John Rothwell AO, Founder, former Exec. Chair & Non-Exec. Director of Austal

About this episode

John Rothwell AO shares his journey from a young entrepreneur to the founder of Austal, a leading shipbuilding company in Australia.

Our very special guest is John Rothwell AO, the Founder, former Executive Chair and current Independent Non-Executive Director of Australian ship building success story Austal. John arrived in Australia from the Netherlands around age 10 and didn’t speak English, he left school at age 15 and followed his entrepreneurial spirit that kicked in early. John worked out early that he loved making things and was good with his hands. He built his first boat at age 13 and wacked a motorcycle engine in it to make it go. Austal was founded in 1988 and the rest is history. It is now one of Australia’s largest defence exporter and the first ASX listed shipbuilder with a current market cap of more than $2bln and has designed and constructed over 350 vessels for commercial and defence operators in 59 countries worldwide. It has major defence contracts with the US Navy. John provides a detailed insight into this remarkable story and growing Austal to be the phenomenal company it is today. This story is one that will no doubt be told for many, many years to come. To request a Euroz Hartleys team member to contact you or if you have some feedback on the podcast please click here Please follow us…

People in this episode

Host: Euroz Hartleys

Guest: John Rothwell AO

Topics covered

• entrepreneurship
• shipbuilding
• defense industry
• Austal
• business success
• innovation

Keywords

• Austal
• John Rothwell
• shipbuilding
• defense contracts
• entrepreneurship
• business history

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Austal, US Navy

Places: Australia, Netherlands

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