FEATURE
The Commerce of a Varied Life Chris Arnold AM
His first job was in the Victorian public service as a finance officer, in the Department of the State Development (Industrial Development Division). His role was assessing subsidy grants and applications for loans from country industries. Chris said that he enjoyed travelling around the state and getting to know businesses. It was a useful start and stood him in good stead. It also confirmed that he wanted to be more involved with operations beyond accounting. He also had an interesting job with the public service doing management reviews. One of the most interesting tasks was a review of the state mental health facilities’ organisational arrangements. So the die was set for the rest of Chris’s professional career. He had several senior roles in hospitals, commencing in the role of Deputy CEO of the Royal Children’s Hospital at the young age of 30. He was the GM/CEO at two mid-tier Melbourne law firms and of the eastern Victorian region of accounting and financial advisory group of the WHK Group (later Crowe Horwath and now Findex). The driving in his early years stood him in good stead for the five years of that role when he drove every day to Warragul and back from Kew (always against the sun!). His final executive job was Executive Director of the then Skin & Cancer Foundation Inc. in Carlton (now called the Skin Health Institute Inc.). He led this medical organisation for 10 years, trebling its revenue over that time and increasing its reputation for clinical service and dermatology education. Consulting wise, he continues to work with the Australasian Society of Cosmetic Dermatology. Pro bono, he is a personal member of the Australasian College of Dermatologists eHealth Committee and the national MelCOR Melanoma data base project executive.
When Chris Arnold AM BCom MBA FCPA FAICD AFACHSE was 11 years of age, he was offered a position as a choir boy at St Paul’s in Melbourne which also provided a scholarship to Trinity Boys’ Grammar School in Kew. That began the long round trip from Maidstone to Kew and back every day. Little did he know that he would come back to the Anglican Diocese in Melbourne as part-time interim CEO in the year that he had officially “retired” from executive management to focus on part-time consulting and board roles. Reflecting on his career, Chris observes that everything can be relevant to your career, including the experience in competitive tennis and his study of the piano. To this day, now and again, he still plays the first movement of Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata” to call people to the dinner table. At Trinity, he threw himself into music, sport and theatrical productions, but it was only in Year 10 that his professional ambition crystallised. Chris’s commerce teacher told the class that if he studied commerce at The University of Melbourne, he would end up being of value to both employers and professions. That idea appealed to Chris and so it was commerce at The University of Melbourne. www.graduatehouse.com.au
Chris attributes his commerce degree as the foundation of his career. It enabled him to do an MBA at Monash University, which built on his commerce degree technical subjects. 24
