Richard Goyder: Westfarmers CEO

Richard Goyder was born in 1960. His parents were farmers in Western Australia and he experienced during the 1960s and 1970s how they struggled with droughts and low prices of agricultural commodity goods in the family’s Tambellup farms, 317 kilometers south-east of Perth. He decided that the life of a farmer was not something that he wanted to be. 

He enjoyed going to Perth Hale School in high school, a boarding school.  Richard went on to earn a Bachelor of Commerce degree from the University of Western Australia and finished the Advanced Management Program at the Harvard Business School in 1998. 

He joined Tubemakers of Australia Limited after college and worked in various commercial roles. In 1993 he moved over to Westfarmers. Richard has held a number of commercial positions in Westfarmers’ Business Development Department including General Manager. He became Managing Director of Westfarmers Dalgety Limited, which later became Wesfarmers Landmark Limited. Richard Held this position unit he was  promoted to Finance Director of Westfarmers Limited in 2002. 

In 2004 he was appointed Deputy Managing Director and Chief Financial Officer at Westfarmers Limited. He took on the post of Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer in July 2005. 

Two years into the job as the top executive Richard made a very bold move acquiring up-for-sale Coles for $19.3 billion. This was a big gamble as the supermarket chain was a consistent underperformer compared with Woolworths. After acquisition Richard brought in British retail heavy-hitters Ian McLeod and Archie Norman. There was a big turnaround in performance.  Since 2010, Coles has outperformed Woolworths for 22 consecutive quarters. 

Westfarmers originated as a Western Australian farmers cooperative in 1914. Today it has evolved to become one of the largest listed companies in Australia. The firm is headquartered in Western Australia. It diversified business activities include supermarkets, department stores, home improvement and office supplies, coal production and export, chemicals, energy and fertilizers, and industrial safety products. The firm is one of the largest employers in all of Australia.