Profile: Antony Stolfo
By Janet de Silva | thebigchair.com.au | 05 February
Image: Rodger Cummins
He has always loved cars and his passion for drawing goes back to when he first held a pencil.
For Antony Stolfo, - whose first job at age 11 was in a service station - it’s seems like it was predetermined that he should end up working in design for the world’s largest car manufacturer.
But taking on the role of design director for Holden was not a decision that the 42 year old, father of two, made lightly.
“There is always an element of doubt as to whether you are capable of filling the role and what it is going to do to your life. The job consumes you and it can consume you 24/7 if you’re not careful” says Stolfo, who travels regularly overseas and typically works a 12 hour day.
But there is no doubt that Stolfo relishes the demands of his job, in particular the challenge of leading a Melbourne-design team that has become a significant player in the General Motors global empire.
At a time when the rest of Holden is downsizing, Stolfo and his team have been in expansionary mode.
Since becoming design director three years ago after his predecessor moved to work for GM in the United States, Stolfo has recruited more than 100 designers to his Melbourne stable, making it the third largest automotive design team in the GM group. In 2005, he became a member of the GM global design leadership team which oversees a team of more than 2000 designers worldwide.
Stolfo says the Melbourne design group, which operates a virtual reality studio at Holden’s Port Melbourne headquarters, boasts design talent that is on a par with some of the best renowned designers from around the world. The studio allows for a direct interface with GM designers around the globe making it possible for designers in Germany, America and Australia to work on the same project at the same time.
“We have some fantastic creative people in our group who are delivering design solutions that haven’t been seen anywhere else in the world,” says Stolfo adding that attracting overseas designers to come and work in Melbourne wasn’t difficult.
“It’s relatively easy to attract talent to Melbourne. They love the geography and the lifestyle”
But most of the designers in the group are Australian, some of them are former graduates of Swinburne University (formerly Victoria College Melbourne), where Stolfo graduated in 1985.
“Australia is known as an open, diverse society. This environment breeds designers who accept and absorb new ideas which enables them to think creatively outside the square”.
Having worked at Holden since 1992, Stolfo now enjoys the autonomy that comes with the top design job and doesn’t shirk away from making bold decisions.
“There have been many times over the last few years when I was told not to do something by the board and management. In some cases, you have to go with your gut feeling and go behind and do things outside the normal business and convince the organisation downstream that there are other options”.
Stolfo says apart from creativity, courage is one of the key qualities that he looks for in the designers he recruits.
“Courage is something that you have to have with design. Design is subjective and everyone has an opinion so you need to have the courage to voice your opinion and the confidence in your direction. You have to sell yourself and your ideas”.
If there is anything he regrets about his career to date, it’s that he now spends less time at the drawing board. “You end up providing creative input but it is more from a strategic point of view rather than sitting down and sketching ”.
If he finds the time to sketch these days, it usually happens on the weekends - be it on the paper table cloths of the child-friendly restaurants he frequents with his wife and two sons or whilst relaxing at the family weekender.
But come Monday morning, he is raring to go back to work. “I’m fortunate to have found a career that I absolutely love”.
Best decision: Building of the Efijy showcar. “It went against everything that the business was asking for and came out an absolute winner for the Brand and the Holden Design team.”
Worst decision: No longer having the time to sit at the drawing board “I miss the creative side of sitting down and sketching at work”.
Career highlights
1985 Senior designer at Nissan Motor
1998 Chief Designer for Holden
1997 Assistant Chief Interior Designer of the VT Commodore
2004 Holden Design Director
