Deloitte Top 200: Why it was a tough year to be a chairperson

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It’s been a year of pressure for many chairs of company boards, with a handful having to solve major performance issues while also hunting for replacement chief executives.

Ryman Healthcare chairman Dean Hamilton and SkyCity chairman Julian Cook both stepped into executive director roles temporarily this year, implementing new strategies
amid economic challenges.

“It was a lot for me,” Cook joked regarding working two days a week on SkyCity’s operations before hiring a new chief executive and chief financial officer for the challenged entertainment company.
“I’m quite excited by letting them be able to do it and just step back and govern as the chair should.”
Forsyth Barr managing director Neil Paviour-Smith said Ryman, SkyCity and Fletcher Building were all examples of companies where board members, and especially chairpeople, had to be very active this year.
“And probably a bunch of other companies that have been well-performing over time but have come into more challenging circumstances business-wise.
“Companies like Spark, for example, which had a really tough year.”
Paviour-Smith was discussing what boards had been through in the lead-up to the Deloitte Top 200 Awards, where a Chair of the Year would be named.
The finalists for the award that recognised the top board performer for the previous year were Synlait chairman George Adams, Port of Auckland chairwoman Jan Dawson and Briscoe Group chairwoman Dame Rosanne Meo.
Last year’s winner was Rob Hewett, chairman of Silver Fern Farms.
“It’s a difficult job to chair because the role of governance is not to be in the day-to-day, and running the company, but when you get into a crisis, you literally start running the company,” Paviour-Smith said.
“In the extreme case, probably the likes of Synlait, Ryman and others.”
Adams’ role at Synlait was critical as the company went through an uncertain era, facing failure if it could not find financing support.
“So there’s a situation where you’ve got the board doing the ultimate task, which is ensuring a company even survives,” Paviour-Smith said.
While some company issues have been caused, or worsened, by an economic downturn, Paviour-Smith said many were suffering from self-inflicted pain.
“If you look at a common theme, it’s probably less about the economic environment where companies that have really got into difficulty, and much more about the culture of those firms.
“The way in which they are being run has caused those companies to get into the difficulty they have.”
Pleasingly, boards were taking steps to address the issues, he said.
“Like Port of Auckland, which has taken probably four or five years to turn around a company that was generally very poorly regarded across its financial performance, its operating performance, its safety performance, its stakeholder management.
Chairwoman Jan Dawson had replaced the chief executive and put measures in place, he said.
“[She] made some hard decisions. They mothballed some technology, took the write-offs, swallowed the medicine and then said, ‘Let’s just get back to basics and do the simple things’.”
Ultimately, an impressive chairperson could lead in the bad times, he said.
“A good chair, I think, will firstly ensure there’s unity around the board. You’ve got the cohesion, you can take the lead, just do the hard work, make the right decisions and get on with things.
“Because sometimes boards get stuck, they can’t make decisions. Look at Fletcher Building, still trying to find a chair.”
The Deloitte Top 200 Awards were established in 1990 and are held annually to recognise and applaud outstanding individual and management team performances among New Zealand’s largest companies and trading organisations.
Scroll to the bottom of this article for a full list of finalists.
All the Deloitte Top 200 winners will be revealed at a gala event on Thursday, December 5. The event will be live-streamed from 7pm on the NZ Herald website.
This article was produced in partnership with the Deloitte Top 200 Awards and sponsors.
Madison Reidy is host and executive producer of the NZ Herald’s investment show Markets with Madison. She joined the Herald in 2022 after working in investment, and has covered business and economics for television and radio broadcasters.
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