Seven West Media chief people and culture officer Katie McGrath to depart

The media company’s people and culture officer, Katie McGrath, is departing ‘to pursue private business interests’ after five years.

Katie McGrath has left Seven West Media after five years. Picture: Nikki Short.

Seven West Media’s most senior human resources executive, Katie McGrath, will exit the Kerry Stokes-chaired broadcaster and publisher after some five years at the business.

Ms McGrath, Seven West’s chief people and culture officer, was previously human resources director at ASX-listed marketing group Enero and head of staffing at Bain & Co.

Ms McGrath, who joined Seven West in June 2017, will depart in December to “pursue private business interests”, said James Warburton, the company’s chief executive. Mr Warburton, in an email to staff, wrote Ms McGrath had made a “remarkable contribution to our company over the past five years and has been a powerful and effective agent of change”.

“Under her direction, we have created new company values and a very different culture at Seven, changes that will endure for many years to come,” he wrote. “Her list of achievements at Seven includes significant industrial reform, leadership of the company’s people experience programs, and a strong focus on diversity, equity and inclusion.”

Some Seven West sources said she had, earlier this year, raised the ire of senior company figures after writing an article commending it for being the “first media company to achieve a citation for gender equality awarded by the Workplace Gender Equality Agency”.

“Not bad for a company that’s had some regrettable headlines about its own past leaders most staff would prefer to forget,” Ms McGrath wrote in the piece published by Seven in March.

The then Seven West chief executive Tim Worner resigned in 2019 after the disclosure of an affair with his former executive assistant Amber Harrison. Ms Harrison went public with a claims about Mr Worner’s conduct during their relationship, although an internal probe later cleared him of allegations of drug use and affairs with stars.

However, Seven West denied there was any concern about the piece, and described those claims as “wild speculation”.

Seven has engaged international executive search firm Heidrick & Struggles to find Ms McGrath’s replacement.