The 600 Million Dollar Latte

Neil is retired as founder and chairman of the global management training company rogenSi, which he sold five years ago to Teletech, a US company. He has a strong understanding of communication strategy, skills and coaching, the media, public relations, management training, growing small businesses, fundraising and winning major bids and pitches.

He started his career as a journalist and subeditor, working on daily newspapers in New Zealand and the UK, before joining Radio 3AW in Melbourne then The Sydney Morning Herald. In 1979 he left the media and formed his own public relations company which he sold in 1984 to BBD&O, becoming CEO and part owner of Holt Public Relations, which he doubled in size.

In 1987 he bought a training manual and the Australian licence for a presentation skills program, from a US company, Peter Rogen and Associates. Within five years he had grown the Australian licence to $8m turnover and subsequently acquired licences for New Zealand, Asia and then the United States. He and his team grew the business to $15m and in 1993 he bought out the founder and took over globally, expanding to Canada and the UK.

In 1993 Neil gave his services free to the Sydney bid for the Sydney Olympic Games, writing many of the speeches and coaching all presenters for the winning presentation in 1993 in Monte Carlo. He went on to have his company become a sponsor of the Sydney Olympic Games and the Sydney Paralympic Games. As part of that sponsorship he and his team trained hundreds of Olympians and Paralympians, in communication, presentation and media skills.

After 1994, Rogen International formed a specialist pitching consultancy, working with organisations to win multi-million-dollar bids, pitches and RFP’s. Neil became an in-demand speaker in Australasia, the USA, UK, Europe and Asia, on the subject of pitching to win multi-millon-dollar bids. He is the author of five business books including “Pitch Doctor – How to win multi-million-dollar accounts” , “Beyond The Pitch” and “The Pitch Doctor’s Top 100 Business Presentation tips.”

After Neil had turned the business into a partnership Rogen International merged with the SI Group in the UK and expanded into the Middle East, San Francisco, China and Malaysia.

In 2012 the company was sold to Teletech and Neil retired.

As chairman of rogenSi he formed The rogenSi Foundation “Soul”, which promoted an internal culture of providing free services to charities and community and sporting bodies. He strongly encouraged all employees to give back by providing services to organisations that needed to grow and raise money.

CHARITY WORK

Neil has just stepped down after 12 years as a director of The Starlight Childrens Foundation, where he was chairman of the Nomination and Remuneration Committee. Neil was with Starlight through the 2008 GFC crisis and has seen the organization grow from $16m to its current $35m level. During that time he provided expertise on growing organisations, marketing communication, internal communication, brand building, issue and crisis management, media skills and story-telling. His involvement ranged from Board discussions to personally training Starlight Captains in how to tell stories and inspire donors and potential donors.

Neil has been a director of The Australia Day Council of New South Wales for some 15 years, advising on the creation of Australia Day in the State and closely involved in finding and developing new ideas such as “Salute To Australia”, which has become the centerpiece of the celebrations in Sydney. Neil’s involvement in the ADC has ranged from serving on the Council to personally helping to raise multi-hundred-thousand dollar sponsorships, to writing inspirational speeches delivered on the Day by ordinary Australians who have achieved extraordinary things. He has coached many Australia Day ambassadors and Australians of the Year.

Personal: Neil is 70 years old, has been married for 48 years to Marcia and has two daughters and four grandchildren.
He lives in Pyrmont, Sydney and in Bowral in the Southern Highlands.