Catherine Walsh’s appearance before the Senate last week alongside new PwC Australia clean up agent Kevin Burrowes really must have been excruciating for what we now know to be the maligned firm’s soon-to-exit head of people and culture.
Of course Walsh, who in January will start at Qantas as Vanessa Hudson’s new chief people office, already had one foot out the door as she took her seat before the hearing into the government’s use of consultants and alongside her boss Burrowes.
Along with having to endure the experience for all that it was, Walsh also had to cop the direct accusation from punchy Labor Senator Deborah O’Neill that she, along with risk and ethics exec Jan McCahey, had been dragged along to the party by Burrowes - token females flanking the reforming new boss to enhance his own appearance before the hostile inquiry.
PwC insists that Walsh had not resigned from her role or accepted the new gig from Hudson at Qantas before she appeared at the Canberra hearing last Thursday.
But we do note that the Qantas search to fill the newly created CPO gig - which will bring together the under pressure airline’s human resources and turbulent industrial relations functions - started way back in June.
Any wonder Walsh looked so uncomfortable as O’Neill and her equally passionate committee colleague Greens Senator Barbara Pocock held her, McCahey and Burrowes’ feet to the fire.
Meantime, while most of the traffic in the vicinity of the financial services firm is flowing alongside Walsh out the door, either via forced exits thanks to the tax scandal or departures as employees bolt from the troubled firm, Margin Call can report a new recruit heading into the fire.
In May, we told you of the consulting work that former NSW Liberal staffer Sean Berry had been engaged to do at PwC at around about the time that Kristen Stubbins took over as acting CEO following the messy departure of Tom Seymour.
Berry is a former media director for premier Gladys Berejiklian, after which he was picked up by former treasurer Matt Kean as his head of strategy and then chief of staff.
Berry seems to have enjoyed the recent months of turmoil at PwC so much that he’s recently signed on as the firm’s new director of strategy, risk and reputation, although, we hear, not reporting to the CEO.
Perhaps for the best given how things have panned for Seymour, Stubbins and the pressure Burrowes now finds himself under.
Berry did not respond to Margin Call’s request for comment.
Back to airlines
As Margin Call readers will recall we reported last week on the plight of aviation expert Peter Harbison’s recently released biography of former Qantas chief Alan Joyce, The Trials and Transformation of an Australian Icon.
We’re not sure how keen travellers have been to snap up a copy at the airport on their way to the departure gate. Our spies on the ground at Mascot say copies of the tome, published by Penguin Random House, are still piled high on the “bestsellers” table of a well-positioned bookstore despite a marked-down price.
The book is being flogged for 10 per cent off its recommended retail price of $36.99.
It’s only been out a few weeks, maybe it’ll get so cheap Vanessa Hudson can put one in the back of every seat.
What better way to soothe one’s pain as a poorly serviced Qantas frequent flyer than reading about what a transformational CEO Joyce was and how much money he made for the flying kangaroo (as well as himself) while in the top office?
Economy for Marles
It seems like Minister for Defence Richard Marles, bruised from his recent controversies over the disclosure of his expenses around VIP flights, might be over correcting when it comes to his travel plans.
As the Member for the good people of Corio, where just like in Toorak everyone gets a vote, Marles has often flown about fulfilling his ministerial and leadership duties taking off from transport billionaire Lindsay Foxes’ Avalon Airport.
Makes sense, with the airport a ten minute or so drive up the freeway from the Geelong suburb where his electorate office is.
But on Sunday night after Marles and his party had digested Australia’s overwhelming rejection of his boss Anthony Albanese’s Indigenous Voice to Parliament, Marles hoofed it to Tullamarine Airport - a long way from his home in Geelong, to take a Virgin flight to Canberra for the sitting week.
It’s the first time in a while that Marles has been spotted on a commercial flight. We are told by eyes on board that the Deputy Prime Minister endured the journey in Virgin’s economy class. The horror.
That was in contrast to his more junior ALP colleagues, first-time Member for Holt Cassandra Fernando and Labor Senator for Victoria Raff Ciccone, who we are told enjoyed the trip living it up at the pointy end of the plane in business class.
We are not sure, however, whether Marles’ golf clubs travelled too.
Jayne Hrdlicka would surely make him pay extra to take them too, right?
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