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Leadership lessons

This Month

Star chef Matt Moran reveals his dinner party secrets – and pet hates

At age 15, Matt Moran dropped out of school and learnt to cook. Along the way, he has learned how to run a business, manage people and stay sane.

  • Ciara Seccombe and Lap Phan
Dave Calhoun is a protégé of Jack Welch, the General Electric leader who trained American business on efficiency, speed, offshoring and hostility to unions.

What every manager can learn from Boeing’s strife

The flight path is depressingly familiar as a succession of its leaders, in thrall to Jack Welch’s GE management teachings, dismantled a once-great plane maker.

  • Peter Robison
Patricia McKenzie initially wanted to study science because she did not want to follow her older brother into law.

Why AGL chairman Patricia McKenzie couldn’t get a job in a law firm

She almost didn’t take up legal studies in the first place, but didn’t expect to find job hunting so difficult.

  • Sally Patten
Andrew Irvine has bucked history in retaining Rachel Slade.

NAB’s new boss just managed to do what most CEOs can’t

Australian corporate history is riddled with examples of passed-over CEO candidates exiting. But NAB has just bucked the trend.

  • Updated
  • James Thomson
Rachel Slade, Ana Marinkovic, Cathryn Carver.

NAB’s new chief executive shuffles leadership team, promotes rival

Rachel Slade, who was overlooked for the top job in favour of Andrew Irvine, will run the pre-eminent business banking division. Ana Marinkovic will run retail.

  • James Eyers
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Dale Connor eats breakfast at The Grounds of the City in Sydney’s CBD.

Why this CEO packs five days’ worth of work into four days

Lendlease Australia chief executive Dale Connor lives in Brisbane but spends his workweek in the property company’s Sydney office.

  • Sally Patten
JPMorgan’s Jamie Dimon says investors are too obsessed with monthly inflation figures.

Jamie Dimon reveals three risks – and his leadership secret

We extracted the big lessons for investors and leaders from the JPMorgan CEO’s 27,000-word letter to shareholders.

  • Updated
  • James Thomson
Professor Julie Leask, one of Australia’s leading experts on vaccine uptake.

Women of Influence share their tips for young female leaders today

Past winners of The Australian Financial Review’s long-standing and much-loved program give advice before it returns this year as Women in Leadership.

The advice that helped land HESTA CEO Debby Blakey the top job

HESTA chief Debby Blakey talks about how maths helps her to make decisions, how a key piece of advice from a mentor helped her land the top job, and why she likes 42-minute meetings.

  • Updated
  • Sally Patten and Lap Phan

Why boards need their strategy captured on one page

Good governance is about strategy and judgment, not compliance and process. How do boards get those things to the fore?

  • Catherine Livingstone

March

ACCC chairwoman Gina Cass-Gottlieb at The Australian Financial Review Banking Summit on Tuesday.

The two pieces of advice that changed Gina Cass-Gottlieb’s life

The first was from pioneering lawyer Dame Roma Mitchell, and the second was from High Court chief justice Sir Garfield Barwick.

  • Ronald Mizen

Why this CEO is happy to admit he is ‘not particularly smart’

Intrepid Travel chief James Thornton says he did “OK” at school and isn’t that smart. But he was CEO by the age of 35.

  • Sally Patten and Lap Phan
Mike Vacy-Lyle

CBA’s business bank boss explains why ‘saffers’ can be good CEOs

Mike Vacy-Lyle says his South African upbringing has instilled a can-do attitude and the confidence to take on any competition.

  • James Eyers
Catherine Livingstone

Slash nine-year terms, end gender box-ticking: Livingstone

Catherine Livingstone has called for six-year terms for directors to help refresh boardrooms and urged a focus on diversity beyond the usual box-ticking metrics such as gender.

  • Patrick Durkin and Hannah Wootton
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Best career advice? ‘Get some feathers on your wings’

Damien Nicks, the chief executive of giant electricity and gas supplier AGL Energy, answers our CEO Q&A.

  • Angela Macdonald-Smith
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How this CEO cuts hour-long meetings to just five minutes

Justin Graham of advertising firm M&C Saatchi also says he wants to compete on Survivor, but suspects he might be thrown off the reality TV show early.

  • Sally Patten and Lap Phan
Elon Musk says ketamine helps him fight depression.

Musk says his ketamine prescription is in investors’ best interests

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has told former CNN anchor Don Lemon that using the drug alleviates periods of low mood, and “what matters is execution”.

  • Daniel Zuidijk
Paul Guerra CEO Victorian Chamber of Commerce and Industry and organisational psychologist Dr Amantha Imber at Friday’s executive retreat.

Why staff are job hunting more than ever before

The high cost of living has generated rising employee fears about job security and prompted record numbers of people to consider changing jobs, new data shows.

  • Patrick Durkin
French flag

Why we should revisit the dramas of postwar France

Author Julian Jackson says French history over the last century is full of thrills and spills that have fresh relevance in an era of tawdry politics.

  • Andrew Clark
Airtrunk founder Robin Khuda went into his superannuation funds to get the company off the ground.

How Robin Khuda went from near-bankruptcy to creating a $14b titan

The AirTrunk founder was forced to go into his superannuation funds to keep the data centre giant running before it eventually found success.

  • Campbell Kwan