You would be wrong for thinking now may not be the time for one of Australia’s big four audit and consulting giants to engage in the near wholesale clean-out of its communications teams, but you’re wrong.
EY Oceania looked at the past 12 months, which saw the firm consumed over the suicide of a staff member, the landslide that was the failure of Project Everest, not to mention the very public trashing of the reputation of the consulting sector thanks to their friends over in PwC Australia, and thought: bring it on.
As we all know, EY Oceania and its chief executive, David Larocca, have not had a wonderful ride in the media, with the publication of the report into the firm’s workplace culture marking quite possibly the nadir of its public fortunes.
So what better way to tackle the challenges 2024 is set to throw at one of Australia’s most fun-loving consultancies than by excising 10 roles from the comms team.
Every manager wants to make their mark upon arrival and EY’s new chief marketing officer, Natalie Truong, is no different, leading the charge inside the firm that ironically saw the consulting firm throw out its staff and bring in the consultants.
Truong, who took on the top comms job in July “after a global search”, brings with her a background in “marketing function transformation and most recently held the role of CMO and partner at Mercer”, according to EY in a statement circulated by the firm’s new media management.
But to be fair to our friends over at comms consultancy Phronesis – coming from the Greek for sound judgment – they’ve already been in EY for a long time.
PR consigliore and Phronesis boss Shane Allison, known for his work with Barrenjoey bossMatthew Grounds, has already been giving his EY-branded email account a good workout in the almost eight years he’s been advising the audit and consulting giant.
But Allison now finds himself elevated in the EY purge, with the communications director and associate director among several others out of a job.
Latest to leave was Andrew Griffits, who walked last Friday in what sources said was an amicable parting, but is still marked as a key contact online.
We wonder what the priorities of EY’s new media management might be? They might want to start by updating the website.
Wait on people chief
Still no news from ABC as to who will succeed Dharma Chandran as chief people officer at the public broadcaster, but we hope whoever takes on the job has better luck than the last lot.
In a note circulated to ABC staff in August, Chandran said he would be leaving by January next year, joining the throng of former HR heads of the broadcaster who had their hopes dashed by a highly unionised workforce.
Readers may recall the tortuous negotiations at ABC over the broadcaster’s new enterprise bargaining agreement.
Staff had demanded an 18 per cent pay rise over three years, while the ABC came to the party offering just 4 per cent, 3.5 per cent and 3 per cent over the next three years, along with a $1500 signing bonus for staff.
The scuttlebutt among our friends in the ABC was Chandran’s approach, when he popped his head up towards the end of the process, put a lot of noses out of joint among the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance negotiation committee.
This culminated in a staff vote to strike and the intervention of good cop and ABC managing director David Anderson.
This may be unsurprising to those familiar with Chandran’s background, as a McKinsey alumni and former headcracker at a variety of Australian companies over the years.
ABC staff signed off on the wage deal in March, taking the offer of 11 per cent over three years, plus a suite of other concessions from the broadcaster, with Chandran announcing his intention to leave soon after.
He joins the list of names in the ABC’s hall of honour of former HR heads, with his predecessor Rebekah Donaldson also exiting the broadcaster in the wake of a bruising wage deal.
The ABC has a knack of hiring hard-nosed corporates to face off against the cuddly unionists, with Donaldson leaving the ABC to go Qantas as the airline’s people group executive manager, no doubt hoping for an easier run.
Chandran, who joined 7-11’s board as part of the convenience store giant’s clean-up in the wake of a massive wage scandal, has signalled his desire to go off into non-executive director land.
Good luck to the next mob.
ANZ court capers
The three-year court caper between ANZ and its former head of balance sheet trading Etienne Alexiou continues as a fresh round of delays is set to leave the case unlitigated well into next year.
Alexiou made headlines after ANZ sacked him and several others amid concerns over bad language and definitely not an attempt to remove staff co-operating with an ASIC probe into a massive rate rigging exercise going on in the markets team.
The high-flying trader has taken two runs at ANZ over the years, with his latest court foray led by Levitt Robinson lawyers principal Stewart Levitt.
However, some late legal paperwork has revealed Alexiou and Levitt have parted ways after years working on the case.
Into his place steps YPOL Lawyers founder Timothy Price. But ANZ is not immune to the entropy of years before the courts, with the bank’s high-profile senior counsel Yaseen Shariff set to join the Federal Court as a judge and exit the case.
But all is not lost, with Ruth Higgins recently briefed to take on the slog. We can’t wait.
Real news scoop
A potential publisher behind salacious gossip rag Real Freedom News, which took aim at members of the Victorian Liberal Party over the years, was writing during work hours, and in typical horror movie style – the calls were coming from inside the house.
An IT guy by the name of Mark Barrow, who reckons he used to do a bit of hacking, may have discovered the real Real Freedom News.
Barrow fronted Federal Court on Friday after some sleuthing led him to investigate the “back end” of the website, which has been slandering Victorian Liberals since 2021.
Former Frankston candidate and Liberal player Sean Armistead has been gunning for Real Freedom News, with this his latest legal fight in the matter after dropping an earlier case against the website, which we revealed in this column.
Chatting with a lawyer on the case, Barrow named his likely candidate, revealing our prospective publisher might be a pollie.
“There are a set of protected IP addresses which are given out at all levels of government, including from the Victorian government, which are only issued to members of parliament,” the court heard.
“The IP address has helped me locate access to the website coming from a protected IP address. However, it doesn’t mean the MP to whom the IP address is issued is necessarily the person accessing the RFN website.”
“It’s clear from the data I found that the changes on the website … were always during work hours. I’ve looked into the back end of the RFM website.”
Barrow told the court he even ran a language analysis, which “pointed to particular persons there named”. Who?
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