Rob is an experienced technical, management and commercial consultant in fisheries and aquaculture with global experience in a range of marine environmental, fisheries, aquaculture and coastal development projects. Rob has backgrounds in science, law and business and over 15 years of financial and regulatory, commercial and technical experience in aquaculture and fisheries, including 7 years as the Managing Director of ASX-listed Seafarms Group, Australia’s largest prawn farming operation. Over the last decade, Rob has led several major technical and financial feasibility studies of large-scale aquaculture developments in Australia, Asia and the Middle East, and has undertaken consulting, financial feasibility and investment analyses into commercial fishing, aquaculture, and other agribusiness ventures in Australia and overseas.

 

Rob recently advised Australia’s Northern Territory government on changes to its 40-year-old Fisheries Act and is working with the Government of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia on several projects in fisheries and aquaculture sectoral reform including a recently completed a feasibility project for a new Saudi National Centre for Seafood Quality Control and Marketing. Rob was lead author of the Northern Australia Aquaculture Situational Analysis report for the Collaborative Research Centre for Northern Australia and advised Australia’s Commonwealth Science & Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) on the development of an elite aquaculture germplasm Asian export business model. In previous careers, Rob worked as a lawyer with leading Australian firm Minter Ellison, led the environmental arm of international consulting firm BHP Engineering, worked with global engineering firms Jacobs and Aurecon and was a research scientist at the Australian Institute of Marine Science. Rob has and is currently managing several international projects in the MENA and Southeast Asian regions.