How Steve Cox's Career Path Landed Him as CEO of Destination NSW

The Destination NSW chief hadn’t worked in government or tourism before. But he knows how to sell the state’s attributes, thanks to a diverse career in retail.

Unite and align with your stakeholders

May 2020-present
CEO, Destination NSW

“I was an unexpected appointment. People go, ‘Why is a guy who ran Dymocks now running the state’s tourism agency?’ Well, it’s because I can think very broadly around the challenges and I always work with [business] models. I can’t tell you how many projects failed when I first started at Dymocks because the thinking wasn’t done upfront and the business case wasn’t considered properly. In government it’s the same; if you consider what you’re trying to achieve, do the work to frame it properly and have a strong business case then you can present that case to ministers, treasurers, premiers, secretaries and everyone else. You’ve got a much better chance of success. And sometimes it takes multiple parties to be talking about what you’re trying to achieve – not just your own voice – so you want to have the stakeholders aligned. Bringing the [tourism] industry together is a lesson I certainly took from COVID. We established a Visitor Economy call and invited about 150 of the top people to talk about the challenges they were facing. We’d then feed that straight into the government’s response to the pandemic.”

Maximise customer loyalty

2012-2020
Managing director, Dymocks

“When I joined Dymocks, the minister for small business came out and said, in a very helpful manner, that there would be no more bookstores in two years. We had to establish a vision for the stores, cut through the negative commentary and talk about why bookstores are still so valuable. We had a very large customer loyalty program called Book Lover but we didn’t leverage that much so I said, ‘We’ll be able to use customer data to keep our customers in our stores and sell more to them.’ It’s easier to sell to existing customers than attract new people in a market that’s in turmoil. The Pareto rule is something that I believe in – 80 per cent of the value comes from 20 per cent [of the inputs] in general – and if you look at the customer data at that time, 80 per cent of the sales were coming from 20 per cent of our customers.”

Embrace selfimprovement

2008-2010
MBA, Macquarie University Business School

“I always wanted to build my career and I realised that not having a degree was going to be a real impediment to my future success. So I left David Jones to do my MBA. I was fortunate to be in a financial position where I could study full-time. It was the first time in my career that I focused on building connections and establishing my network and that has been instrumental to my success. It also gave me the ability to think about pretty much any business challenge and not know all the details but still know what I need to ask. We bought a company when I was at Dymocks. I knew what to do because I’d done an MBA and we studied acquisition, merger and acquisition, the challenges, the value, creation or loss thereof, the multiples and financial analysis. The MBA gave me a toolset that I’ve used throughout my career.”

Be prepared to make tough calls

2005-2008
Regional general manager, David Jones

“From the day I started, everyone used to say it was the death of department stores and yet they’re still there and they’ve got their place. I learnt a lot about looking ahead at trends and making decisions – sometimes tough decisions – based on where you think the business is going to be. In retail, you’ve got to manage inventory and your buy. If you believe you’re going to head into a downturn, you don’t want to have too much stock sitting on your shelves. The retail industry is a hypercompetitive environment where if you don’t predict that future path and you don’t move fast, your competitors will take your share straightaway. Where do we think we’re going to be? How are we going to get there? What do we need to do to be able to deliver against that? You’ve got to make those calls.”

SEE ALSO: Megan Davis and Kishaya Delaney look towards the future with the Towards Truth Project

Recognise every contribution

2002-2005
Store manager, David Jones

“When I ran stores at David Jones, I used to start my day on the dock. Every day I’d go to the receiving dock and meet the team down there to find out what’s coming in and what the challenges are. If the dock’s not functioning properly, the store doesn’t function properly. Sometimes the people in those roles can be forgotten – the kudos goes to the person who makes the sale on the shop floor. Right from the outset, I always had a strong belief in recognising the full supply chain that makes an organisation successful and recognising people as people. Even to this day I see people I used to work with at David Jones who say, ‘You were the one manager who used to come and recognise us in the back-of areas and we were so grateful that you did.’ To me, it should be a bit of a no-brainer but it often gets forgotten.”

Discover what motivates people

2001-2002
State sales manager, Jeans West

“In the retail world, specialty stores traditionally don’t look at department stores for people they want to employ. I wanted to ensure that I didn’t end up being a 30-year department store person who was unemployable. Glorious Sun Enterprises, the company that used to own Jeans West, was a big manufacturer so it was my first foray into vertical integrations and I had to manage multiple sites and stores. It was also the first time I had to manage teams of people who were not all with me at the same time. We had something like 60 stores in NSW, with young teams that required ongoing motivation and enthusiasm… We had to open their eyes to the importance of the role they were doing – they weren’t just selling a pair of jeans, they were helping somebody feel better about themselves.”

Learn all parts of the business

1990-1992
Sales assistant/ management training, David Jones

“Frankly, I struggled for three years through electrical engineering at The University of NSW and ended up leaving. I had a parttime job at David Jones, which is where my retail career began. I was selling small appliances but joined the management training program. I think many organisations have perhaps lost sight of the value of training people who have got potential to proceed through the company. I got placed in all different parts of the business, from the receiving dock to the buying office. Retail is about so much more than the shop floor and it was the first time I really started to open my eyes to the buying process, the forecasting process and the cash-flow process. My thinking broadly about business challenges really started there.”

SEE ALSO: Gregory Robinson Shares How the Future of Leadership is Changing