Kathryn Fagg named new chairwoman of Boral

Former Reserve Bank board member Kathryn Fagg will take over as chairwoman of building materials company Boral.

Kathryn Fagg is the new chairwoman of Boral. Picture: Hollie Adams

Former Reserve Bank board member Kathryn Fagg will take over next month as the chairwoman of building materials company Boral.

Ms Fagg, who has been a director of Boral since 2014, will take over as chairwoman following the retirement of Brian Clark, who is stepping down for health reasons.

Ms Fagg, a highly experienced company director and the president of Chief Executive Women, completed a five-year term on the Reserve Bank board this year.

She began her career as a petroleum engineer with Esso Australia (now Exxon Mobil) and worked with McKinsey & Co before becoming a senior executive with the ANZ Bank.

Ms Fagg moved to BlueScope Steel in roles including president of Australian Building and Logistics Solutions and president of BlueScope Asia.

She spent three years at transport company Linfox as president of its fast-moving consumer goods division before taking up a full-time role as a company director. She is now also a director of Incitec Pivot and Djerriwarrh Investments.

In an interview with The Australian after her appointment as president of Chief Executive Women, Ms Fagg spoke of her experience in male-dominated industries such as oil and gas.

A strong proponent of encouraging the careers of women in corporate Australia, including the CEW’s scholarships for up-and-coming women executives, Ms Fagg spoke of her disappointment that more women had not made it into senior corporate executive levels despite the fact they made up than 50 per cent of new university graduates.

She said it was important to appoint more women directors and as senior executives “to draw on all the talent that is available” and “create a better society for all Australians”.

Ms Fagg takes over as chairwoman of Australia’s largest construction materials and building products company at a time when a major focus of its operation has moved to the US through last year’s acquisition for $3 billion of US firm Headwaters — a deal criticised by some shareholders.

The takeover has seen Boral’s US-born chief executive Mike Kane now spend much more of his time in the US.

Boral also announced yesterday the appointment of its first North America-based non-executive director, Peter Alexander, who will join the board in September.