Corporate boards ‘need new balance’ with tech-savvy directors

As he campaigns for a spot on the AGL board, Swinburne University chancellor John Pollaers argues that boards need more diversity,

Swinburne University of Technology chancellor John Pollaers.

Major companies would turn more to universities to find solutions to business problems if corporate board directors had broader backgrounds beyond competency in governance, according to Swinburne University of Technology chancellor John Pollaers.

Mr Pollaers, who is currently in a battle to win a position on the board of energy company AGL, said there was a need for a whole range of talent on boards which was generally not there now.

“It’s one of the biggest problems facing Australia, that there is a lack of directors with technology experience and technology understanding,” he said.

“There’s a lack of directors with operational leadership experience – having to lead transformation and having to transform workforces and work with unions and build things.”

Mr Pollaers said the emphasis on governance was important, it was “the foundation skill set”.

“But you do need the balance of relevant skills,” he said.

Mr Pollaers is one of four candidates put forward by Mike Cannon-Brookes’ Grok Ventures for the board of AGL at next month’s annual general meeting of the company as part of his effort to push AGL away from coal generated power to a low-carbon future.

“Without expanding the size, diversity and skills of the board, we believe AGL will continue to fall behind the rapidly transforming energy industry, and further destroy shareholder value,” Mr Cannon-Brookes wrote in a letter to shareholders.

Mr Pollaers., who has been Swinburne chancellor since 2019, is chairman of the Australian Financial Complaints Authority, and a former chief executive of Fosters and Pacific Brands.

He said corporate boards with a full range of skills – technology, people and transformation – would look widely for the information and capacity to deliver change, including to universities.

And this would lead to companies investing more in universities which become “part of the options” for finding the solutions to problems.

A deeper relationship between companies and universities would result in more industry funding for research, he said.

“The opportunity in Australian research is this growing understanding of the need to ensure that research is executable in the community and in industry to bring about change,” he said.

“So there’s a lot more focus now on the application of research.”

Mr Pollaers pointed to Swinburne’s decision to “bring technology, innovation and entrepren-eurship together”.

Sustainability is one of the areas being tackled, he said, including renewable energy integration and energy management.

“That’s a big shift in focus of the university on the application of current and emerging technologies to solve real world problems,” he said.

Mr Pollaers pointed out the relevance of this to AGL. He said he had put on the table, as an example, the fact that “you can no longer think about energy as essentially generated resource”.

“We’re moving into a decentralised energy system with a two-way flow of electrons and the opportunity for energy management systems to be operating behind the meter as well as in big installations of renewable energy,” he said.

“I think you’ll find that there’s a lot of work going on in universities that already points to how many of these problems can be solved in a way that puts Australia in the leadership position.”

Mr Pollaers said corporate boards in Australia needed to recognise that the set of appropriate skill sets for directors changed over time. Too often Australian boards recruited to replace the skill set they just lost, or recruited “from within a small group of ASX directors that they know”.

“So right now they do need people with execution experience, leading organisational change, delivering turnaround transformation, because for the next five years it’s going to be a critical period of decision making and action,” he said.