Director Profile: Alistair Hill

By Gabrielle Stannus

We profile Alistair Hill, Director of Greenlife Industry Australia, whose business and change management skills have proved to be a ‘Salvation’ for organisations he has previously been involved with.

Alistair Hill is the Chairman of Immij, a national printing communications business. HIs entrée into the horticultural industry came almost a decade ago, when Immij bought out Macbird Floraprint, one of the pioneers in plant tag supply. Since then, Alistair’s specialty arm Immij Greenlife have provided printed plant labels, tags, seed and bulb packets and packaging and media services to the Greenlife Industry.

Alistair is an experienced executive and director of ASX Listed public and private companies and not-for-profit organisations. He holds a business degree, is a Fellow Certified Practising Accountant (FCPA) and a Fellow of The Australian Institute of Company Directors (FAICD).

“What I have generally been involved in for close to forty years is growing businesses. Prior to Immij, I started out with a small family company. We had thirteen staff. We eventually grew that to around 800 staff with an annual turnover of a couple of hundred million dollars,” says Alistair.

More recently, Alistair was Chairman of The Salvation Army Red Shield Appeal (Southern Region) and a member of The Salvation Army Advisory Board. During his time with The Salvation Army, Alistair played a key role in transitioning that organisation from two geographically diverse regional bodies into one national body. This streamlining enabled The Salvation Army to operate more efficiently and improve communications across the country.

It is not surprising given his time with The Salvation Army, that Alistair has always valued the importance of giving back to the community. Last year, Alistair decided to nominate for a role on the newly formed Greenlife Industry Australia board, a position in which he felt he could put his extensive business, strategy, governance, change management and directorial experience to good use.

“I would love to see the industry thrive and prosper. And I just generally would like to play a larger role in our industry and get to know a lot more people,” says Alistair.

Alistair recently found the time to attend IPM Essen in Germany last month. Arguably the world’s largest trade fair for horticulture, IPM Essen’s organisers claim that it attracted 1,538 exhibitors from 46 nations and over 54,000 visitors from over 100 countries. Alistair says that climate change and sustainability were the dominant subjects at this event.

“Sustainability is obviously a key message everywhere in the world nowadays,” says Alistair. This is a topic that Alistair cares a great deal about, with Immij Greenlife seeking to ‘close the loop’ through its range of plant tags.

Alistair’s next ‘working’ trip will be to Perth for the Healthy Plants, Healthy People conference from 3-5 March 2020, where he is keen to connect with fellow Greenlife Industry members.

If you can’t catch Alistair there, you may just find him on the water, where he loves to spend his free time on the water boating, fishing or swimming. “I swim every day in the open water at Brighton Baths in Melbourne. It might be anything from a two-kilometre swim down to what they call a teabag, which is just for a short dip. The water temperature gets down to eight degrees in winter, so you definitely get a bit of a rush!” says Alistair.