Qantas grounds execs’ speaking engagements; Hasn’t Bennelong time but Simon’s going for growth

Qantas Loyalty chief executive Olivia Wirth. Picture: AAP

Vanessa Hudson’s edict to management that they prioritise Qantas’s customer relationships has seemingly ruined another speaking event that’s been long in the planning.

First it was Jetstar CEO Steph Tully who was forced to withdraw from an aviation conference earlier this month to make haste on Hudson’s message. Now it seems Qantas loyalty chief Olivia Wirth has been required to do the same, pulling out of a scheduled appearance on October 10 at the Queensland University of Technology’s Business Leaders’ Forum.

QUT’s letter to partners said officials were advised on Friday morning that Wirth was no longer available to appear at the event, thus throwing the day’s planning into chaos. Hardly her fault, one would imagine. “Unfortunately, this means that we need to cancel the forum,” they said, promising refunds to come shortly.

Then this: “While Qantas has committed to Olivia, or another senior executive, speaking at a Forum in 2024, a date has not yet been confirmed.”

That’s probably because the airline’s executives are being gagged from speaking at public engagements altogether, or so Margin Call is being told on very reliable terms. That should stand for the remainder of this year.

Qantas would only confirm that Wirth had withdrawn from the forum to appear at a later date, but don’t expect to see any management remarks outside of a Senate committee hearing, or Richard Goyder’s usual speech at Saturday’s Olympic Room function for the AFL grand final, for a little while yet.

Well connected

Former Liberal Party candidate Simon Kennedy had a tilt for the seat of Bennelong in the 2022 federal election, losing by fewer than 2000 votes (after preferences) to Labor’s Jerome Laxale, thus ending a short-lived political career.

Now, the former McKinsey partner has set up Banksia Growth, a consultancy and investing firm playing in the climate tech space that’s due to go live around Christmas.

Kennedy’s already busy on a number of projects, and it’s been interesting to learn whom he’s working with.

It’s Damian Kassabgi, a former adviser to Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard who’s morphed into a tech executive via his work for Google, Uber and Afterpay, where he entered the C-suite and made a bomb selling options in the company.

The last anyone heard out of Kassabgi was about a year ago when he and wife Courtney Miller purchased a $13m property in Byron Bay using some of the spare dosh coming out of their ears. Kassabgi is said to be one of several former McKinsey and Macquarie Bank partners involved with Kennedy’s firm, the link between the two men being Parramatta MP Andrew Charlton, who built AlphaBeta in partnership with McKinsey, and then provided the introduction.

Simon Kennedy has set up Banksia Growth, a consultancy and investing firm playing in the climate tech space. Picture: Facebook

“I am pleased to be moving into business strategy and consulting with one of the best in the game,” Kassabgi told Margin Call. “The McKinsey-style advisory work is of interest to me, and I’m learning a lot. I believe we can make a solid contribution to climate and tech as disruptive industries.”

And while the company hasn’t launched, Banksia Growth has already engaged DPG Advisory for some lobbying services in Canberra. That’s the firm owned by David Gazard – another former Afterpay option holder. DPG’s been in the news this week, as some may recall, owing to a profusion of text messages leaked between one of its partners, Scott Briggs, and the scheming Home Affairs secretary Mike Pezzullo.

Apparently it’s DPG’s climate director Ben Oquist that Banksia is so eager to work with, for obvious reasons. The former executive director of the Australia Institute (married to Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young) accepted a job at the government relations outfit last year, despite its renown as a bastion of conservative influence – and haven’t we seen just about enough evidence of that in recent days.

Apparently despite a run at politics, Kennedy isn’t much for walking the halls of power and nudging MPs to make a case, hence the need for DPG’s services. Margin Call asked him about Banksia but he declined to comment.

ASIC flak moves on

The corporate regulator’s long-serving flak Gervase Green is hanging up his hat after eight years in the role. And quite a ride it’s been at the Australian Securities & Investments Commission. Who wouldn’t love dealing with a royal commission into financial services, or the sudden exits of ASIC’s former chair, James Shipton, and deputy chair Daniel Crennan, or running the reputation management for an under-resourced bureaucracy yoked with the impossibly high expectations? The next move remains unclear, but no one would blame the former print journalist for taking a couple of months off. After all, he signed on as national media manager in 2015, and that was after rolling stints at Rio Tinto, the ASX and other organisations. He’ll finish in late November once ASIC’s Annual Forum is through.