Great Scot December 2019 Great Scot 158_December_ONLINE | Page 81

LEFT TO RIGHT: CAMERON FORBES (’99), CHRIS KOHLER (’06), OLIVER SZYMANSKI (’10), MICHAEL FILIUS (’10), TOM JARMAN (’11) 1990s On leaving school, JASON ANDREW (’90) completed a Masters in International Studies at Sydney University, where he also played first grade rugby and was selected in various representative teams. He has now been in the financial services industry for over 20 years, and recently sold his business to an overseas listed company. He founded a financial technology start-up, developing the first block chain financial platform of its kind in Australia. In 2010 Jason completed an Executive MBA with IE Business School in Spain, and has undertaken various executive education courses at Stanford, Cambridge and Hong Kong Universities. He serves on the board of Life Education Victoria, and is the current President of Power House Junior Rugby. A huge rugby union fan, earlier this year Jason took his family to Japan for the Rugby World Cup (his sixth World Cup). He currently lives in Williamstown with his wife Katrina and three children, Maximus (aged 11, who will start in Year 7 at Scotch in 2020), and twins Austin and Celeste (nine years old). ROB ASHTON (‘97) and his wife Eliza have welcomed a son, Balthazar Charles Ashton, born on 7 September 2019; a brother to Tiger and Axel. CAMERON FORBES (‘99) is a Special Counsel at law firm Clayton Utz. Cameron has been very active in the legal profession, recently serving as Young Lawyers’ President of the Law Institute Victoria, and also serving a three- year term as a Director of the Law Institute Victoria. Cameron and his wife Catherine were married in the Littlejohn Chapel at Scotch in November 2017, with many Old Boys in the congregation. Their son, Jacob, was born in June 2017, and is booked to attend Scotch. Cameron also maintains his connections to Scotch College Perth and Scots College Sydney, both of which he attended prior to finishing his schooling at Scotch College Melbourne, when his father’s job changed. 2000s CHRIS KOHLER (’06) is a co-host with Shelley Craft of Your Domain, a Saturday morning real estate program on Channel 9, launched in September. Among many business-related appointments, Chris was formerly a business reporter for The Australian, and he has been business editor at Domain, a presenter on Foxtel’s Your Money and Sky News, and he is currently a property and business news reporter on Channel 9. Chris comes from a sound journalistic background: his father, Alan, is a finance presenter on ABC TV and a former Editor of The Age, and his mother, Deborah Forster, is a journalist and author. After leaving Scotch OLIVER SZYMANSKI (‘10) enrolled in a History/Criminology major at Monash University. He finished his double bachelor degrees in 2015, having twice lived in London during this period. While in London Oliver played competitive soccer, which has become an important part of his life since leaving Scotch. Travel has also figured prominently in Oliver’s post-Scotch life. As well as his two periods in London, Oliver lived in New York, where he completed 200 hours of yoga teacher training, which he describes as one of the highlights of the past few years. He followed up his History studies with a Biomedicine course at Deakin University and also achieved Chartered Financial Analyst credentials. But none of these disciplines really captured Oliver. He told Great Scot he has now found his true love and passion in Psychology, which he is studying at Monash University, with the aim of becoming a clinical psychologist. Post-school, MICHAEL FILIUS (’10) worked as a Resident Academic Tutor in McMeckan House at Scotch while studying Arts/Commerce at Deakin University, majoring in Indonesian language. Michael’s knowledge of the Indonesian language helped while he explored Asia, and he eventually landed a job in Hong Kong, starting in the toy industry, managing sales and distribution. Frequent world travel for his work left Michael wondering – where to next? After three years in Hong Kong he was offered the opportunity of a lifetime to launch a new telco, Virgin Mobile UAE, in Dubai, and that’s where he’s now based. Michael has continued playing football since leaving school, first with Old Scotch, then with the Hong Kong Dragons and now in the AFL Middle East for the Dubai Dragons, joined by a number of Old Boys. As he says, no matter where you go in the world, you can’t escape the Scotchies. Michael married his beautiful Italian wife Giulia in Tuscany during September. Scotch has another Australian team representative: congratulations to TOM JARMAN (’11), who was a member of the Australian team which competed at the World Fly Fishing Championships in Tasmania (30 November to 8 December). Tasmania has a wild population of both rainbow and brown trout, which gave Tom and his teammates plenty of challenges as they took on the world in this major annual event. www.scotch.vic.edu.au Great Scot 81