Andrew Forrest, CEO Fortescue Metals

I listened to a very powerful interview over lunch today with Andrew Forrest, CEO of Fortescue Metals.
Some of the highlights of what he said:
1. As a CEO, the most important things for him are to firstly have fun and secondly to be useful. He feels very fortunate that he can achieve this in his work and in his promotion of Aboriginal employment schemes.
2. His kids will not be inheriting his wealth. He will obviously give them a house and car as we would normally do - but he is not going to give them great wealth. He wants them to grow up normally and be treated by others normally.
3. He has great passion when he talks about the importance of having a vision and an end in mind. Once you have that, you bring in the right people at the beginning and suddenly something that looks so remote has a strategy. And then that strategy has the possibility of being realised.
4. One of Australia's great advantages is that deals can be done on a handshake.
5. If we want the broadband to work, we need a proper costing analysis to be done. In any event, he believes that wireless is the way to go.
6. He is prepared to pay a resources tax but not in a way that disadvantages the sector. We need to go back to good old-fashioned transparency...