Redland Investment Corp hunts for third boss in year
The acting CEO of a large council investment arm has quit her job, leaving the corporation to hunt for its third replacement in a year, prompting calls for a governance review.
Redland Investment Corporation has lost another leader with acting CEO Anca Butcher due to depart after roughly six months in the post, following Peter Kelley’s April 2014-to-December 2024 tenure.
Councillors were notified last week but no further explanation given as executive functions of the corporation, including recruitment, were matters for RIC’s independent board of directors.
However, the council said Ms Butcher would remain in the role until next month with the RIC board of directors due to meet to appoint another interim chief and begin a national search.
Ms Butcher’s pending exit will follow Mr Kelley’s confidential Christmas Eve resignation, which was kept under wraps until the first council meeting of 2025.
At that time, councillors received no detail about settlement terms, performance concerns or the recruitment process that followed.
Ms Butcher, a chartered accountant and former state government project analyst, joined RIC in 2021 as finance chief.
She was appointed acting CEO on 29 January 2025, immediately after Mr Kelley’s departure, inheriting a pipeline of projects valued by RIC at more than $1 billion including Weinam Creek marina, the Capalaba town-centre overhaul and its share of the Toondah Harbour PDA joint venture.
Internal sources said she quickly confronted cost-escalation pressures and “political impatience” to show tangible progress on signature projects that have endured years of planning delays and legal challenges.
According to his LinkedIn Page, Mr Kelley simultaneously held Redland City Council’s Project Director for Priority Development Areas role from September 2013 to April 2015, overlapping his early months as RIC chief, which his LinkedIn page says he started in April 2014.
As CEO it was his role to oversee the Toondah Harbour, Weinam Creek and Cleveland CBD Priority Areas.
Prior to that he was employed as a senior development manager with the state government’s Economic Development Queensland from 2010 to September 2013, according to his LinkedIn profile.
The council said RIC, a wholly-owned commercial arm of Redland City Council charged with delivering major development projects, would continue to operate under its existing governance and legislative requirements.
Several elected members, speaking on background because the matter remains “commercial-in-confidence”, said the second leadership loss in eight months underscored the need for a root-and-branch review, or even dissolution, of the near-decade-old investment corporation.
“Residents have a right to know why so many executives keep leaving and what that turbulence is costing ratepayers,” one long-serving council insider said.
“If RIC can’t hold senior staff or meet basic transparency tests, maybe the model is broken.”
Previous board minutes have showed a projected cost overrun for Weinam Creek civil works and a slow tender process for the Capalaba works.
RIC is registered under the Corporations Act but, as a council-controlled entity, is also audited annually by the Queensland Audit Office.
Although the council is its main shareholder, the corporation operates with a degree of commercial confidentiality, conducting some business in closed sessions, with this practice raising transparency concerns.
In March, a motion calling for enhanced transparency measures including quarterly reports and executive contract disclosures was narrowly defeated.
“Yet again, we are being asked to take it on faith that everything is fine,” one insider said.
“It’s time to consider winding RIC up and bringing its projects back inside council where normal accountability applies.”
Mayor Jocelyn Mitchell was asked to comment.
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Originally published as Redland Investment Corp hunts for third boss in year
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