Perhaps the best indication of what’s gone wrong inside the boardroom of The a2 Milk Company isn’t the departure of chief executive Jayne Hrdlicka after just 18 months, but who it’s turned to now.

That the board would immediately bring back Hrdlicka’s predecessor, Geoff Babidge, as interim CEO – the man who built a2 into a market darling and was such a key part of the business that he actually helped select his successor – suggests that to steady the ship, it is prepared to go back to the future.