ASX100 CEOs: Their path to the corner office

ASX100 CEOs: Their path to the corner office

24 September 2012 Myriam Robin

Want to be a CEO? Being an executive is a crucial first step, but not all leadership roles are likely to lead to the corner office. LeadingCompany analysed the backgrounds of the ASX100 CEOs, and discovered most were promoted after delivering results in their own little fiefdom. The rest of them were chief operating officers and chief financial officers, leaving other C-suite positions out in the cold. Australia’s top boards are opting for leaders who’ve either already demonstrated leadership success, or who bring operational mastery to the chief role.Almost half (40) of ASX100 CEOs were promoted up after heading a division of a company, often an overseas subsidiary or specialised business segment. This allowed them the chance to demonstrate to company boards their leadership in their own principality where they were in charge, making them an attractive pick for CEO.

But operational expertise was also important: just under one in four (23) ASX100 CEOs held the chief operating officer role before being promoted.

COOs were closely rivalled by chief financial officers – 16 ASX100 CEOs held the CFO role just before they go the call-up. One CEO, Brian Benari, doubled his chances by serving as Challenger’s joint CFO/COO before becoming top dog.

Take out divisional heads, COOs and CFOs, and you’re left with slim pickings for the other members of the C-suite. Two names on our list, Julian Segal at Caltex and Nick Curtis at Lynas Corporation, served as heads of marketing just before the board pulled them up. Two more – Robert Velletri at Monadelphous and Geoff Plummer at OneSteel – were appointed first as directors before being given the top role. Marius Kloppers was BHP’s chief commercial officer before his promotion, while Atlas Iron’s Ken Brinsden was chief development officer.

No ASX100 leader held the role of chief information officer roles before their current CEO position. Also absent from the list were chief human resource officers, despite this role having recently broken into the C-suite. The four women on the list came from backgrounds not dissimilar to most of the men.

Nine CEOs held their positions by dint of having founded their company, or were related to the company’s founders.

The takeout from this is clear. If you want to be a CEO, push for your own fiefdom where you aren’t answering to anyone else on a day-to-day basis. Deliver there, and the world’s your oyster.

We were interested in the path to becoming a CEO, rather than how to become a CEO of an ASX100, so in cases where someone was a CEO at another company before being bought over to their current position (quite a common occurance), we counted their last held non-CEO position.

Founders, and those related either by marriage or lineage to company founders, are listed as such. American titles such as ‘president’ or ‘vice-president’ have been given Australian equivalents.

The biggest difficulty in doing this sort of thing is that companies rarely have the same names for the members of their executive suite. Whereas positions like COO and CFO are fairly common, and fairly uniform, when it comes to executive heads of divisions, the whole thing gets very complicated. We’ve included the full title of CEOs whose previous position wasn’t a conventional C-suite role.

We could tell where someone had responsibility for a particular function (such as finance, human resources or operations) on a company-wide basis and when they were in charge of only a particular segment of a business. We grouped divisional heads together.

And lastly, the highest-ranked executive at a few companies had the title of managing director. We counted them as CEOs.

Here’s the full list, for those in the CEO role as of Friday, September 21. If you spot any errors, or if you can help us track down the previous position of Gary Stafford at PanAust, let us know!

 

AGL Energy	Michael Fraser	GM – division	Group General Manager of Energy, Sales and Marketing
Atlas Iron	Ken Brinsden	CDO
Asciano	John Mullen	COO	Chief Operating Officer at TNT Limited
Amcor	Ken MacKenzie	MD – division	Group Managing Director, Amcor Rentsch and Closures
AMP	Craig Dunn	MD – division	Managind Director, AMP Financial Services
Ansell	Magnus Nicolin	MD – divisional	President of Europe, Middle East, Africa and Asia Pacific at Newell Rubbermaid
ANZ	Mike Smith	GM	Group General Manager HSBC
APA	Michael McCormack	COO
ASX	Elmer Funke Kupper	MD – division	Group Managing Director of Asia Pacific at ANZ
Aurora Oil and Gas	Jonathan Kingsley Stewart	Director
Alumina	John Bevan	MD – division	Chief Executive Officer of Process Gas Solutions, BOC Group
Bendigo and Adelaide Bank	Mike Hirst	COO
BHP	Marius Kloppers	CCO
Boral	Mike Kane	MD – Division	President Boral USA
Boart Longyear	Craig Kipp	COO
Bank of Queensland	Stuart Grimshaw	CFO	Chief Financial Officer and Group Executive, Wealth Management
Beach Energy	Reginald George Nelson	Director	Joined as a director of Beach Energy in 1992, became CEO in 1995.
Bluescope Steel	Paul O’Malley	CFO
Brambles	Tom Gorman	MD – division	Group President of CHEP Europe, Middle East and Africa at Brambles
CBA	Ian Narev	GM – division	Group Executive, Business and Private Banking
Coca-Cola Amatil	Terry Davis	MD – division	Managing Director, Beringer Blass (wine division of Foster’s Group)
Colonial First State Property Trust	Michael Venter	CFO – division	CFO of Commonwealth Bank Wealth Management Business Unit at Commonwealth Bank
Challenger	Brian Benari	Joint COO / CFO
Cochlear	Chris Roberts	COO (Vice-President)	Executive Vice President of ResMEd
Commonwealth Property Office Fund	Michael Venter	CFO	CFO of Commonwealth Bank Wealth Management Business Unit at Commonwealth Bank
Campbell Brothers	Greg Kilmister	GM – division	General Manager, ALS Laboratory Services Group at Campbell Brothers
Computershare	William Stuart Crosby	COO
Centro	Steven Sewell	MD – division	National Head of Property Management at QIC Property
CSL	Brian McNamee	GM – division	General Manager, Faulding Product Divisions, F H Faulding & Co
Caltex	Julian Segal	CMO
Crown	Rowen Craigie	COO
David Jones	Paul Zahra	GM – division	Group General Manager of Stores and Operations
Downer EDI	Grant Fenn	CFO
Duet Group	David Bartholomew	COO
Dexus Property Group	Darren Steinberg	MD – division	Managing Director of Property, Colonial First State Global Asset Management
Echo Entertainment	Larry Mullin	COO
Fortescue Metals	Nev Power	COO
Fairfax	Greg Hywood	Director	Newspaper Editor, then appointed independent non-executive director at Fairfax Media
Goodman Group	Gregory Goodman	Founder
Graincorp	Alison Watkins	MD – division	Managing Director of Regional Banking, ANZ
GPT	Michael Cameron	CFO
Harvey Norman	Katie Page	Founder
Insurance Australia Group	Mike Wilkins	COO
Iluka Resources	David Robb	MD – division	Managing Director, Wesfarmers Energy
Investa	Scott MacDonald	COO
Incitec Pivot	James Fazzino	CFO
JB Hi Fi	Terry Smart	COO
James Hardy	Louis Gries	COO
Leighton Holdings	Hamish Tyrwhitt	MD – divisional	Managing Director, Leighton Asia Limited and Leighton Contractors (Asia)
Land Lease	Steve McCann	CFO
Lynas Corporation	Nick Curtis	CMO
Mirvac	Nick Collishaw	MD – division	Executive Director, Investment
Monadelphous	Robert Velletri	Director	Appointed to Monadelphous’ board in 1992
Macquarie Group	Nickolas Moore	MD – division	Head, Investment Banking Group, Macquarie
Metcash	Andrew Reitzer	MD – division	Group Operations Director, Russia and Isreal for Metcash
Myer	Bernie Brookes	MD – division	Chief General Manager, Supermarket Buying and Marketing, Woolworths
NAB	Cameron Clyne	GM – division	Executive General Manager of Group Development, NAB
Newcrest Mining	Greg Robinson	CFO
News Corp	Rupert Murdoch	Founder
Origin Energy	Grant King	MD – division	Managing Director Energy, Boral. Became Origin CEO when Boral Energy split from Boral.
Orica	Ian Smith	?	Formerly CEO of Newcrest. Previously held unknown position at BHP
Oil Search	Peter Botten	MD – Division	Head of Exploration role at Oil Search
OneSteel	Geoff Plummer	Director	Held several divisional executive roles at OneSteel, then joined the board.
OZ Minerals	Terry Burgess	GM – division	Head of Business Development, AngloBase, a division of Angle American.
Paladin Energy	John Borshoff	Founder
PanAust	Gary Stafford	?
Perseus Mining	Mark Galderwood	MD – division	Managing Director, West African Operations, Afminex
Primary Health Care	Edmund Bateman	COO
Qantas	Alan Joyce	GM – division	Head of Jetstar, a division of Qantas
QBE	John Neal	GM – division	Chief Executive Officer, Global Underwriting at QBE
QR National	Lance Hockridge	GM – division	President of Industrial Markets, Bluescope Steel
Ramsey Health Care	Chris Rex	COO
Rio Tinto	Tom Albanese	GM
ResMed	Peter Farrell	Founder
Regis Resources	Mark Clark	CFO
SEEK	Andrew Bassat	Founder
Sims Metal Management	Daniel Dienst	MD – division	Chief Executive Officer of Metal Management, Sims Metal Management
Stockland	Matthew Quinn	MD – division	Managing Director, Stockland Trust Management Limited
Sonic Healthcare	Dr Colin Goldschmidt	Professional	Worked as a histopathologist before appointment as CEO.
Spark Infrastructure	Rick Francis	CFO
SP AusNet	Nino Ficca	MD	Managing director of SPI Powernet from 2003 to 2004, when he was appointed CEO.
Santos	David Knox	COO – division	Executive Vice President Growth Businesses, Santos
Suncorp	Patrick Snowball	MD – division	CEO Norwich Union Insurance, a division of Aviva
Seven West	Don Volte	COO (Vice-President)	Executive Vice President of Atlantic Richfield
Sydney Airport	Kerrie Mather	Professional	Before becoming CEO Sydney Airport’s owner, MAp, she was a corporate aviation advisor
TabCorp	David Attenborough	MD – division	Managing Director, Wagering, TabCorp
Transurban Group	Scott Charlton	COO
Telstra	David Thodey	MD – division	Chief Executive Officer, Telstra Wholesale
Toll Holdings	Brian Kruger	CFO
Tatts Group	Dick McIlwain	Founder
Treasury Wines	David Dearie	MD – division	Managing Direcot, Australia and New Zealand Wine, Fosters Group
UGL	Richard Leupen	COO (President)	As President, reported to CEO at Kaiser Engineers
Westpac	Gail Kelly	GM – division	Head of Customer Service Division at CBA (was CEO of St George before the Westpac merger)
Westfield	Steven Lowey	Founder
Wesfarmers	Richard Goyder	CFO
Whitehaven Coal	Tony Haggarty	MD – division	Managing Director Australia, Agricoal
Worley Parsons	John Grill	Founder
Woolworths	Grant O’Brien	COO
Woodside	Peter Coleman	COO (Vice-President)	Vice-President, ExxonMobil
Westfield Retail Trust	Domenic Panaccio	CFO