Australian business executive, Arvi Parbo (born 1926) was a postwar immigrant who progressed through the ranks of a mining company to become its chief executive. He was concurrently chairman of three of Australia's largest companies. Arvi was made a Knight Bachelor for services to industry in 1978.

Arvi Parbo was born near Tallinn, Estonia, in February 1926. Along with thousands of his countrymen, he fled from his homeland ahead of the Russian occupation in 1944, ending up in a refugee camp in Germany. In 1946 he began to study mining engineering at the Clausthal Mining Academy, but through his vacation work in local mines he realized that the opportunities for mining engineers in Germany were limited. Rather than change careers, Parbo decided in 1948 that he would emigrate to Australia because, in addition to having a mining industry, it was offering relatively speedy immigration to wartime refugees.

Education in Australia

Parbo arrived in Australia...