No let-up in Fahour’s raid on Australia Post

Cartoon: Rod Clement

Ahmed Fahour is not done yet with his calculated raid on Christine Holgate’s Australia Post.

Margin Call can reveal former News Corp heavy Mark Gardy is leaving his corporate ­affairs gig at Australia Post.

After a more than five-year stint at the government-owned mail room, he’s off to the financial services upstart Latitude, which is now under the management of Fahour, Holgate’s predecessor as Australia Post’s CEO.

A talent exodus following a departed CEO is a bit of a corporate Melbourne tradition, as demonstrated by NAB exec turned Medibank CEO Craig Drummond and his Docklands ensemble.

But Fahour is taking the reunion party to another level, as his new outfit pretties itself ahead of an expected multi-billion-dollar IPO.

The migration of talent from Australia Post’s Bourke Street headquarters has been remarkable since Boston Consulting Group alumnus Fahour was appointed to the top job at Latitude last October.

First were three members of Holgate’s executive team: digital boffin Andew Walduck, corporate service poobah Chris Blake and innovation whiz Greg ­Sutherland, who joined former senior Turnbull PMO adviser Mark Brudenell, another Fahour hire.

Now it seems Fahour has moved his sights to Australia Post’s general manager ranks.

And, worryingly for Holgate, we hear that won’t be the last of it.

According to our mail, more resignation letters are on the way.

Gloomy mail room

So what is going on at Christine Holgate’s Australia Post — and has it really overtaken the ABC as our most dysfunctional government-owned enterprise?

Margin Call understands the problem mostly centres on strategy — or a lack of it.

Fairly or not, a number of employees and former employees seem to be underwhelmed by the direction of the organisation, which is on course to sink into the red.

Neither the Buddhist ­blessings, Christmas carols or yoga rooms can arrest the sinking morale.

Not helping things are the toe-cutters from KordaMentha embedded in head office and looking for ways to cut costs.

Ahmed Fahour and John Stanhope. Picture: Aaron Francis

Hovering over it all is chair John Stanhope, who along with Holgate and the rest of the board yesterday gathered in Perth, the home town of their newest member Mario D’Orazio, a Kerry Stokes-connected media figure who Mathias Cormann was insistent on appointing to the board just before the caretaker period began.

As we’ve noted before, after two terms of Coalition federal government, the Australia Post board is a Coalition-aligned beast.

Directors include Bruce McIver (the immediate past president of the Liberal National Party of Queensland), Tony Nutt (the previous federal Liberal director), Deidre Willmott (the former chief of staff to Colin Barnett) and former Abbott minister Michael Ronaldson.

The other two around the board — who yesterday met for a final time before what looks to be a transformative election — are former Deloitte partner Jan West and Woolworths director Holly Kramer.

Stanhope’s seven-year stint as chairman expires in November. He was, of course, a key backer of Holgate’s appointment.

Plenty of reason for her to take a keen interest in who Bill Shorten, Jim Chalmers and Michelle Rowland have in mind to watch over her.

Newgate’s knees-up

To go by the Margin Call party barometer, things are going well at Brian Tyson’s communications operation Newgate. Hundreds of clients, journalists and hangers-on squeezed into the Sydney Opera House’s new Yallamundi Room on Wednesday night for Newgate’s annual knees-up in the Harbour City.

Tyson even booked Labor frontbencher Anthony Albanese to help move the crowd from the concentrated right side (where the bar was) to the other pocket of the room.

“You’ll all be moving to the left soon enough. Come on, come on. It doesn’t hurt,” said Albo to the room, which was full of Newgate’s corporate clients including KKR’s David Lang, Pacific Road Capital banker Paul Espie, the Financial Services Council’s Sally Loane, the Property Council of Australia’s Ken Morrison, Tyson’s fellow Sydney Swans board member Sam Mostyn, GrainCorp’s Angus Trigg, departing Berejiklian senior staff member Matt Croker, Prime chairman John Hartigan and Newgate partner Miche Paterson.

Liberal senator Arthur Sinodinos was the other political guest along to give his thoughts on the election.

“I’m more optimistic than I thought I would be,” said Sinodinos when asked for his election outlook by Newgate’s Steve Lewis.

Only eight more sleeps until we find out if he was right to be sunny.

Samuel’s olive branch

It’s six weeks since former competition watchdog chairman Graeme Samuel made his now infamous comments about needing a “nuclear bomb to smash down the impenetrable wall around the female club of directors”.

Graeme Samuel at the Australian Council of Superannuation Investors conference in Melbourne. Picture: Aaron Francis

And the feedback is still coming in strong. Interviewed on stage at this week’s ACSI conference, Samuel got in ahead of his interrogator — Ali Moore — by clarifying his comments about women in boardrooms.

That wasn’t enough to pacify at least one member of the audience, a Hesta executive, who got to her feet in the Q&A session to take Samuel to task.

Samuel was again at pains to backtrack, saying his comments applied equally to men and women.

“Don’t hang me on some colourful comments I made. I am on your side,’’ he pleaded.

But he couldn’t resist a slight dig, noting the “tens and tens of emails” he received from people saying, in his account, “thank you for having the courage to say it because we can’t break into the system”.

Just can’t help himself.