Growing up in South Africa, Rob Wicks dreamed of soaring through the skies as a fighter pilot.
Today, he navigates a different kind of challenge as the boss of Aberdeen’s P&J Live, where he hopes to attract big name acts to the city.
Upon leaving school in Johannesburg at the age of 18 Rob was still unsure what career path he wanted to follow.
This led to him joining the British Army before serving in the South African Defence Force until the age of 21.
It was then Rob, a big sports fan, decided it was time to think about a long-term career.
Passion for journalism
This was the start of a journey that saw him travel all over the world throughout a successful career so far.
The 56-year-old said: “I’d always taken part in debating society at school and enjoyed writing and design, so a career in journalism had always crossed my mind.
“I decided to embrace that passion and I was accepted into Rhodes University in South Africa and I embarked on a four-year honours degree in economics and journalism.
“I absolutely loved it.”
After Rob completed his degree he joined one of the big four South African media companies called Times Media where he spent six years.
Rob, who met Tanya in 1995 and got married in 2000, launched an outdoor adventure magazine, called Out There before going on to develop a new daily sport newspaper.
New job offer led to Rome
Following this Rob was appointed general manager to run the title from 1997 to 1999 and ended up being headhunted by FGSport, the Superbike World Championship promoter.
The couple moved from Johannesburg to Rome where they spent a year before heading to London.
Rob, dad to 19-year-old Hannah, said: “We were only supposed to be in Rome for three or four months but ended up spending a year there and got completely immersed in motorcycle racing and the Italian way of life.
“I travelled to every race for five years. It was a fascinating five years of my life.”
‘I was doing 70 to 80 flights a year’
Rob was then approached to run the Suzuki team in the British Superbike Championship and the commercial operations of Suzuki’s MotoGP team in 2005 before three years later leaving to go and run the Powerboat P1 World Championship in 2007.
But it was the next job offer that would see him arrive in the north-east.
He said: “My time there was a challenge, but a really interesting one. I was doing 70 to 80 flights a year to find new race venues and host cities.
“After lots and lots of flying and time away, to get a knock on the door from a headhunter to say, would you be interested in a role in football in Scotland? It came at the right time.”
Start of AFC journey
Rob, a lifelong Liverpool FC supporter, made the move to Aberdeen Football Club in 2018 becoming commercial director.
He already had connections to the north and north-east with his grandfather James Sinclair being born in the small fishing village of Berriedale, in Caithness.
One of his personal highlights was the organisation of the Sir Alex Ferguson statue at Pittodrie which led to him meeting the club legend.
He said: “It felt in some way like the world had gone full circle for me, with me coming back to the north-east.
“I’ve always loved my football and when they mentioned Aberdeen, it just kind of made a lot of sense for a variety of reasons.
“I knew of their incredible success in the 80s under Alex Ferguson.
“The opportunity to work on the statue for Sir Alex Ferguson was a real privilege. And getting to know Sir Alex himself.
“I spent quite a lot of time with him. That was very, very special.
“He was incredibly touched by all of the effort the club went to, to create a statue for him.
“I think he really likes the one that we have at Pittodrie versus the one at Old Trafford, because I think it’s a younger Sir Alex.
“He’s just an enormously generous man, very giving of his time, very funny.”
Other highlights for Rob included being in the 40th anniversary of the Gothenburg celebrations, introducing the AberdDNA programme and watching the Dons in European action against Burnley.
However, Rob does admit his “disappointment” at not seeing the club win any silverware during his time.
Switch to run P&J Live
In June 2023 Rob made the decision to leave AFC and take up the role of managing director at P&J Live.
He said: “It was an amazing opportunity to come to a state-of-the-art facility.
“I’ve been given a very clear mandate to go and drive new and exciting and innovative content.
“And I think hopefully we’re starting to reflect that with things like the Rogue Invitational, the big massive American Strongman and CrossFit competition, the five weeks of the Beyond Van Gogh immersive exhibition that we’ll have later in 2025.
“We are also playing a leading role in trying to secure a round of the World Rally Championship coming to the region either in 2026 or 2027.”
Rob admits the venue has its challenges but ones similar to others across the UK.
He said: “We are always pushing basically to get the big names to come to Aberdeen.
“We’ve got to be realistic that there are now 24 arenas in the UK and it’s an incredibly competitive market. No artist is going to play every one of those venues.
“So we’re moving absolutely in the right direction, which is enormously exciting, but we always want to do more. We always want more business.”
North-east ‘truly amazing’
In between his full-time work Rob also found the time to write six books, on aviation and long-distance adventure motorcycling, which were all published by Haynes in six different languages.
When it comes to relaxing and enjoying some downtime Rob enjoys going walks with dogs Otis and Kira and hillwalking in the Cairngorms.
He said: “We’ve become enormously fond of life up here in the north-east.
“It’s an incredibly special place. I think we so often take for granted what we have on our doorstep, but it is truly amazing.
“And we’re incredibly fortunate. We feel very settled here.”
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