The inside story of how the Super Retail saga led to CEO Anthony Heraghty’s sacking
From being sighted at a hotel with his alleged lover to his ex-wife finding text messages, it’s been 16 months of denials from Super Retail about Anthony Heraghty’s ‘affair’. This is how it happened.
It was November 2023 when the first anonymous tip was made to the Super Retail Group whistleblower platform Whispli about an alleged sexual relationship going on between Anthony Heraghty, its chief executive, and his then head of human relations, Jane Kelly.
It could turn out to be the moment that led to his downfall.
The timing was interesting; only a month earlier Mr Heraghty’s personal assistant resigned, salacious court documents would later reveal, having been contacted by the CEO’s now ex-wife who claimed to have found evidence on his phone that the illicit affair began up to three years earlier, in 2020.
What’s more, the personal assistant observed – again according to court documents – questionable expenses, travel arrangements and the like in relation to the alleged corporate love birds Mr Heraghty and Ms Kelly. For example, one Super Retail executive had allegedly raised an internal complaint as to why Ms Kelly, who was soon destined to leave the business, had joined a trip to Germany with Mr Heraghty.
There were other things too that stood out to Super Retail managers, such as allegations in court documents that Mr Heraghty and Ms Kelly were seen behaving strangely together in the lobby of a luxury Brisbane hotel.
“Heraghty - a resident of Brisbane - enter the lobby of The Calile Hotel in Brisbane late at night to meet with Kelly - a resident of Sydney who was staying at the hotel. Heraghty and Kelly had acted in a manner that was very suspicious and suggestive that they were engaged in an intimate or personal relationship that had not been disclosed to the board,” the court documents alleged.
■ READ MORE: Super Retail chief sacked after more details of alleged affair
The same court documents also detailed an occasion where the CEO was observed by the executive running its BCF stores, Paul Bradshaw, touching Ms Kelly on the thigh.
Super Retail denied these ever happened. As of Tuesday, it is looking for a new CEO.
The scandal was confined to workplace gossip until April 2024, when it became public and included allegations of workplace bullying and a toxic work environment fuelled by the affair. Mr Heraghty was backed by the board, and backed to the hilt.
It backed him with public statements, ASX disclosures, pricey PR flaks and several millions of dollars in company funds to pay for the protracted legal battle against whistleblowers. Former chief legal officer Rebecca Farrell and co-company secretary Amelia Berczelly have made these allegations against Mr Heraghty, Ms Kelly (she left the company in late 2024) and the board of directors led by then chair Sally Pitkin.
After more than a year spent in court, strident denials and thousands of pages of legal submissions later, the Super Retail board and Mr Heraghty were still in lock-step denying an affair took place.
But all that is in doubt since Super Retail shocked the corporate world with the short announcement of Mr Heraghty’s dismissal after new, but unspecified, evidence came to light. “Not satisfactory” was the short but stinging account of Mr Heraghty’s replies.
It is believed the final straw came over the weekend as a flurry of subpoenas were dispatched late last week by Ms Farrell’s and Ms Berzelly’s lawyers, employment specialists Harmers Workplace Lawyers.
The nature and targets of those subpoenas are hidden from the public and the media, but some believe that within these was evidence or demands for documents that have now sunk Mr Heraghty and his claims, and provided clarity for the board as to what has really been going on in the Brisbane-based retailer.
Only last month, amid a tough reporting season for many companies, Mr Heraghty was the toast of the retail and corporate world having pulled off a good set of financial results which sent the shares rocketing 14 per cent, and him shedding a spotlight on the crime wave brutally waged against retailers. Both were the kind of headlines any CEO would love.
Now it’s all in tatters.
November 2023 was a busy time for speculation, rumours and complaints within Super Retail’s Brisbane headquarters and upon Whispli.
The platform likes to highlight in its own literature how it is a crucial tool by “to more proactively fix or eliminate bad behaviours that erode the integrity of your culture”.
That was the theory, but in practice this is when it all went off the rails.
Not for Mr Heraghty or Ms Kelly: he kept his job, Ms Farrell and Berczelly would later be fired (they have never worked since) and Ms Kelly was given a redundancy – a redundancy package which is argued in court documents was shepherded by Mr Heraghty, her alleged secret boyfriend.
Ms Farrell then became aware of concerns, including the first anonymous report made via Whispli (one of at least two), that Mr Heraghty and Ms Kelly were a couple, as has been alleged.
Further, there were concerns raised internally about Ms Kelly’s alleged conduct including that she had bullied her peers, team members of her peers, and other members of the finance team.
The anonymous tipster believed that the existence of the alleged relationship explained why Ms Kelly had been able to “get away with” mistreating, and bullying, team members, without consequence, court documents would later reveal. They believed the culture of Super Retail was being affected by the clandestine relationship.
For some insiders, this gelled with another disclosure alleged by the first and unnamed whistleblower: that an undisclosed intimate relationship between Mr Heraghty and Ms Kelly existed.
But this is where the internal investigations looked to have stopped. Employees of Super Retail, it is claimed in court documents, did not feel as though they could report their concerns to the board because its chair Ms Pitkin was perceived as very close to Mr Heraghty and Ms Kelly, and they felt that Ms Pitkin would somehow “sweep such matters under the carpet”.
In July this year Ms Pitkin denied allegations she covered up bullying accusations, withheld crucial documents, undermined whistleblowers or that she interfered in the reporting of allegations. The denials were contained in her own defence documents lodged by her lawyers with the Federal Court.
Ms Pitkin also denied that the board she led attempted to marginalise whistleblowers or was part of any public campaign against them in the press.
The former Super Retail chair has now retained her own legal counsel since leaving Super Retail, and it is unclear what happens to the case currently before the Federal Court and if Mr Heraghty will have to obtain his own lawyers.
It’s a mess.
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