John David "Jodee" Rich (born 1960) is an
Australian
Australian(s) may refer to:
Australia
* Australia, a country
* Australians, citizens of the Commonwealth of Australia
** European Australians
** Anglo-Celtic Australians, Australians descended principally from British colonists
** Aboriginal Aus ...
businessman. He was a founder of the defunct mobile phone provider
One.Tel
One.Tel was a group of Australian-based telecommunications companies, principally the publicly-listed One.Tel Limited (ACN 068 193 153), established in 1995 soon after deregulation of the Australian telecommunications industry, most of which are ...
and the software distributor
Imagineering Australia. He is now the
CEO
A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a chief executive or managing director, is the top-ranking corporate officer charged with the management of an organization, usually a company or a nonprofit organization.
CEOs find roles in variou ...
and founder of
social analytics and
influence measurement provider
PeopleBrowsr and the creator of new TLDs dotCEO, dotBest and dotKred.
Background and education
Rich was born to a German Jewish father, Steven Rich,
who, in 1963, settled in Australia to manage Hunter Douglas, a
Venetian blind
A window blind is a type of window covering. There are many different kinds of window blinds which use a variety of control systems. A typical window blind is made up of several long horizontal or vertical slats of various types of hard mate ...
manufacturer, and his wife, Gail, born in Australia.
Steven Rich went on to create the Traveland travel agency, was the deputy chairman of the
Salvation Army
The Salvation Army (TSA) is a Protestantism, Protestant Christian church and an international charitable organisation headquartered in London, England. It is aligned with the Wesleyan-Holiness movement. The organisation reports a worldwide m ...
in 1971 and was awarded an
Order of Australia
The Order of Australia is an Australian honours and awards system, Australian honour that recognises Australian citizens and other persons for outstanding achievement and service. It was established on 14 February 1975 by Elizabeth II, Monarch ...
in 2001.
Steven Rich subsequently created Focus Publishing.
Rich wrote his first software program on punch cards in 1972 at the age of 12. He was educated at
Cranbrook School in
Bellevue Hill, Sydney. During his Cranbrook days Rich started a business renting
fish tank
An aquarium (: aquariums or aquaria) is a vivarium of any size having at least one transparent side in which aquatic plants or animals are kept and displayed. fishkeeping, Fishkeepers use aquaria to keep fish, invertebrates, amphibians, aquati ...
s.
[ Chenoweth 2006: 257] At Cranbrook he met
Rodney Adler, who would go on to become a director of One.Tel. In 1980 Rich developed a commodity analysis system on 64k
Apple II
Apple II ("apple Roman numerals, two", stylized as Apple ][) is a series of microcomputers manufactured by Apple Computer, Inc. from 1977 to 1993. The Apple II (original), original Apple II model, which gave the series its name, was designed ...
, which he later sold to investment banks. He studied Accounting, Economics and Computer Science at University of Sydney, graduating in 1981 with a Bachelor of Economics.
In 1987, Rich married Maxine Brenner, a corporate lawyer who has sat on the board of a public company, Neverfail Springwater, and has served as a member of the
Takeovers Panel, a government body involved in the resolution of sharemarket disputes.
Corporate achievements
Imagineering
In 1981, Rich launched
Imagineering Australia and the company was floated in 1987. Shares in Imagineering peaked at $8 but the company sold to a Hong Kong group for 10c a share in 1990.
One.Tel
Rich formed
One.Tel
One.Tel was a group of Australian-based telecommunications companies, principally the publicly-listed One.Tel Limited (ACN 068 193 153), established in 1995 soon after deregulation of the Australian telecommunications industry, most of which are ...
, a service provider of
GSM
The Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) is a family of standards to describe the protocols for second-generation (2G) digital cellular networks, as used by mobile devices such as mobile phones and Mobile broadband modem, mobile broadba ...
mobile and long-distance calls, in Australia in 1995 (with
James Packer as a shareholder) competing against
Telstra
Telstra Group Limited is an Australian telecommunications company that builds and operates telecommunications networks and markets related products and services. It is a member of the S&P/ASX 20 stock index, and is Australia's largest telecomm ...
and
Optus
Singtel Optus Pty Limited is an Australian Telecommunications in Australia, telecommunications company headquartered in Macquarie Park, a suburb in the Northern Sydney region of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. It is a wholly owned subsidiar ...
. The company acquired a GSM operation for $500 million in 2000. One.Tel Australia was placed in administration in May 2001. One.Tel UK was sold to
Centrica
Centrica plc is a British multinational energy and services company with its headquarters in Windsor, Berkshire, England.
It is the largest supplier of gas to domestic customers in the United Kingdom, and one of the largest suppliers ...
for $200 million and later to
Carphone Warehouse who retired the brand in favour of its
TalkTalk brand.
Beginning in December 2001, Rich was the defendant in legal proceedings brought by the
Australian Securities and Investments Commission
The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) is an independent commission of the Australian Government tasked as the national corporate regulator. ASIC's role is to regulate company and financial services and enforce laws to pro ...
(ASIC).
During the case, known as ''
ASIC v Rich'', Rich was in the witness box for over 33 days. Justice Austin later said in his judgment Rich "demonstrated that he was a very well prepared witness, knowledgeable about the subject matter of his evidence, who responded to questions thoughtfully and clearly, sometimes even perceptively. This was notwithstanding the arduous circumstances of his cross examination, extending over 25 days".
Rich was exonerated on 18 November 2009 when Justice Robert Austin ruled that ASIC had "failed to prove any aspect of its pleaded case."
Other business achievements
In 2007, Rich founded
PeopleBrowsr. In 2011, PeopleBrowsr launched Kred Influence Measurement.
On 27 March 2013, Rich launched the
TLD
A top-level domain (TLD) is one of the domain name, domains at the highest level in the hierarchical Domain Name System of the Internet after the root domain. The top-level domain names are installed in the DNS root zone, root zone of the nam ...
dotCEO. It is marketed to CEOs.
dotWhatever
Retrieved 10 February 2014.
See also
* ASIC v Rich
References
Further reading
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rich, Jodee
Australian businesspeople
Living people
Businesspeople from Sydney
1960 births
People educated at Cranbrook School, Sydney