MCom Class of 1989

David (known as "Crowie") was born in Adelaide and completed his schooling in Sydney at Cranbrook School. He completed a Bachelors of Economics at the University of Sydney in 1985 and a Masters in Commerce at the University of New South Wales in 1989.

 

David's career has been focused in brand, consumer and corporate management roles in major Fast Moving Consumer Goods companies across Asia, Europe and Africa/Middle East.

 

David has been the Managing Director of British American Tobacco ( BAT ) South Africa, based in Stellenbosch and Cape Town, since mid 2002. Prior to that David was the Marketing Director at BAT Australasia based in Sydney - this company was formed in 1999 through the merger of WD and HO Wills and Rothmans Australasia. Prior to this David had worked in the Asia Pacific region for BAT as Regional Marketing Director based in London and as Area Country Manager for Indochina based in Singapore.

 

David worked in the UK and Europe with Glaxo SmithKline for some 5 years in the early 1990's as Marketing Director and prior to that trained and worked with Unilever in Australia and France in brand and trade management roles.

 

As part of a broader and global "leadership development" role within BAT David has been working extensively with professional coaching throughout the organisation as a way of building a stronger, deeper and more sustainable leadership cadre. As part of this work David has been certified as a Professional Coach through the Centre for Coaching at University of Cape Town's Graduate School of Business in association with New Ventures West in the USA.

 

David is a trustee of the Signature Trust which focuses on the HIV/Aids issues in South Africa and is a board member of the Consumer Goods Council of South Africa - the industry body representing  the suppliers and retailers in the FMCG industry.

 

He is married to Lucinda and has 3 young children. His interests beyond family and work include sailing, cycling, photography and reading.