guess, and I love art as one of the expressions that probably appeals to my softer side that a lot of people would deny I had.
I don't wish hardship on anybody. My background was one of being very difficult, very hard, and they were subject to the times I lived in. I wouldn't wish that on anybody.
I ended up in Broadmeadows orphanage - I don't know how that happened - whether she gave me up for adoption or the church was responsible. Whatever happened, she was a single mum.
I haven't got a problem with scrutiny. If it gets hot in the kitchen, don't cook a meal. People should be able to criticise us - it's completely appropriate.
I just decided that I wasn't going to gain anything by going to school, since we couldn't afford it anyway, so I left school very early and went to work and progressively did things.
If you have a difficult message to deliver in any circumstance, it's always best to do it first up-front, and probably be a bit harder than you have to be because it's always easier to be nicer afterwards.
Our balance sheet provides us with the ability to act on investment opportunities in appropriate areas that diversify and broaden our portfolio, including the gas and energy sector.
The most important adage and the only adage is, the customer comes first, whatever the business, the customer comes first.
The only way of making money is for effort. The only time I've ever lost money is when I've purposely said, "I'm doing this to make money." And I've actually on three occasions lost significant sums. I have made wealth when I've actually made a contribution to something, when I've done something I thought I could do better than somebody else or have done something better than somebody else does it.
Ethics or simple honesty is the building blocks upon which our whole society is based, and business is a part of our society, and it's integral to the practice of being able to conduct business, that you have a set of honest standards. And it's much easier to do business with someone when you look them in the eye and say, "This is what we're going to do," and you understand what you each mean, and you can go away and get it done.