Andrew Forrest: Fiona Hick wouldn’t get on Fortescue’s green bus
Fortescue executive chairman Andrew Forrest says chief executive Fiona Hick chose to step aside following differences of opinion over the company’s green transition.
Fortescue executive chairman Andrew Forrest says chief executive Fiona Hick chose to step aside after just six months in the role following differences of opinion over the company’s green transition.
Speaking to journalists for the first time after Monday’s shock announcement of Ms Hick’s departure, Dr Forrest said the company needed everyone to be moving in the same direction on the company’s strategic direction.
“What we have now is a literally galloping herd of people who want to see this company go green. So if you want to step outside that, you’re given a choice. You’re not fired, there’s no disagreement, you’re just given choice: step back in, or you call it,” Dr Forrest said.
“All I’m saying is that Fiona was given the choice and she made her own decision … We’re not going to let a single person’s disagreement with the direction of this company affect it.
“You either get on the bus or get off the bus, but you make the choice. No one was pushed.”
Ms Hick, he said, was a “really good person” and he would not brook criticism of her.
“All I can say is that people evolve, and when there is a difference between where they‘re going and where the whole mission of the company, before anyone joined, is unchanged and you might want to take it a different direction, like put a handbrake on going green, or put a handbrake on the initiatives of green energy, decarbonisation, it’s up to you to make a choice,” he said. “No one gets asked to leave, people just simply make their own choices.”
The shock leadership change coincided with a sharp 6 per cent drop in the company’s share price on Monday, with Ms Hick’s departure taking to 10 the number of senior leaders to have left the business in recent years.
Dr Forrest said Ms Hick’s swift departure – confirmed just hours after Fortescue wrapped up a lavish 20-year anniversary party at the company’s Solomon iron ore hub in the Pilbara – was an example of Fortescue’s “fail fast” approach.
He said the company had chosen to lose Ms Hick, knowing that it would be criticised in the media, rather than delay the decision out of fear of negative headlines.
The number of executives to have left the business in recent years, he said, was far lower than he expected to see given the enormity of the company’s green transition ambitions.
He said he believed a dozen C-suite executives would ultimately leave the company during its green transition, and the number of reported executive departures had been inflated by “throwing in rats and mice from around the place”.
Dr Forrest denied any issues with Fortescue’s governance, saying that no company could have generated the returns it has over its history if it did not have good governance.
“Our governance is superb. Bad governance would have not made a call after six months, it would have made a call for what’s best for the board of directors and you guys to make us all look okay,” he said.
“Instead we’ve given the media a clean shot, but it’s very good governance.”
Dr Forrest also defended his decision not to take part in the Monday morning analyst call following the announcement of Ms Hick’s departure.
That role instead fell to the chief executive of Fortescue Future Industries, Mark Hutchinson, and Ms Hick’s replacement as Fortescue Metals, Dino Otranto.
The pair repeatedly deflected questions from analysts seeking more detail around the reasons for Ms Hick’s departure, with some labelling the call a “train wreck”.
Dr Forrest said he had taken the opportunity to let Mr Hutchinson and Mr Otranto shine “and they shone”.
“Letting them take it was great, knowing full well that I would sit down with media as soon as I possibly could,” he said.
“That was also part of the plan,” he added. “But I do know that if I was there, the opportunity for those two to shine and operate as a team would not have been there.”
Mr Otranto was already with the company when Ms Hick was first announced as the new CEO late last year.
Dr Forrest said his new chief executive had previously had “a few barnacles on him” but had since embraced the company’s values.
“He was a bit pushy, a bit-top down management leadership, ‘my way or the highway’, exactly like all other companies,” he said.
“Really in the last six to nine months did we see him evolve to manage through values.”
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