Richard Rushton
After obtaining a bachelor’s degree in commerce from the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg South Africa, Richard worked for Barclays Bank and Adcock Ingram before joining SABMiller plc in the late 1990s.
In the initial stages of his career at SABMiller, Richard worked closely with the Coca-Cola Company and the Angolan government. He was responsible for the first sizeable South African post-apartheid investment in Angola. In 1999 he was appointed Group Managing Director of SABMiller’s beer, soft drinks and sorghum business interests in Botswana.
In 2001 Richard was relocated to India with his family, where he spent five years building the business and by the time he was transferred to the group’s Latin American operations, the business held a third of the Indian beer market.
Following SABMiller’s acquisition of Bavaria in Latin America, Richard led the integration and modernization of the organization’s Ecuador operations. He then became Regional Managing Director of Central America with responsibility for Panama, Honduras, El Salvador and Ecuador. In 2011, Richard was appointed President of Bavaria, SABMiller’s beer business in Colombia, the group’s largest contributor to group profits after the combined South African beer and soft drink operations.
Richard joined Distell in November 2013 where he led the recent transformation of Distell. In 2023, Heineken acquired Distell following a 10-year period of consolidating Distell’s presence in its core South African market, expanding in Africa and creating a more focused international business.
Now retired, Richard is the non-executive Chairman of Rubicon Pty Ltd, a business focused on the renewable energy sector. He is also an investor in early-stage small business start-ups. Richard speaks fluent Spanish and is an enthusiastic golfer and mountain bike rider. He is married and has two grown-up children.