Getting on board

To improve her chances of getting onto a board Janette Kendall left a stellar career in advertising to get operational experience in manufacturing. It was a strategy that paid off.
To improve her chances of getting onto a board Janette Kendall left a stellar career in advertising to get operational experience in manufacturing. It was a strategy that paid off.

Initially, it appeared an odd move for Janette Kendall to quit her high-profile role as executive director at a leading advertising company to become a mid-level manager, overseeing the manufacturing of socks. But Kendall had bigger things in mind.

“A lot of people thought I was absolutely crazy,” says Kendall. It was, however, a key move in her strategy to build a boardroom career.

At times, you have to take a step backward to move forward.

Kendall’s career at advertising company Clemenger BBDO had been stellar, culminating in her appointment to the board as an executive director at the age of 28. Even still, she knew she had a few “strikes” against her when it came to getting non-executive board roles at ASX-listed companies.

At the time, she lacked the “operational” experience that is often a prerequisite for board appointments. Taking the job as Holeproof divisional manager of socks at manufacturer Pacific Brands would help with that.

The clothing manufacturer, which hired her to turn around an underperforming division, would also broaden her industry background beyond advertising and marketing.

“I didn’t think the top 200 companies tended to appoint people who work in advertising,” she says of her thinking at the time.

Kendall also knew women faced additional challenges, demonstrated by data that shows they comprise only 25.4 per cent of directors on ASX 200 boards now, and only 3 per cent in 2008 back then.

“When I looked at the boards of listed companies, they were predominantly made up of lawyers and financial people and were absolutely all-male as well,” she says.

Today, 13 years after making that risky, but strategic, career decision, Kendall has the board career she prepared for, with directorships of Nine Entertainment Co, the Costa horticultural group, Wellcom Worldwide and the Melbourne Theatre Company.

The opening up of boards to women and people of different backgrounds means competition for places is tougher than ever, but opportunities do not abound. Fewer than 200 board vacancies emerge each year for ASX 200 companies.

However, one of Australia’s most experienced chairs, Kevin McCann, says the process of selecting directors is much more robust than the clubby practises of 41 years ago, when he was appointed to his first board.

“It is a much more structured process,” says McCann, who has chaired the boards of Origin Energy Limited, Macquarie Group and Allens Arthur Robinson, where he was a partner for 34 years.

“When I first began my career, which was a really long time ago, it was very much on a networking basis. Nowadays, networks are still important but, invariably, the search will be undertaken by a professional search firm so that the board has as wide as possible a range of potential candidates,” says McCann.

Kevin McCann
Kevin McCann

“It may be that the company will give the search firm names of the people that board members, or the chairman, knows, but the search firm will then be requested to supplement that list, based on the skills that are being sought.”

McCann, a member of the Male Champions of Change gender equality lobby group, says boards are also now keen to introduce diversity of thinking by recruiting more women and directors from different cultural and industry backgrounds.

“That diversity can take numerous forms,” he says. “It can be age, it can be education levels, geography.”

McCann says women and younger directors have introduced a more robust style of discussion to board meetings.

“People are much more challenging in a much more constructive in a positive way. They will interrogate propositions much more stringently than they used to.”

Kendall says her career choices were deliberate stepping stones to get to where she is today.

Early in her career, when the internet was just emerging as a commercial opportunity, she became the CEO of a digital media start-up. Then, with Pacific Brands, she gained the experience of working in China.

She also prepared by developing a parallel career on the boards of not-for-profit organisations while building her experience as an executive with Clemenger, Pacific Brands and, later, casino operators Crown and the Hong Kong-listed Galaxy Entertainment.

Her appointment as senior vice president of marketing for Galaxy in Macao gave was an important step, allowing her to live and work in China, as it emerged as a world power and a powerful trading partner.

When she returned from China, three years ago, and decided to go full time as a non-executive director, Kendall applied for and won a scholarship to do the Company Directors Course offered by the Australian Institute of Company Directors (AICD).

This five-day course (which can be delivered in a range of formats) gives aspiring and existing directors an understanding of corporate governance, the obligations of directors under corporations law and ASX listing rules, and access to case studies.

Kendall then won a place in the AICD Chair’s Mentoring Program, which pairs aspiring female directors with senior company directors. In Kendall’s case, she benefited from the advice and support of Newcrest Mining chair Peter Hay.

“It was an extraordinary 12 months of a monthly session with Peter, where we spoke on a broad range of topics, from how to get a role on an ASX 200 listed company to doing due diligence, through to topics like what chairs look for in a director,” she says.

Kendall also attended the AICD’s regular information events, spent a month analysing the ASX 200 companies to find boards that could benefit from her expertise, and used her networks to meet chairs and talk to executive search firms.

Two months into her mentoring by Peter Hay, she was offered her first non-executive directorship through her own contacts. The Channel Nine directorship was offered through an executive search firm.

Kevin McCann was a founding member of the Chair’s Mentoring program in 2010 when he was president of the NSW division of the AICD and women made up only 8.4 per cent of directors on the ASX 200.

“This year, some 500 women have applied [for the program], right around Australia,” he says.

One of McCann’s own mentees was Robin Low, a former partner at PwC (insurance, assurance and risk management), who now has board roles on AUB Group, CSG Limited, Appen Limited, and IPH Limited.

When Low was going through the program in 2013, she was in the midst of a long, drawn out process to get her first directorship.

“There were times when she did get discouraged and I encouraged her to keep in touch with that particular company, which took months and months to make a decision,” says McCann.

McCann dug through his contacts to give Low a list of people to talk to. “I said the key to it is wearing out a lot of footwear,” he says.

“It is a very slow process and quite frustrating. You have the meeting with people and it takes a long time for outcomes to occur.

“But Robin has been an absolute star. She has now got a full book of boards. In fact, I invited her to join one of my companies earlier this year and she told me she was too busy.”

Low says that, because board vacancies are not advertised, it is impossible to know where the opportunities are without networking.

It is also important to not become despondent when failing to get a role: “You may think [a candidate] is fabulous but, at the time, another skill set is more relevant. It is about fit.”

When it comes to deciding if the board is right for you, Low says a valuable piece of advice from McCann was: “I almost don’t care what the company does, I care who the chairman is”. The reason for this, she says, is that the chairman leads the board and has the key relationship with the CEO.

“The chairman is there to steer and to make sure everyone is heard and the right sort of decisions are made — not to drive those decisions, but to ensure the standard of discussion to get the right outcomes,” she says.

The Australian’s editorial staff were not involved with the production of this content.

This content was produced on behalf of the Australian Institute of Company Directors. Read our policy on commercial content here.

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For more information, see AICD’s Want a seat at the board table? Report on finding board positions.

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