AS one of the best connected players in Perth, Mark Barnaba’s first career job is a reminder of a previous boom on St George’s terrace.
He was executive assistant to Alan Bond, hand-picked as a bright young star from the University of Western Australia, which proves Bond definitely got some things right. Now, as chairman of Macquarie in Western Australia, Mark Barnaba is one of WA’s, and by definition one of Australia’s, movers and shakers.
Indeed, his team was responsible for more than $3.61 billion of mergers and acquisitions in the state last year.
Barnaba’s academic smarts – he’s also the chairman of the UWA business school – were evident in the mid-1980s and helped him win a scholarship at UWA to attend Harvard University to study for an MBA. The scholarship paid for only half of the costs but Bond, then in his prime, read about Barnaba’s prowess in the local press and called him, offering to pay the remaining half of the Harvard costs.
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“He called me out of the blue, which was somewhat of a surprise as a 22-year-old,” Barnaba says. “As they say, the rest is history.”
The deal was that Barnaba would be Bond’s executive assistant for two years after he completed his MBA.
However, because of Bond Corp’s financial difficulties, Barnaba lasted less than two years and from there headed to McKinsey in London.
His career hasn’t slowed down since. He has enjoyed outstanding success and his talent has seen him benefit considerably from starting companies such as GEM Consulting and Azure Capital, and then leave them with a tidy profit.
For the past year he has been the West Australian chairman of Macquarie, clocking up those impressive M&A numbers, ranking the bank No 1 in that category in WA and putting the group more than $2bn ahead of nearest rival Merrill Lynch. This was in a year where merger and acquisition deals fell 40 per cent in WA to $27.8bn.
The WA Macquarie Group also completed 12 equity capital market deals worth $315 million.
“This role appealed to me because it was so diverse and global,” he says of his job at the bank.
“The Macquarie Group’s longstanding philosophy of ‘freedom within boundaries’ can be an interpreted as an entrepreneur combined with risk management,” Barnaba says. “That is not too different from what I was doing in my previous life.”
Barnaba is referring to his business GEM Consulting and Azure.
It was with GEM Consulting that Barnaba and his partners made their mark, selling the business for $26m plus some additional payments, bringing the final price to $34m in 2000.
“This made me financially independent and it changed my life,” Barnaba say. “I was completely out of it (GEM Consulting) by the age of 39. I took six to nine months off and then started Azure Capital, and I stopped working there full time in mid-2010.
“The people at Azure are outstanding and Azure is an outstanding company. It was time for a change and time for some personal growth.”
Barnaba is extremely successful, highly intelligent and exceedingly modest. He is very clear and direct with what he says.
“The biggest challenge facing governments around the world is to build on the stability and expectations on the recent improving economic conditions in the USA and parts of Europe,” Barnaba says.
“The Chinese economy is still strong and Japan is recovering.
“In Australia we need to focus on productivity improvements. The resources boom has covered over areas of the economy where we need to improve productivity and we will need that improvement to offset the inevitable stagnation of the resources growth.
“Manufacturing and the financial services industry, including the big four banks and Macquarie, could all work on improving productivity, though manufacturing has had to address the situation already.
“Western Australia needs to capitalise on this extraordinary resources growth because it won’t always be there. We have very low unemployment and high GDP.”
It is not just in business that Barnaba is a leader.
As chairman of UWA’s business school board and an adjunct professor in investment banking and finance, he says the challenge for universities is to seek alternative streams of revenue, “as I believe that federal government funding will either stagnate or be reduced throughout the next five to 10 years”.
“Australia is way behind the United States when it comes to seeking funds from sources such as alumni, philanthropists and working more in conjunction with business, and I think within balance it is a good thing because it will make universities more efficient and focused,” Barnaba says.
He speaks with authority – as Bond recognised all those years ago – as a former winner of the JA Wood medal for top graduate for his bachelor of commerce degree at UWA before graduating with a high distinction as a Baker scholar with an MBA from Harvard Business School. This year he says he intends to ramp things up at Macquarie, believing that in his second year it is time to make a difference – not that he hasn’t already.
“My goal is to further develop in this role at Macquarie,” he says.
“I think that the first year you learn a lot and the second year is about having an impact for both the company and for WA.
“Macquarie are best of class in energy, infrastructure and resources. My background having been chairman of Western Power, chairman of Alinta Infrastructure Limited and currently a non-executive director of Fortescue Metals Group makes it a very good fit.
“I have been very impressed with the people here and I feel revitalised since arriving.”
(Source: The Australian)