Heads will roll after July 2

Illustration: Peter Nicholson.

The changed political climate on the other side of July 2 is set to trigger new appointments to some of the most influential — and well remunerated — lobbying gigs in the nation.

It will be interesting to see if the chief executive of the mighty Australian Bankers’ Association, Steven Munchenberg, is still in the role by the end of the year.

ABA boss Steven Munchenberg. Picture: John Feder/The Australian.

Munchenberg has served as chief executive of the ABA — whose members include Commonwealth Bank, Westpac, ANZ and his former employer NAB — since 2010. We have a hunch a process to choose his successor might get under way not long after July 2. We’ll see.

If so, the strongest internal successor is Joe Hockey’s former chief of staff Tony Pearson, who is the bank lobbyist’s head of industry policy.

Although with no pressing deadline for the process, we expect the board would also be looking externally.

Days numbered?

Better be careful with this one lest we excite Victorian Liberal president Michael Kroger too much.

Might headhunters receive a brief not long after the election to look for a new chief executive for the Business Council of ­Australia?

Much of its membership certainly hopes so.

Kroger spoke for more than a few of them in February when he called for the BCA board to “sack” its chief executive Jennifer Westacott, saying her lobby had “no idea” how to influence public opinion.

BCA chief Jennifer Westacott. Picture: David Geraghty/The Australian.

Her tenure was controversial even before Kroger’s intervention.

She made BCA history by joining the board of Wesfarmers back in 2013, which did not impress many rival members — especially when some saw the BCA’s policy positions strongly aligned with those of Wesfarmers in subsequent competition policy fights.

But before headhunters get too excited, we better note this group is led not by its full membership — the CEOs of Australia’s blue-chip companies — but by its cosy board of seven, which includes Westacott.

Also among the Seven Samurais are Wesfarmers boss Richard Goyder, CBA’s Ian Narev, Qantas chief Alan Joyce, Energy Australia boss Catherine Tanna, Coca-Cola Amatil’s Alison Watkins and BCA president Catherine Livingstone.

There’s no way the board is going to roll the chief executive, however bad the reviews.

We don’t want to excite Victorian Liberal president Michael Kroger too much. Picture: Mark Stewart.

Still, Westacott has served as the head of the big business lobby for five years. No one thinks she is going to match her predecessor Katie Lahey’s decade-long reign.

Meanwhile, an announcement on Pauline Vamos’s successor at the nation’s peak superannuation lobby group can’t be too far away.

Expect to hear from Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia chairman Michael Easson soon.

Much to watch on the other side of July 2.

Sworn to silence

You can’t really blame former Colliers “flirty thirty” real estate agent Matt “Huddo” Hudson for tying one on, given conditions in the real estate market in the past year.

Matt Hudson.

The local arm of Colliers International had a stellar performance.

Profit was up almost 10 per cent at $35 million for the year ending December.

That’s on revenue of $341m (up 5 per cent) for an effective margin of more than 10 per cent.

No wonder colleagues have been in such high spirits at boss John Kenny’s shop.

Profit has probably since taken a hit following settlements with numbers man Sean Unwin (for alleged sexual harassment) and sales manager Sam Kandil (who described the Colliers culture as “toxic”).

Internally, there is concern that the firm is being portrayed as a Porky’s revival act.

There’s also angst about Huddo’s treatment. Was the budding filmmaker sacked over his extra-curricular party video (which featured a cameo from the married father of two Unwin)? Was the auteur made an offer he couldn’t refuse? Or has Huddo decided to jump ship to new pastures independent of his new celebrity?

Kenny’s troops won’t say a word. Huddo’s not commenting. Even his twin brother has gone underground.

Mug’s game

Wesfarmers’ new department store boss Guy Russo and his Target finance man Mark Scatena seem pretty well in touch with their customer base.

Target and Kmart boss Guy Russo. Picture: AAP Image/Dean Lewins.

The pair let their working class immigrant credentials all hang out at a private briefing for 700 Target suppliers at Melbourne’s hallowed MCG yesterday, as the execs seek to restore the brand to profit.

“What’s the difference between Kmart and Target? Nothing. We sell stuff to people that people don’t need, at a low price,” said Russo, looking like
a cross between a stand-up comic and an evangelical preacher.

“Every now and then we go into our homes and we get the little bin at the back and we go and do a refresh and throw all that shit — that stuff out — and we say we need the latest mug.’’

Nonna knows best

Having defined the space, Russo then turned to Scatena to “tell his Nonna story”, which the CFO’s wife Sarah had helped him refine (after their own wedding) so as not to bore his audience.

“So this is the Nonna story, and apologies for all the wogs in the room,” the warming up Scatena went.

“I’m in the corner (of the Tuscany Club in Perth) and … Martina (an Italian grandmother) comes up and says (Scatena puts on bad Italian accent), ‘You work atta Tar-get?’

“And I said, ‘Yeah, Nonna, I work atta Tar-get’.

Nonna: “You been-a-there long?’’

Scatena: “No, not long, two weeks.’’

“And she tells me she has some observations on Target,” Scatena said. “And I thought, ‘Here we go’. She has prosciutto coming out of her mouth, and it’s all a bit … anyway, you can picture it I think.”

Scatena then, in front of his suppliers, broke into Italian, and essentially described how Nonna told him Target prices were too high.

Rags to riches

Then it was back to Russo, who described his childhood — mum, his taxi driver dad and the seven kids.

Wesfarmers CEO Richard Goyder. Picture: AAP Image/Dean Lewins.

When Russo was old enough he bought his first car with a job that paid 74c an hour.

“Nothing went wrong with me when I was earning 74c an hour,” he recalled.

“And our home car for many years was a bloody cab, so we didn’t go on any holidays.

“It looked weird having five people in the cab — with the bags on top of the roof rack. That’s what you really call ‘when wogs go on a holiday’.”

And what did the suppliers make of the wonderfully self-deprecating double act from Target?

They loved it.