Workplace disputes don’t typically end in complainants being forced out of a job, although cynics among our readers will scoff that the Fair Work Commission is filled with sad, murky cases where this is precisely what ends up transpiring.
Crisis-ridden PolyNovo is questing a path in that direction.
To recap our recent coverage of this biotech’s meltdown: in October last year the board engaged barristers Philip Crutchfield KC and Katherine Brazenor to inquire into bullying allegations levelled by CEOSwami Raote against the company’s chair, David Williams.
Crutchfield and Brazenor interviewed senior management staff and recommended to the board that Williams step aside as chair, a proposal the board accepted late last year and which the directors appeared to take seriously. The job was even offered to UBS Australasia chair Lindsay Maxsted, formerly of Transurban and Westpac. Maxsted took one look at the joint and said nah-uh almost straight away, leaving executive search firm Spencer Stuart to headhunt for an alternative.
In the meantime, Williams hasn’t budged and instead we’re hearing that it’s actually Raote who was gently propositioned by board members Andrew Lumsden and Robyn Elliott to resign last week – a plan that would have seen Elliott step in as interim CEO.
This arrangement would have come with a monetary sweetener for Raote to accept the deal.
Raote is based in the United States and didn’t respond to our inquiries, but he apparently rejected the offer and appears to be digging in against Williams who, with the rest of the board, recently underwent remedial workplace behavioural training, care of Alice DeBoos at Kingston Reid.
On Friday, after ignoring a succession of reports highlighting much dysfunction with its board and governance, PolyNovo finally released a statement to the market confirming the details of this bizarre request of its CEO. It said the “confidential discussion” with Raote had been have him cease his employment by June 2025 and that he step down “effective from an earlier date”.
“The discussion proposed terms for his separation if agreement was reached and revealed that non-executive director, Dr Robyn Elliott, would be stepping into the role as Acting Chief Executive Officer pending the appointment of a permanent replacement.”
Which means the upshot of this debacle is that instead of Williams stepping down as chair – a recommendation proffered by an eminent barrister and which the PolyNovo board committed to carrying out within a week of receiving it – it’s now the CEO and complainant whose job appears to be most at risk.
Who could blame PolyNovo’s management staff for feeling trapped in such a toxic protection racket? When even the CEO’s neck isn’t safe from being stepped upon, why would anyone else ever bother to speak out?
Wong taken to task
Who hasn’t dreamt of finally confronting a minister over a matter dear to their heart?
It happened to Foreign Minister Penny Wong this week during her onstage discussion with the Fin Review’s Jennifer Hewett at the paper’s business forum in Sydney.
During question time an audience member challenged Wong over the small matter of Israel – namely why she hadn’t been more supportive of the Jewish state after October 7 and why she hadn’t visited the massacre sites during her visit to the country in January 2024.
Up until that point, Wong had spoken of anti-Semitism, saying she had condemned it “just as I would condemn any form of prejudice”.
Given the microphone, the attendee started off by saying: “Sorry I just can’t let that pass,” before telling Wong he was “actually a fan” but stunned by her lack of engagement with Australian Jewry.
“You must be aware that in our community you are a pariah, and it is beyond belief that we have not had engagement from you personally.”
But who was this impassioned bloke laying down such extreme facts on the Foreign Minister?
We can reveal it was Melbourne’s Eureka Tower developer Benni Aroni, chair of builder Hickory and advisory board chair to AHB Group Australia, both billion-dollar turnover businesses.
Aroni told us that the wellspring of community dissatisfaction drove him to call out the half-hearted BS he was hearing from the stage.
“When am I going to get the opportunity to confront Penny Wong?” he told us. “I’m an idiot who spends my whole life running towards the fire and if people don’t stand up and tell her how we’re feeling, how is anything going to change?”
Wong’s response, for the record, was to repeat the line that she’s always open to engagement, which rang a little hollow for Aroni, who noted that she didn’t even bother to swing by his table once the event was through.
Gupta’s Fawlty Towers
Man-of-many-promises Sanjeev Gupta love-bombed the town of Whyalla in 2018 with plans to revitalise the backwater with a stonking $45m development of a new beachfront hotel. It didn’t happen, of course, but the announcement was made with hype-ups from then South Australian Premier Steve Marshall and PM Scott Morrison.
For a minute or so, it even looked like Gupta was legit, purchasing an actual site – the Foreshore Hotel – and talking up a Trumpian vision of a riviera for the town through a partnership with Ross Pelligra’s Pelligra Group.
It all amounted to nothing. The plans with Pelligra collapsed and the ’70s motel remained untouched. The only substantial change since 2018 was to its name: at some point it was dubbed The Beach Hotel, and judging by the cracked, empty pool and the sad-looking facade, it looks to have benefited from as much investment as Gupta’s steelworks, where the traffic lights weren’t working and staff brought their own toilet paper.
But so arriving in Whyalla to begin their corporate exhumation of Gupta’s OneSteel Manufacturing, KordaMentha administrators soon made the surprise discovery of this unlikely hotel asset which a few people have dubbed Fawlty Towers. Inside is a picture of Gupta hanging on the wall and apparently a surfeit of toilet paper in the WCs.
A dinner was even held at the venue after the first creditors meeting, attended by Arnold Bloch Leibler lawyer Leon Zwier, KM’s Mark Mentha, Sebastian Hans, Lara Wiggins, and The Civic Partnership’s managing partner Mark Hawthorne, who looked a very, very long way from Collins Street.
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