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rmacculloch
Nov 2, 20243 min read

Is Lack of Diversity of its Leadership one Reason for Spark's Plummeting Share Price and Performance?

Telecom company, Spark NZ, is in trouble. It started this year with a share price of over $NZ 5. Its now around $NZ 2.80 - a decline of nearly 50%. Shareholders who've seen their wealth wiped are furious. A Main Stream Media journalist said its bosses had to field "hostile" & "misogynistic" questions at its General Meeting. Blaming gender is reprehensible. Let's instead take a look at the diversity of Spark's senior leadership. Many folks have tried linking less diversity on Boards to worse performance. A former NZ Treasury Secretary said "Having greater diversity broadens the experiences & perspectives within organizations .. [it] enables better ideas, solutions & services” I've never understood this line - isn't it important to hire the best, regardless of background, gender & ethnicity? Shouldn't merit be the deciding factor? Anyway, let's just go with the Treasury Secretary & compare the background of Spark Chairperson, Justine Smyth, to its CEO, Jolie Hodson. They're on LinkedIn (see below).


  1. CEO Hodson is an Aucklander, having done a Bachelor of Commerce degree at the University of Auckland. Chairperson Smyth is an Aucklander, having done a Bachelor of Commerce degree at the University of Auckland.


  2. CEO Hodson's BCom was in Accounting. She graduated in 1991. Board Chair Smyth's BCom was also in Accounting. She graduated in 1990. The two of them overlapped, in terms of doing the same degree, at the same University, in the same subject.


  3. The CEO and Chair of Spark are almost the same age - in their early 50s - they finished their undergraduate degrees at similar times.


  4. CEO Hodson worked at accounting firm, Deloitte's from 1992 to 2000. Chairperson Smyth, worked at Deloitte's from 1997 to 2000. They again appear to have overlapped.


  5. CEO Hodson then worked at Lion, the brewery, in Sydney, Australia, from 2000 to 2003. Chairperson Smyth also worked at Lion - it also appears in Sydney - from 2000 to 2012. They again appear to have overlapped.


  6. CEO Hodson became Spark's Chief Financial Officer around 2013. Chairperson Smyth became Spark's Chair in 2017. In 2019, Hodson was appointed the new CEO.


To work at the cutting edge of telecoms technology, may it not be a tad important to have (at least some) of the top bosses having top class engineering backgrounds? Or at least a bit of diversity in their backgrounds? Look at former French state-owned telecoms provider, Orange (Spark is former state-owned provider, Telecom NZ). Its CEO is Christel Heydemann, an engineer from the École Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées. She worked at Schneider Electric. Board Chair, Jacques Aschenbroich, is also an engineer from a top French School.


But good luck to Spark - its like most other Kiwi public companies run by folks with BCom-LLB degrees - without backgrounds in the technology behind their industries. Go ask Kiwi Rail. Go ask Fletchers. Who needs an engineer in those outfits? After all, you can just put the ferry on autopilot. Maybe the NZ private sector should blame itself for NZ's low productivity. Maybe my mates - many of whom are mathematicians, engineers & computer scientists, left NZ since Corporate NZ put them down and threw them in the data & engine rooms, telling them they don't have leadership and comms skills. Funny how many of them now own their own companies or are CEOs of foreign corporations.




rmacculloch
Oct 30, 20243 min read

The Australians Make it Official: Labour Leader Hipkins, aided by his henchmen in the MainStreamMedia, Wrecked NZ's Economy by Ordering Vaccines Late & Destroyed Trust in our Government

Days after this Blog released its Two Minute Covid Inquiry, which argued Labour Leader & former Covid-19 Minister, Chris Hipkins, together with former PM Ardern, and Health Chief, Ashley Bloomfield, ordered the Covid vaccine late, which crushed the NZ economy and smashed trust in government as it forced them into an over-reliance on lock-downs in 2021, the Australian Covid Inquiry has released near identical findings, almost word-for-word:


The first wide-ranging inquiry into the nation’s pandemic response has found delays procuring COVID-19 vaccines cost lives and delivered a $31 billion hit to the economy.


In NZ's case, it was a $15 billion hit, which is why our health system is now underfunded, infrastructure crumbles & teachers underpaid. Australia & NZ matched each other in terms of snail's pace vaccine roll-out, probably because we copied each other, and didn't match world best practice. This Blog, and myself, were savaged by the Labour Government at the time, mainly via by its henchmen in the Main Stream Media, for daring to argue the late order had caused a calamity for NZ. Sir John Key defended us. NewsTalk ZB put me on their show. Noone else. The following lines from the Sydney Morning Herald are most telling:


Australians don’t need reminding of what it feels like to be subject to stay-at-home orders, .. five-person picnics, made to wear face masks outdoors or get vaccinated to go to work. Most lived through it. What is now clear is that they won’t do it again.


Not according to Mr. Bloomfield's editorial in the latest NZ Medical Journal. He says we need even more stringent lockdowns next time around, involving NZ's "security services" and full "security apparatus", which I presume means the army and SIS intelligence services. At least the tell-it-as-it-is Aussies state in their Inquiry that the main lesson is how the Ardern-Hipkins-Bloomfield style approach destroys society as we know it. These lines from the Australian Inquiry can be photocopied to the NZ experience:


Australians’ trust has been eroded, health systems are struggling & inflation pressures from government pandemic stimulus are still hurting the economy five years after the first COVID-19 case was detected, the first wide-ranging Inquiry into the national response has found .. The most disturbing finding from the Inquiry released on Tuesday is that trust among Australians has been eroded. Its so broken that surveys find 1 in 5 people would not get a vaccine offered by the government in a future health emergency. Only 3 in 10 had high trust in the federal government to have done the right thing at the height of the pandemic. This will be its most damaging legacy.


The latest Trust surveys in New Zealand record a similar across-the-board erosion of trust.


The Inquiry delivered a resolute verdict about how our leaders failed us. Trust started high. But as the months wore on and sacrifices piled up, they didn’t explain their actions. Nor were those actions based on evidence. Widespread school closures, for example, were never recommended by the Australian Health Protection Principal Committee. Children are still affected by hits to their mental health, school attendance and academic outcomes. Vaccine mandates are an even more concerning case study.


NZ doesn't need to waste money on Covid Inquiries. The Aussies have done ours for us. It matches what this Blog argued since 2021, as evidenced by our writings & radio interviews. Maybe more than any other institution, our Main Stream Media - Radio NZ, One News, Herald, Newshub (who phoned me to get stuck into my late-order-vaccine claims & discredit me) and Stuff - should take a look at themselves & ask why they sold out Kiwis by not objectively scrutinizing NZ's government during those times. No wonder you're bankrupting. Noone likes you or trusts you anymore.


Sources:




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