Douglas Flynn

Australian Douglas Flynn graduated in chemical engineering from the University of Newcastle, New South Wales. He received an MBA with distinction from Melbourne University in 1979. During his university years he had a number of scholarships including Commonwealth, Commonwealth Postgraduate and Steel Industry Scholarship.

He joined ICI Australia in 1975 and enjoyed a decade with them working on project engineering, sales and marketing, business management in their explosives division and strategic planning for the wider group in Australia. He also spent three years running a division with ICI China based in Hong Kong.

After a spell in management consultancy to media companies he became Chief Executive of newspaper publisher Davies Brothers Limited in 1987. Davies Brothers was listed on the Australian stock exchange and was acquired by News Corporation in 1989. A year after the acquisition he was appointed Managing Director of News Limited Suburban Newspapers.

In 1994 he went to London as Deputy Managing Director of News International Newspapers Ltd the UK newspaper publisher and European holding company for News Corporation. In January 1995 he became a director of News International Plc. In March 1995 he was appointed Managing Director of News International Plc.

In early 1998 he joined the Aegis Group plc board as a non executive director. Aegis Group plc is a marketing services company operating in some sixty countries. In September 1999 he became Chief Executive of Aegis Group Plc where he was instrumental in doubling the size of the company and established a global market research business Synovate and internet services business Isobar.

In April 2005 he joined Rentokil Initial Plc, a global business services company, as Chief Executive and after an extensive restructuring of the company’s portfolio and balance sheet and organisation left the company in April 2008 and returned to Australia later that year.

He is currently Chairman of ImexHS Limited a medical technology business in imaging software based in Latin America.