Goyder should follow renewal rules to avoid creating fortress Qantas

Qantas Group CEO Vanessa Hudson, left, and Chairman Richard Goyder. Pictures: NCA Newswire

The word coming out of the Qantas camp via a number of reputable commentators is that Chairman Richard Goyder is staying on as chairman rather than leaving the company with a new CEO and a new chairman.

Such a strategy could quickly evolve into a “fortress Qantas” situation which would be a disaster. The rules of the renewal game are well established.

Of course the chair does not suddenly walk out the door but rather announces a chair/board renewal program over the next six to nine months and engages head hunters to assist.

There have already been extensive changes in the top management of Qantas so the renewal process is underway but it needs to be duplicated at board level.

Qantas Group Chairman Richard Goyder. Picture: NCA Newswire / Gaye Gerard

And that’s going to be important, assuming that the regulators do their job and begin to examine the issues of the last six months including the sudden increase in the Qantas share buy back; the sale of CEO shares into that buy back; the failure to announce the ACCC investigation into alleged fictitious ticket sales; the failure to pay cancelled tickets; the decision to repaint aircraft with “Yes” signs; the possible relationship to the Qatar decision; the huge fines and costs that stem from the unanimous decision of the High Court to reject the unfair dismissal appeal and so on.

In each of those situations the chair and the board are as much involved as the former chief executive. In each of the issues Qantas will have point of view that may be different to public perception.

If the chair and board goes into the above set of governance issues without a clear set of renewal policies then, on past precedents, markets will turn very nasty and in this case public opinion and the Parliament are likely to be involved.

Qantas and the nation does not need that.

In some ways the best thing that could have happened in Qantas was to lose the High Court unfair dismissals case with a unanimous judgement.

Vanessa Hudson has limited chance of being an effective CEO of Qantas without a strong new chair. Picture: NCA Newswire / Gaye Gerard

That decision and the enormous money and image costs involved will have made it clear to the superannuation funds, other shareholder, and the total investment community that Vanessa Hudson has limited chance of being an effective CEO of Qantas without a strong new chair and a reconstructed board.

I still have faith in the integrity of Goyder so I think he will do the right thing by Qantas.

Qantas is shelling out a swag of money to ask Boston Consulting to tell it how to fix its image.

Morgan Research documented the mistakes as they were being made so the first step is to look up the Morgan research and reverse the decisions that did so much damage.

I would also undertake additional research on whether passengers need to be reminded of Alan Joyce and his “Yes” campaign every time a plane lands.

It’s becoming an “underground” talking point that tells passengers the spirit of the past management is still there.

But you can see signs that the repair the process has already started.

On Wednesday I flew to Brisbane to deliver the 2023 Thomas McIlwraith lecture to mark 100 years since the discovery of lead zinc ore at Mount Isa.

The luggage arrived promptly and from the public announcements I learned that an aircraft scheduled from Brisbane to Townsville had technical difficulties.

The apologies over the public address system just kept coming. In a small way someone was trying to help the Qantas brand.

I hope readers will forgive me but I am going to republish the opening sentences of my column from the start of the week which, of course, was written before the High Court had announced its decision.

“Qantas is looming as arguably the biggest corporate governance failure in Australia’s history outside companies that run into serious financial difficulties as a result of their failures.

“The Qantas governance morass is going to trigger endless class actions and/ or corporate investigations which will tie the company up for many years.

“What makes this so serious for Australia is the fact that although it is a private company Qantas dominates our air transport in business, freight, tourism , and in time of war, defence. The nation can’t afford such a vital company to be crippled by governance issues. Worse still, the governance issues involve the chairman and board members as much as they involve the former CEO, Alan Joyce.

Former Qantas Group CEO Alan Joyce. Picture: NCA Newswire / Gaye Gerard

“Accordingly I urge chairman Richard Goyder to act in the national interest and recruit a top chair for Qantas – possibly one who is prepared to be for a short time, executive chairman.”