Invisible prime steps from the shadows: Raytheon Australia announces new collaborative, communicative strategy

The senior leader, who previously served as the interim managing director, spoke exclusively with Defence Connect during the recent Land Forces 2024 expo held in Melbourne earlier this month.

During a 23-year tenure in the business, Ohad Katz contributed to cornerstone defence programs run by Raytheon Australia, including those involved with the Australian Defence Force’s Collins Class submarines and Hobart Class destroyers.

Katz recently served as the chief of contracts and supply chain and has been a long-serving board director in Australia.

“I want to spend a lot of time making sure that the organisation, as a whole, is the right structure that we have. I want to make sure that the people we have feel that we’re invested in them as a leadership team,” he said.

“Making sure that we openly communicate with our own people about where the company is going, what our focus is. That’s one [immediate priority].

“Two. It’s really re-establishing a lot of the relationships with the customer – more re-energising. I think we tend to focus on the programs that we’ve got, and we’ve got good relationships at working levels. We’ve got multiple relationships across the top level; my focus is to make sure that we’ve got really good connectivity across all of the defence leadership, that we’ve got really good connectivity as you go down that leadership structure.

“I think people say previously were an ’invisible prime’. But you know, we tend to downplay ourselves. We are the quiet achievers ... we don’t advertise our success as much as we should have. We don’t celebrate our successes as much as we should have. So I think I want to do that.

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“It’s making people aware of the good news stories like the LAND 19 program (short-range air defence missile system program). We’ve just delivered a significant capability to Defence that is cutting edge technology. It’s the best National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System that’s available. We did that locally, partners from the US, partners from Norway. But fundamentally, we did a lot of integration and other activities and Australians designed really our product. So we need to advertise that.

“Between us and ASC working collaboratively, we’ve kept the boats in the water; I want people to be aware of that, because it not only gives us publicity but it also gives the people who work for us visibility, because the teams who are working on those programs aren’t getting enough credit. It’s not just the internal, it’s not just me saying, ’Congratulations, well done’. There’s nothing better than seeing your program highlighted [publicly] as a success story, it makes you feel proud about what you do every day.”

Earlier this year, Defence Connect reported on an internal email that confirmed the exit of four of Raytheon Australia’s then nine-person strong executive leadership team, including long-term managing director Michael Ward.

The internal email on 30 May, confirmed the departure of Gerard Foley, chief of growth; Des McNicholas, chief of people & culture; Sarah Valentine, chief of corporate services; and Carly Habils, head of corporate services.

When asked about the circumstances that required Raytheon Australia to make such significant changes this year, Katz said the company had been laying low in the defence industry ecosystem for too long.

“I think we were being too quiet; I think that’s what necessitated the change. We were too understated,” Katz said.

“It’s just about presenting our face better ... To our customers, to the industry; I think we need to communicate more effectively.

“It’s not a criticism that we did something wrong previously and it’s not suggesting that we were in the wrong place. It’s just suggesting that the new mindset is: ’Let’s get out there a little bit more. Let’s be more strategic.’

“I’ve been in the company for a while, so I’ve been there since we started as 100 people to now 1,500 and I’ve seen a lot of change. I’ve seen a lot of different approaches. I personally am trying to bring the best of what I’ve seen over the last 25 years and mold it into something that we can project forward for the next 25 years.

“We could do better ... so let’s go do that, because that would be a benefit to us and our customers.”

Katz confirmed that he will be bringing some new objectives to the revamped corporate strategy, including a lift in industry collaboration and constant communication.

“One of my key themes is; ’If you don’t communicate, you’re not going to achieve the objectives that you want to achieve’. You’re probably setting yourself up to fail or to have issues,” he said.

“As long as you’re communicating good news, bad news, and you’re constantly communicating, then you’ve got a relationship that allows you to work through the issues that you need to because you’ve got a good relationship with the customer.

“They want to talk to you because they want your input. They want to talk to you because they’re interested in hearing your views. So I’m doing that, I’m reaching out to industry, to my peers, small and medium-sized enterprises, we’ve got a Capability Plus program where we promote SME capability development.

“Constant rhythm of open communications with our peers so that we can look at how we can collaboratively work together on programs, how we can share information that might be a benefit to all of us ... we’re not doing that at the moment. Collectively, as an industry, it’s an opportunity for us to be more collaborative, more inclusive and look at how do we work collaboratively to give the government a better outcome without necessarily having to go head-to-head on everything.

“If you go head-to-head on everything, then one’s a winner, one’s a loser. You look at a more collaborative environment, maybe you’ve got multiple winners and government will definitely get a better outcome. If you collaborate, you can look at how to combine the best and a number of different capabilities to get the optimal outcome.”