Trend spotting

Bernard Salt: "I knew that I was simply better trained than anyone else." Photo: Greg Ford

A Monash Master of Arts graduate with a keen interest in Australian urban history and geography and a flair for analysing population statistics has pursued a highly successful career as an analyst, author and influential commentator on Australian consumer, cultural and demographic trends. KAREN STICHTENOTH reports.

In the late 1970s, Bernard Salt (MA 1985) was all set to be a history and geography school teacher. But after completing his teaching rounds at the then Rusden Teachers College, he decided to change direction and begin a masters degree in geography at Monash University.

The move to Monash set the course for a wide-ranging career analysing Australian population statistics.

Mr Salt's thesis on class division in the 1880s, which involved a statistical analysis of the development of Melbourne and other 19th-century cities around Australia, gave him a unique insight into how these cities evolved.

"I knew the figures from the 1880s and how each city had gone from that point to now. This gave me the ability to interpret the big picture, and the structural and strategic issues affecting urban Australia. It was a perspective that business had not even considered, let alone the media," he says.

After graduating from Monash, Mr Salt worked for a research consultancy evaluating demographic data for major property investors and developers. In the late 1980s he started his own property advisory group, linking in with Coopers & Lybrand Consultants and, from 1997, with KPMG Australia, where he is now a partner.

Aside from his business interests, Mr Salt is in high demand as a corporate speaker and media commentator on demographic and social trends. He is also a regular columnist with publications such as The Australian, MELBOURNE magazine and Property Australia.

"A lot of the skills that I rely upon today and that have had a bearing on my ability in consulting and the business world came directly from the supervision of (emeritus) Professor Joe Powell at Monash's School of Geography and Environmental Science," Mr Salt says.

"He taught me how to write and analyse data and how to see the big picture. There is no shadow of a doubt that the four years I spent at Monash specifically under the supervision of Joe provided me with a set of skills which I knew at the time, and I know now, were three notches above anyone else I was dealing with," he says. "It gave me a level of confidence in consulting, in business, in advisory. I knew that I was simply better trained than anyone else."

In 2001, Mr Salt added another string to his bow as the author of a best-selling book, The Big Shift, which he wrote in his spare time over an 18-month period while overseeing his $1.5 million-a-year national property advisory practice.

The book, which explains how geographic and demographic shifts in the population have a bearing on Australian values and culture, was an immediate hit with the media and the general public.

Mr Salt was the first person to identify that the demographic shift to coastal towns would be one of the hottest property trends Australia-wide, a fad he says is not going to go away in a hurry.

Two years after The Big Shift was launched, a second edition was released in July 2003. Both editions sold out within three months and went immediately to second printings.

Mr Salt has been commissioned to write a second book on popular culture, which is due for release in mid-2005. In the meantime, he is looking to expand his advisory practice and also make a foray into the US corporate speaking market. "It's a world away from my time at Monash but, quite simply, it would not have been possible had it not been for the quality of education that I received at the School of Geography and Environmental Science."

Action

For information on postgraduate courses, visit the School of Geography and Environmental Science website. More information on The Big Shift is also available.