Haydon J Skudder (1924-2017)

Publisher’s note: The original philosophical foundation underpinning the creation of Unsung Business Heroes was a desire to provide a platform for small business to have a voice, in order that other people, perhaps just starting out on their own business journeys, would be able to benefit from the many insights and advice of successful business operators.

So much information and knowledge is lost when business owners retire or pass on, as is the case with Haydon Skudder, whose incredible story, spanning many decades, is detailed below.

As a spitfire pilot in World War II, Haydon showed us all that fear can be overcome, and he repeated that lesson for us in his exceptional business life as well.

It’s so important that these unique stories are given their due respect, and broadcast widely. Haydon’s story is so remarkable – certainly for his feats of courage, but also for his authenticity, his caring and for all the life-lessons he’s left us as part of his legacy.

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Until he passed away at almost ninety-three Haydon J Skudder still arrived at the office at 7:30am every day, because he had a passion for life, his business and his clients.

Haydon passed away on June 3rd, 2017, just six days prior to his ninety-third birthday, and ironically friends believe he’d still be here today if it wasn’t for his love of keeping fit. He had a pain in his knee caused from years of running on concrete and was determined to ease the pain by undergoing a knee replacement, even though he was ninety-two.

“I’ve had all the tests,” he said. “All the doctors said I can handle the operation. The pain is giving me hell so I’m having the operation.”

The one thing everyone knew for certain was, once Haydon had made up his mind, no one was changing it. Haydon firmly believed he would live another ten years if he could ease the pain.

He had his operation in the morning and was on the phone to the office in the afternoon saying, “I’d forgotten to tell you about a client you need to call.” That epitomised the person he was in everything he did.

Sadly, Haydon succumbed to a blood clot the next day, but his legacy will have a long and lasting impact.

There’s a belief that the true success of a person is in their legacy. Haydon Skudder was a successful businessman over a very long time, and he had an impact on so many lives around him. Many business luncheons will be filled with anecdotes about his exploits in business, flying and sailing.

But while most stories eventually fade, Haydon’s won’t because his legacy will be those lives that his wise counsel and considered strategies continue to touch and bless.

Haydon Skudder was born in London within hearing shot of Bow Bells, which means he was a bona fide Cockney. The Skudder clan was a working class family, scraping together a living during the Depression. He was just twelve years old when his father left the family, leaving his mother to bring up two boys on her own. Haydon learnt very early how to be careful with money and how to work hard.

It was that work ethic and understanding of the real value of money that was the basis of his success. Whether it was as a teenager flying fighter planes in World War II, learning how to sell by carrying bags of soap for his distributor, or building his own financial advice business, Haydon’s philosophy was pretty simple, “if you work hard, you’ll create your own luck.”

At the time of his death Haydon was running AFM Advisers Pty Ltd, a company which had become significant in the management of corporate superannuation clients, many of whom became private financial planning clients in the course of time.

Haydon often told his team that success with clients was really quite simple; “you just have to love your clients”, and he proved that by the service he provided. Many would get early morning calls to say how their super was going, or saying to not worry if the markets were up or down, or even a gentle nudge like “I just want to make a small change to your portfolio.”

His clients, many of whom had been with Haydon for decades, loved him in return because they knew he cared, and they would all agree that caring was the secret to his success.

That level of care and his understanding of investing is highlighted in the story of one client who had been with Haydon for twenty years and who he contacted nonchalantly one morning after breakfast. “You know you still have nearly a million dollars in your account.”

It was a pension account, an account you couldn’t add money to, and had been set up twenty years before with an initial balance of nine hundred thousand dollars. Even after withdrawing an income of around sixty thousand dollars a year, remarkably the balance was still nearly a million dollars.

In the last few years he spawned an idea to improve the financial intelligence of Australians. The lack of financial literacy amongst average Australians was a major concern for him: their inability to follow a simple financial plan worried him.

The statistics backed up his concerns.

Two million Australians do not pay off their credit card in full each month.
One-quarter of Australians aged 25-34 live with their parents.
54% of Australian households are struggling to save.
In the last ten years prices have increased by 174%, while incomes grew by 54%.

Haydon believed that becoming wealthy in Australia was completely random. He would say “look, they just fell into the right job, or they were just lucky enough to buy at the right time”, so he put together a small team and proposed a challenging notion: “imagine if it wasn’t random, imagine if they could be taught.”

Sadly, he passed away before the fruits of that vision could be realised in full.

Many of his other visions though were fulfilled, like being fascinated with aeroplanes as an eight-year-old, then by the time he was nineteen flying Spitfires in World War II.

After the war, the vision was to sail across the English Channel to France, even though he’d never been on a boat. Haydon simply loved the idea of sailing, managed to talk a few friends into joining him and set sail on a borrowed sailboat.

It was a trip doomed for failure; they got lost, it got dark, they crashed into steel barricades left over from the war and were marooned on a French beach in the middle of the night.

While half that experience would have ended the sailing careers of many, for Haydon it created a desire for more. Sailing became a significant past-time for him. He was a member of the Royal Australian Navy Sailing Association at Sydney’s Rushcutters Bay for fifty years.

His pride and joy was a thirty-foot yacht, just a little bigger than the one he’d sailed across The English Channel, called Spitfire. He enjoyed a very competitive rivalry with all who sailed on Sydney Harbour, which he did almost until the time of his passing. He bequeathed his yacht to the crew who sailed with him each week.

After the war his vision was to get into business, so he turned down an offer to train pilots and took on a job carrying the bags for a door-to-door salesman selling soap. He wanted to learn new skills, and it wasn’t long before he was one of their leading salesmen.

His ability to leave his ego at the door was a quality he believed many of today’s aspiring entrepreneurs have difficulty doing. Imagine the magnitude of that: Haydon was an Air Force pilot having fought in battle, but to pursue a business career, he willingly agreed to carry bags of soap, walking door-to-door.

He knew being successful in business required a different set of skills to flying planes and he was prepared to learn those skills by starting at the very bottom.

That attitude launched a thirteen-year career with one of Britain’s great corporations, Unilever. He quickly climbed the company ladder and was sent to Indonesia to help save the business there, when the country transitioned to a full independent nation.

It was a time of uncertainty in Indonesia as President Sukarno pushed the Dutch out of the country. Unilever at the time had an all Dutch management team running their Indonesian operation, and was forced to pull their entire team out of the country and replace them with British citizens.

Haydon was a key member of that British contingent and successfully kept Unilever’s assets together and the business running through a difficult time in the strife-torn nation.

He enjoyed a two-year stint in Indonesia and even learnt some of the local Bahasa language, which he could still use at ninety-two years of age. He had an amazing memory.

That experience led to a posting in Australia, but when they tried to send him to Ghana, Haydon said enough is enough. He took out Australian citizenship and went into business for himself, in the financial services industry. Haydon’s company ran management, investment and trustee services for superannuation funds.

Another key to Haydon’s success was his ability not to let his emotions rule his decisions. He saw fear as a stumbling block for many in the business world and that was something he learnt to control very early in his life.

He was often asked to talk about his success and had a great ability to inspire by telling stories. In spite of his Cockney upbringing, Haydon had a polished and cultivated manner, he was a gentleman with great charm and charisma, with a captivating smile, making his stories even more compelling.

One of those stories highlighted just how he could overcome fear. It was a story from his time in the RAF flying over Europe.

On one occasion he spotted a train emerging from a tunnel, so along with his squadron leader he flew down to attack. As they approached, the side of the train opened and a bank of machine guns began firing at them.

The squadron leader pulled out but Haydon kept going, his plane was hit and he was injured in the crash landing. Rescued and hidden by Dutch locals, he recovered from his injuries and later walked back through enemy lines. That entire time his main concern was, “what excuse will I give my Mum, after all I was presumed dead.”

From that moment, he realised life should be lead without fear, and while he wouldn’t expect any of us to have our fear tested to that level, there will be moments in business and in life when we are scared or afraid, and he would exhort people to simply take strong action.

Whether it was in business or in his personal life, there were no barriers for Haydon; obstacles that did appear just had to be negotiated. His decision to resume flying in his seventies was a case in point.

The fact he hadn’t flown for fifty years was not a deterrent, regaining his pilot’s license was just a mere formality. That though wasn’t enough.

He then set about gaining the newly introduced rating, PIFR (Private Instrument Flight Rules) which required hours of study and exams. Friends remember visiting his home and seeing a trail of charts, text books, maps and notations strung out all over the house.

It was yet another example of Haydon proving that, “if you work hard you’ll create your own luck.”

It’s believed Haydon Skudder, at that time well into his seventies, was the first Australian pilot to attain the PIFR rating.

Haydon didn’t believe in living an expensive lifestyle. He was very astute at advising people on how to invest their money and he simply followed those same principles with his own money. An old friend still smiles when they remember Haydon beaming after buying something for fifty cents cheaper than they’d paid for it.

GIVING BACK
Because of his prudent financial decisions Haydon has left a significant legacy to the many beneficiaries he had known through his life.

He was an extraordinary man, one with great energy and drive; a kind and courteous man who could be hard when he needed to be, and a canny negotiator.

It’s hoped the inclusion of his story in Unsung Business Heroes will inspire a new generation of entrepreneurs who will understand the value of hard work, the importance of “loving your clients”, and the need for wisdom in financial matters.

Haydon J Skudder was a man who lived a life of passion and purpose. He loved people and he loved helping them and they in turn became lifelong clients – a lesson for all: building sound, authentic relationships is universally fundamental to business success.