My work is a reflection of what I believe in.
I’m here to engage in work that matters, led by a commitment to a greater cause. Amplifying humans in a new era.
I've spent my career standing between two worlds that struggle to understand each other:
the technology that promises to transform a business, and the operator who has to run that business while it's being transformed.
A decade inside operations, carrying a P&L in physically grounded, change-resistant industries. Then a decade taking software to the other side, where real friction happens, with real customers and deeper human needs.
I'm not an AI person who learned about operations, or an operator who learned about AI → I’m the bridge & translation between the two.
PURPOSE
A CAREER OF TRANSLATIONS
It started on the floor.
I became the youngest store manager in Coles Liquor at the time, then moved through buying, merchandise, and national category roles — nearly a decade learning retail operations, P&L ownership, and physical supply chain from the inside. Then category buying at Woolworths, and seven years at De Bortoli Wines running a state P&L and a thirty-person operation across sales, warehouse, administration, marketing and field teams — where I reversed five years of branch decline in eighteen months.
Then the seam. I crossed from running operations to selling the software meant to scale them — and every move after that was the same translation in a different costume:
Convincing one of Australia's most change-resistant industries to adopt digital commerce, building a Canadian platform's Australian subsidiary from zero to twenty per cent of the top thirty wine brands. Helping crowdfunded physical-product founders digitise global distribution across fifteen-plus countries — and closing Australia's largest crowdfunded fulfilment client.
Taking an ASX-listed logistics startup's AI and blockchain platform to operationally complex supply-chain buyers — my first real exposure to selling AI-native technology, and the start of the thread that runs through everything since. Building the JAPAC commercial function for an enterprise CX platform from two million to roughly seven million in new business, and making the investment case that won approval for the team to scale it.
Physical fulfilment to SaaS. Logistics to AI. Isolated departments to systems that actually talk to each other. Every time, the job was the translation.
HIGHLIGHTS & IMPACT
Grew a JAPAC new-business function from ~$2.1M to ~$7M over roughly four years, winning global approval to appoint 5 AEs, 2 CSMs, a BDR and a Solutions Engineer.
Built an APAC commercial function from the ground up as first salesperson in-region — ~$4.5M pipeline and ~$2.1M new outbound revenue inside twelve months.
Established an entire Australian subsidiary for a Canadian platform — strategy, marketing and commercial development — taking adoption from zero to ~20% of the top 30 brands in the category.
Building commercial functions from zero
Delivered 135 & 148% of revenue target across multiple roles; President's Club recognition in 2021, 2022 and 2024.
+130% revenue growth in consecutive years at a CX platform; 80+ new deals in year one.
Reversed five-plus years of branch sales and profit decline within eighteen months as a State Manager running a thirty-person operation.
Extracting value from the established
Won and expanded accounts across BFSI, government, healthcare, transport and retail — navigating security review, data governance and multi-stakeholder procurement.
Named work includes the RBA, Australian Federal Police, Telstra Health, Woolworths, Bunnings, Deloitte, AXA, Toyota, Westpac, Fonterra and Bluescope — and, earlier, Google, Microsoft, Apple, PayPal, Sonos and New Balance.
Customer depth
OPS x AI x CX
My common thread: putting software into operations-heavy environments and making it trustworthy enough to adopt.
Yojee — sold AI- and ML-driven logistics automation into enterprise partners before the market was ready for it. An early lesson in selling AI into operations, and in qualifying hard when the technology is ahead of the buyer.
GetFeedback / SurveyMonkey — sold AI/ML capability (NLP sentiment, predictive CX scoring, automated text classification) into BFSI, government and healthcare — positioning machine learning as the differentiator, through security review and procurement.
Hauldit (co-founder) — an AI platform for logistics operators: document intelligence for automated proof-of-delivery, agentic dispute resolution, and RAG-based compliance. Built around a three-tier governance framework — what runs autonomously, what needs human approval, what stays a human call — to solve the data-readiness problem that blocks AI adoption in operations-heavy industries. It's where I pressure-test what actually works, with my own capital in it.
AI2DEV — selling AI-native infrastructure into regulated enterprise without dedicated technical support, which means living inside the real objections operators raise: data sovereignty, hallucination risk, integration complexity, compliance gating.
AI GTM systems — I build the diagnostic and intelligence tooling — company teardowns, prospect intelligence, commercial diagnostics — that turns the thinking into something usable, not a slide.
I understand both the AI architecture and the operational reality it has to fit into — the orchestration layer, the governance frameworks, and the human-in-the-loop design that actually determines whether operations-heavy buyers trust and adopt any of it.
FOUNDATION & CREDENTIALS
Bachelor of Business (Marketing & Management), Monash University. Strategic Management and Digital Marketing, Melbourne Business School. Structured sales methodology through MEDDPICC, Challenger and Sandler. Sales Mastery (Pclub.io), AI 360 Academy for Sales, Agentic AI, & The AI Decision Playbook.
Peer Reviews
“Ross understands something most sales leaders don't — that the deal closes when the buyer feels understood, not when they feel sold to. That instinct is rare, and it's what makes his commercial thinking genuinely different”
— Former Customer / Industry Peer“What stood out about Ross wasn't just the results — it was how fast he built conviction and buy-in from everyone. That ability to go from zero to momentum is exactly what operators need and rarely find.”
— Former Commercial Leader / CEO“"Ross brings something unusual to commercial leadership — he thinks in systems while everyone else thinks in tasks.
Forward-thinking, analytically sharp, able to build and drive a team to outperform. The kind of operator who makes the whole motion better & compounds success”
— Former Founder / Owner
“New revenue specialist - built from enterprise depth in operations-heavy and regulated industries, and AI-native systems — orchestration, governance, and the diagnostic tooling that makes untapped advantage compound..”
If you're a founder, CEO or owner please see more at Wood & Co.
Or get in touch by sharing something thing about how you win work, or how you're thinking about AI in your operation, that's been nagging you, would love to chat.