Female club hits back at ‘last-century’ man Samuel

Female company director Sue Morphet lashes comments made by “last century’’ Graeme Samuel.

President of corporate leader peak group Chief Executive Women, Sue Morphet. Picture: Aaron Francis

One of Australia’s most powerful female company directors, Sue Morphet, has come out swinging against controversial comments made by former competition regulator Graeme Samuel that a cosy “female club of directors” was blocking diversity to favour a chosen few, saying his remarks “belonged in the last century”.

“I am disappointed he said what he said and in the manner that he said it,” Ms Morphet told The Australian last night in response to Mr Samuel’s comments that there needed to be a “nuclear bomb to smash down the impenetrable wall around the female club of directors”.

In an increasingly heated debate­ inside the nation’s boardrooms — not to mention prickly encounters at the Qantas Chairman’s Lounge — Mr Samuel has touched on a subject many are unwilling to discuss in public.

Underlining this code of silence­, he said he had received many anonymous herograms and calls of support from corporate chairmen, including many female executives who claimed to have had boardroom ambitions snuffed out by established women who always got picked for the job.

 

Mr Samuel, who is the former chairman of the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission and was recently tapped on the shoulder by Josh Frydenberg to conduct a review into the nation­’s prudential regulator, said on Tuesday that these younger women were “not allowed in” to the club. Speaking at a business forum on Tuesday, he said this club of female­ directors was so tightly controlled that it was squashing diversity, as many younger, talented­ women were shut out of boardrooms by a small coterie of the usual suspects.

“What a disappointment that someone of the previous standing of Graeme Samuel is so mis­informed about the diversity of directors­ on boards,’’ Ms Morphet said last night.

“I had to check the date of the reporting to make sure it wasn’t something he said last century that had suddenly reappeared.”

Ms Morphet — the president of corporate leader peak group Chief Executive Women, who has held dozens of directorships and senior management roles — said company boards across the nation­ ­ were always on the hunt for talented men and women to serve. In the case of potential female directors, they were drawing from a large pool of highly talented and skilled candidates.

She argued that any chair­person who chose a well-known director­ simply because they “were a name” would be foolish.

“We in corporate Australia obviously­ want a diverse culture, whether it is gender diversity or ethnic diversity, and everybody has to work for this.

‘’I think we have to look and say: ‘What is the chair looking for?’ If they are looking for someone who may give their board credibility, then they will look for someone who might be well known in the investment community or in the business sector, but they should never pick a name unless the name can do the job.”

Ms Morphet disagreed that the pool of these well-known female­ directors who supposedly shut out ­rivals was as low as 30.

She said she had invited Mr Samuel to talk over the issue, which he had accepted.

Woolworths chairman Gordon Cairns told The Australian that on the three boards he sits on the female directors make an “outstanding contribution’’ and that Mr Samuel was wrong that a club of limited female directo­rs existed. “The talent pool is very rich and very extensive,” Mr Cairns said.