Peter Farrell - AGSM Advisory Council Member

AUTHOR: Editor   DATE: 01.05.05   ISSUE 1, 2005
Peter Farrell lives and works in the US, but believes he can still have a “strategic” input into the AGSM through his new role on the Advisory Council.

Perhaps one of Australia’s most successful entrepreneurial exports, Farrell is the founding chairman of New York listed health sciences company ResMed, which floated in 1995 and is now valued at around US$1.8 billion.

“Something we need to think about is how the AGSM sees itself strategically in the world, and what it can do from a Sydney and Australian perspective which can add value and put a stake in the ground.”
Photo: Peter Farrell

The company has enjoyed 37 consecutive quarters of record year-on-year growth, in both revenues and profits, and has been named on Forbes magazine’s list of America’s Top 200 Small Companies for eight years in a row.

In addition to his role with ResMed, Farrell serves on boards at the University of California San Diego and the Harvard Medical School, where he recently personally endowed a chair in sleep medicine.

He retains a link to Sydney, however, through his AGSM connection and as a visiting professor at the University of NSW.

With this experience, Farrell believes he has the experience and perspective to make a contribution to the AGSM.

“It’s a highly competitive world and you really have to look at what is your niche, where you can really make a contribution,” he says.

“Something we need to think about is how the AGSM sees itself strategically in the world, and what it can do from a Sydney and Australian perspective which can add value and put a stake in the ground.”

Farrell says he sees his role in “helping to identify that niche” and identifying the resources needed to achieve that.

He is also an unashamed champion of technology, and believes that the effective management of technology is something which can be improved within business schools around the world.

He says that if he has a strength, it is understanding innovation and entreneurship, and linking that with technology to add value to the wealth creation ‘food chain.”

“A business school has to do the block and tackling, if you like, and provide the finance, accounting and marketing background you would expect, but I also think that technology and its application is the turbo charger of the future, and I don’t know if any business school does the management of technology as well as it could be done,” he says.

“If you look at the bedrock of wealth creation its technology and its application, and we’ve got to keep our antennae out there to anticipate where technology is going to change the paradigm not just of business, but of culture.”