The 2017 BOSS rankings of Australia’s most powerful and influential directors have revealed a changing of the guard and a wave of new blood flowing through the boardrooms of corporate Australia.
Westpac and Transurban chairman, and BHP director, Lindsay Maxsted has maintained his grip on the top of this year’s power list, while corporate doyens such as David Gonski (who is stepping down as Coca-Cola chairman), Michael Chaney (who is stepping down as Woodside Petroleum chairman), Jac Nasser (who is stepping down at BHP Billiton) and Graham Bradley (who recently departed Stockland as chairman) no longer dominate the lists.
Since our last study in 2015, 33 per cent of the ASX’s 5222 directors are new, but turnover on the power and influence lists was smaller.
There are 20 new faces on the 200 most influential list and 30 new additions to ranks of the 200 most powerful.
Women chairmen join kingmakers
A trio of elite female directors has swelled the ranks of women chairmen of ASX 200 companies to nine, up from five in 2010: newly appointed Coca-Cola chairman Ilana Atlas, AMP chairman Catherine Brenner and former Telstra and Business Council chairman Catherine Livingstone, who rejoined their ranks in January when she became Commonwealth Bank chairman.
Other female directors have skyrocketed up this year’s list after adding hefty new appointments to their portfolio including Spark Infrastructure, AWE and Bank of Queensland director Karen Penrose, and former Random House publishing CEO Margie Seale, who is now with Telstra, Scentre, Bank of Queensland and Ramsay Healthcare.
Three recently retired CEOs – Richard Goyder, Origin CEO Grant King and former AMP CEO Craig Dunn – have followed the traditional path of executive-turned-director and, along with the new female chairman, are expected to become the new kingmakers and spokesmen and spokeswomen for business in the years ahead.
Dunn, who joined the Westpac and Telstra boards as a director and debuted at No.2 on this year’s power list, says decision-making as a director is less pressured than when you are chief executive.
“When you don’t have to go and orchestrate [a decision] and deal with the implementation and people, it’s easier to make the right decision because you bring less of a legacy,” he says.
Outgoing Wesfarmers CEO Goyder has already been appointed chairman of the Australian Football League and will replace Chaney as chairman of Woodside from next year.
Former Origin Energy boss King is now Business Council president and a BHP Billiton director, while his former Origin chief financial officer, now Boral and Orica director, Karen Moses, is also part of this new guard.
Warwick Negus, co-founder of 452 Capital, now with Bank of Queensland and Washington H. Soul Pattinson, has also joined the senior ranks of influential directors.
New faces
There are plenty of new faces, too, including a host of women.
Wendy Stops and intellectual property lawyer Mary Padbury have joined the CBA board, venture capitalist Trae Vassallo has joined Telstra, PwC partner Anne Loveridge moved to NAB’s advisory board – all plucked from long-time advisory careers and catapulted into the ranks of top directors. Jane Halton, former Commonwealth finance department secretary has joined the board of ANZ.
Stops says the CBA is her first board after retiring from 30-plus years as a technology consultant at Accenture. She was recommended by outgoing CBA director Jane Hemstritch, who along with Carolyn Kay was rolling off the CBA board.
Fresh eyes
“The CBA board were very open to getting the right skills and person, and they weren’t hell-bent on having someone with 10 years of CEO experience,” Stops tells BOSS.
“A lot of boards get hung up on having someone who has been a CEO, I think they have to focus more on what are the skills we need and who are the right people out there and sometimes the fresh eyes and people who are new to board work and fresh out of industry, and come with a different perspective, is really what a lot of boards are starting to do now.”
While Dunn has followed the more conventional CEO-to-director path, he agrees this new breed of directors bringing a fresh perspective is invaluable. “I have no doubt that being the chair of [fintech hub] Stone and Chalk helps me be a better director of Westpac and Telstra because it gives me exposure to the start-up community and what’s happening,” says Dunn, who is also on the board of the Australian Ballet.
Check out the chairman
For others looking to break into the boardroom, Stop says she received fantastic advice.
“The advice I got was, ‘Don’t feel you have to jump at the first thing that comes your way, it has to be the right board for you.’ If my first board was an ASX 200 company that’s probably where I would be pegged and recruiters would come to me for other companies at that same mark.”
Girl’s club diluted
In 2015, we found that men had the power and women had the influence – female non-executive directors held 15 of the top-20 spots on the most influential list, compared with just six of the top-20 spots on the most powerful list. In 2017, the proportion of men on the influence list increased. The list ranks directors by their ability to reach fellow ASX directors directly, or via an introduction.
The power list ranks directors by the total market capital of the companies they are affiliated with. Men now represent 62 per cent and 63 per cent on the lists respectively.
While half of the new entrants on the top-200 power and influence lists are women, only 11.8 per cent of 5222 non-executive directors are women. And of the 1740-odd new non-executive directors to enter the ASX since our last study in 2015, only 15 per cent are women.
“Gender equality in the board room still has a long, long way to go,” says Cai Kjaer, founder of social network analysts Optimice and SWOOP Analytics, who conducted the research for BOSS.
Methodology
Optimice analysed all ASX-listed companies and their 5222 non-executive directors using Thomson Reuters' Connect 4 database to compile the rankings. The result are as of February 1, 2017.
The power list ranks directors by the total market capital of the companies they are affiliated with.
The influence list ranks directors by their ability to reach a high number of fellow ASX directors directly, or via an introduction. This is akin to the concept of first and second-degree connections.
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