Page 30 - Australasian Paint & Panel Nov-Dec 2022

People matter
30
PAINT&PANEL NOVEMBER / DECEMBER 2022
WHAT’S NEXT FOR KNOX?
JAMES KNOX HAS BEEN STEERING REPAIRHUB SINCE ITS VERY EARLY DAYS. NOW, AFTER THREE AND A HALF YEARS, HE’S MOVING ON TO PASTURES NEW. SAM STREET CAUGHT UP WITH HIM TO REFLECT ON HIS REPAIRHUB JOURNEY.
J AMES KNOX WAS IDEALLY suited for his role as CEO of the IAG repair network Re- pairhub. He was intimately aware of the workings of insurance companies after more than a decade at Suncorp which also included a gig run-
ning their insurance joint ventures.
“I had operational accountability for our joint ventures, and Capital S.M.A.R.T was one of them. We had a home repair business and we had the auto parts busi- ness as well. So I got exposure back then to the operating businesses and the in- dustry, and I suppose have always had a passion since then. Back in the day, S.M.A.R.T was the original disruptor
and that gave me the taste,” he said, “So I then ended up at Auto & General as the CFO there, so that was again a very different business - the digital on-
line disruptor.”
But then came a call from his old boss
Mark Milliner the adopter of S.M.A.R.T at Suncorp who had jumped the fence to IAG and wondered if Knox would like to have a crack at setting up a rapid repair network for them.
“I said, absolutely. So it was my first CEO opportunity but it was in an indus- try that I knew. I knew how the process worked, I knew the value chain and it was a good chance to test myself.”
Knox joined two months after the origi- nal joint venture had been established with SmashTec in Sydney and Smash Re- pair Solutions (SRS) who had five sites
across Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne. “So we effectively acquired six shops from the two small original businesses. When I arrived, we were still in the in- tegration phase and that first year was
hard work.
“We spent it integrating the cultures,
and building the site design, the model and the processes for the future.
“That wasn’t all me of course, that was with Chris Beatty and his opera- tions leadership team, they built the pro- cess and the shop format. They built the vision of what we wanted the shops to look like and the standardised processes they would employ.” Knox said.
“Evan Camilleri come on as CFO and I worked with Veronica (Jory in the Peo-
ple department) and together we built the finance, the HR, the recruitment, the systems that would support a corporate repair business that would grow rapidly.
“It was a tough first year but we built it, we proved the model and then we spent the second and third years grow- ing aggressively and also managing that small thing called a pandemic as well, which was obviously a bit of a spanner in the works for everyone.”
In the three and a half years since Knox joined, the group has grown from the five original shops to 18 shops (19 by the end of the year) and over 400 staff. It has grown between 50-100% every year.
What does Knox take the most satis- faction from? “I always say that despite