The first decade of his career was spent in the food industry, but it was while running an Edgells’ factory in 1967 that Ruthven went on a Rotary study exchange to the US which inspired him to change course.He visited a “war room”, a concrete bunker beneath an airport tarmac in Oklahoma, and was amazed by the amount of disparate information being sourced to aid the American cause in Vietnam.
Ruthven went back to Edgells and tracked down the company’s entire production records back to 1926. Plotting out historical trends and cycles on graph paper, he was soon forecasting demand for Edgells’ 220 product lines better than the marketing department. But it grew in step with the professionalisation of corporate life in Australia, and overseas where IBISWorld would eventually have three satellite offices and source most of its revenue, which by 2020-21 was nearly $100 million a year.He often claimed his best call was one made in the mid-1980s, when he predicted that families would increasingly pay outsiders to do their childcare, cooking and lawnmowing for them.
Ruthven devoted much of his later life to The Ruthven Institute, which helped clients refine their business strategy based on “12 rules for business success” which he patented.
A true gentleman. Made everyone from waitstaff to analysts feel at ease. I'll fondly remember assisting him with research for his articles.
The only Economist that had a clue
😞
A genuine pioneer as a thinker, a visionary in the field of advice to businesses, and a truly lovely man as well. Vale Phil