Share the power and the passion: Cliff Brigstocke, CEO Forum

He leads one of the fastest-growing trans-Tasman print groups and is active in the fight against proposed changes to book importation laws. OPUS Print Group’s Cliff Brigstocke is the stuff that CEOs are made of.

As guest speaker at Printing Industries’ NSW CEO Forum in Sydney last week, Brigstocke shared some secrets on running a healthy business in the cliched epoch which he refers to as the GFC (global financial crisis).

Held in the Sylvania Waters-esque Cabarita, there was no sign of Noelene and Laurie Donaher, with high-profile guests including managers on both the print and supply side of the industry.

Unlike most CEOs and corporate types, Brigstocke (pictured) avoided the temptation of lulling the audience into a catatonic state via Powerpoint presentation complete with corporate euphemisms and verbosity.

“My style is about doing,” he said, with only a microphone and speech in hand.
Employing 350 staff, the OPUS Print Group has operations in New South Wales, Canberra and New Zealand, specialising in out-of-home, short-to medium-run print, book-related printing and, more recently, government printing.

With only two per cent of its print work being outsourced, Brigstocke believes in utilising the strengths of each of the six companies that are part of OPUS: Ligare; Omni Graphics New Zealand; Cactus Imaging; CanPrint; Union Offset Printers and Canberra Mailing and Envelopes.

“The true value of our business group are the individual companies that are part of OPUS,” Brigstocke said. “These businesses have built on their brands and visions; and my role is to support the general manager and teams.”

Brigstocke does not see – or at least did not disclose – details of any further OPUS acquisitions, and nor does he know how large the group will grow to become. An offshore alliance could even be on the cards, but most important is that any company coming on board shares OPUS’ attitude to printing. “We won’t join forces with people who don’t have our passion,” he said.

What Brigstocke does know for certain is that OPUS will stick to its path of choosing specialist companies that excel in their chosen field. “Our plan has been about carefully selecting leading businesses in niche sectors – we choose the dominate player in the niche field,” he said.

By his own admission, Brigstocke is not an economist, but of the GFC, he is optimistic that the good times are not too far off. “I suspect that the next six-to-nine months will remain in these conditions before we start to recover,” he said. “Printing should be the first [industry] to come out.”

Printing Industries’ next CEO lunch will be held on 5 August where the guest speaker will be none other than Senator Kim Carr who made an appearance at last year’s event.

CEO of Printing Industries, Philip Andersen, encouraged the crowd to return armed with questions. “Come along and quiz him on what he’s actually delivered,” Andersen said.