Douglas John Rathbone studied Chemical Engineering at RMIT and Commerce at Melbourne University.
In his early career he was a maths & science teacher, then an engineer in downstream petrochemicals. Douglas joined Nufarm as contract Engineer in 1973, continued in various roles and for the past 16 years has been the Managing Director and CEO.
During this period Nufarm enjoyed significant growth from a small Australian supplier, then as a subsidiary of FERNZ (NZ) through to an Australian public company in 2000, forming part of ASX 100 for much of that time. Today Nufarm is a world leading crop protection and seed company employing 3500 people and total turnover of $A3 billion.
Doug is a former CSIRO Board Member, Director of the Burnett centre for Medical Research, Board Member of Cotton Seed Distributors, Board Member of the CANN Group and Chairman of Rathbone Wine Group.
[July 2015]