INTHEBLACK June 2026 - Magazine - Page 15
That guidance, and the realisation early in
his career that his passion lay in management
accounting, set the thread of his entire working life.
One early experience during his time at
Wangaratta Woollen Mills — where his mentor
suggested he work after he spent five years
at a firm that would eventually become
Pitcher Partners — captures the insights that
management accounting offers.
After profits significantly exceeded expectations
one year, the finance team could not understand
the reason for the overly positive results. The figures
were correct, but they made little sense.
The explanation, when it arrived, was not
in the ledger.
“This yarn sold at 15 per cent moisture,
so it ran through the knitting machines nicely,”
Miller says. “But in the drought at the time, and
with the lack of air conditioning in factories,
our customers wanted more water in their yarn.
However, the quality-control people had not
told me they had enacted that change. So, we
were selling a higher percentage of water in our
yarn, meaning our profits were greater than
I had anticipated.”
The result was higher effective output by weight
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