When Paul Broad abruptly walked away from a career of almost 10 years running Snowy Hydro, his departure came after a souring of relations with federal Energy and Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen and in the middle of a massive expansion plan by the Commonwealth-owned renewable energy generator.

With the Albanese government unpleasantly surprised by both delays and cost overruns at the Snowy 2.0 project, as well as disagreement on the use of green hydrogen at the Kurri Kurri power station, relations between Broad and Snowy’s 100 per cent shareholder had soured.