Chairman Lucio Di Bartolomeo leaves Australia Post leaderless for almost 11 months
AusPost’s chairman will have allowed the organisation to wallow leaderless for almost 11 months by the time the new CEO starts.
Terry McCrann
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Australia Post will be without a formal CEO for almost an entire year. This poses some seriously embarrassing and indeed just plain serious questions for its chairman Lucio Di Bartolomeo and his board of directors.
Christine Holgate was effectively sacked as AusPost CEO on October 22 last year, when Di Bartolomeo caved to the – inappropriate and indeed invalid - demand by the Prime Minister for her to “stand aside or be sacked” over those Cartier watches. She formally resigned on November 2.
AusPost has now announced she will be succeeded by a Woolworths executive Paul Graham – but he only arrives “in September”.
That means AusPost will have been effectively leaderless for somewhere between 10 and 11 months – and indeed, for nearly half a year still from this point of Graham’s appointment.
That’s longer than any other major business – and yes, AusPost IS a business - that I can recall in my 50 years of financial reporting; and is in itself a pretty damming comment on Di Bartolomeo’s chairmanship.
Yes, it’s had an “acting CEO” – AusPost’s CFO Rodney Boys, who was appointed to that role when Holgate stood aside and will continue in the role over the next five months of what Di Bartolomeo bizarrely, lamely, self-damningly described as the “CEO transition period”.
That poses an obvious “either/or” question.
Surely if Boys is good enough to be “acting CEO” for nearly a year, he’s good enough to be the formal CEO for longer?
Yet, by not appointing him the CEO, what does that say about the board’s decision to have him as acting CEO for nearly a full year?
Last week, in his response to Holgate’s submission to the Senate enquiry into her (effective) sacking, Di Bartolomeo made claims that were simply delusional and, again, just embarrassing.
He said Holgate “agreed with me (on October 22) to stand aside from her role pending the outcome of the Shareholder Departments’ investigation and any further actions taken by Australia Post”.
Oh right, so she had a choice? She could have not agreed to stand aside? After the PM had demanded she stand aside or be sacked and communications minister Paul Fletcher had formally (if invalidly) directed the board to stand her aside?
That was delusional enough, but Di Bartolomeo went full Alice in Wonderland when he went on to claim that: “my objective was, subject to the findings of the investigation, to have Ms Holgate back performing her role as soon as possible”.
Did Di Bartolomeo spend October 22 on another planet? Anyone with an IQ above that of an idiot would have known that after the events of that day, there was no way in not just this world but the entire universe that Holgate could continue as CEO.
Not, that is, after her chairman and the entire board had thrown her under the bus, by caving to the PM’s ranting.
Does Di Bartolomeo have even the meanest understanding of the role of chairman and the relationship with the CEO?
When he failed to stand behind her – and against the PM’s improper demands and the Communications minister’s invalid direction – he sacked her. The rest was just, very grubby, theatre.
Further, whether he thought about it or not – not that, on the evidence, “thinking about it”, on his part, would have had any value – he was committing AusPost to lose a very effective, maybe its most effective, CEO.
He should read his own words from last week.
Ms Holgate was a “very good chief executive”; “important innovations and reforms under her leadership”; AusPost reported “significant growth”. Etc Etc.
Not only did he drive out the CEO thus described, abandoning her when she was being brutalised, he committed AusPost to wallow leaderless for a year.
He should be the one resigning or being sacked.
Originally published as Chairman Lucio Di Bartolomeo leaves Australia Post leaderless for almost 11 months
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