Craig Senger: The life of the (Christmas) party

Dear Friends of SmartCompany,

As many of you may know, it is with great sadness that I report the loss of my Austrade colleague and friend Craig Senger in the recent terrorist bombings in Jakarta.

Here is a short tribute I made to him. He was a wonderful friend and a great help to small businesses in Australia, Indonesia and all over the globe…

Every year in around November (sometimes even in October), I’d get a call from Craig Senger. He was a man on a mission. He’d schemed up a new stunt for the Christmas party and wanted to hatch a plot with me. Sometimes it would be a film, sometimes a skit, but at all times, Craig was meticulous. He thought up concepts, ideas, roles, casting and how it would fit into the day’s proceedings. He was both a Steven Spielberg and a Broadway Producer all rolled into one.

One year, he wanted to do an Austrade version of the hit UK TV show The Office and Craig (kindly) cast me as David Brent, the character made famous by Ricky Gervais. It was taking off The Office of course, but the whole Austrade office thought it was a real life management training film. In fact, the then newly appointed CEO, Peter O’Byrne, also played a cameo role in the film and had to do a high five with David Brent, to the tune of Queen’s hit song One Vision. Only at the Christmas party itself, did the Austrader participants (including the CEO) realise what the video actually was for and they all found themselves in a classic Senger ‘sting!’

Another year, Craig decided to take advantage of the popularity of the hit talent show Australian Idol, and he launched ‘Austrade Idol’. It was there that we realised we had more hidden talents in Austrade than we at first thought, as we discovered many part-time Opera singers and jazz singers in our ranks. ‘Hot Rod’ regularly took the chocolates with his renditions of Robbie Williams (Feel) and Abba (Gimme E.I. after midnight). Imagine what Craig could have done with Dancing with the Stars!

After the talent show, Craig launched the Austrade short-film festival, and we received enormously talented entrants (although there are suspicions that many Austraders have family ties in the TV and film industry as the entries were sometimes a little bit too good for an office Christmas party). After watching these fine examples, Craig himself decided to get back in the producer’s chair and produced another hit movie ‘Journey to Enmore’, based on another Austrade strategic project, the successor to doubling, known as ‘Journey to Export.’

Of course, as well as these great creative endeavours, Craig organised a number of social events for his work-mates as well as excelling at his day job. He was a passionate supporter of employee rights, a true believer, and a selfless and generous colleague and friend. Craig often told me that he was so proud of his Mum’s work and activism as a nurse and you could see that Craig, like his Mum, liked caring for others. And Craig cared for others in Sydney, Canberra, Moscow, New Delhi and Jakarta in his usual enthusiastic, tireless and selfless way.

Our thoughts are now with Craig’s wife and his mother and his family. They will miss him so much. And here at work, we will all miss him too, especially when it comes to planning the latest Senger spectacular at the Christmas party.

Tim Harcourt is Chief Economist with the Australian Trade Commission and the author of The Airport Economist (www.theairporteconomist.com). 

To read more Gone Global blogs, click here.