SCA Chairman Max Moore-Wilton will step down from the role some time during the 2015 financial year.
The decision was documented in the company’s financial report, tabled today at its shareholder meeting. See our other report for details of the financial results.
The report this year contains an extensive section reviewing the company’s performance in terms of the ASX Corporate Governance Principles and Recommendations, which recommends companies should have an independent chairman and a majority of independent directors. With recent changes to board members, the balance has tipped away from independent members, so the company plans to redress that.
In line with that proccess, in addition to the Chairman stepping down, the company also announced a range of new board members in a “board renewal” process:
[These] changes have provided the Board with a significant opportunity for renewal through the appointment of three new Independent Directors who bring a highly relevant and diverse range of expertise to the Board table.
On 19 August 2014, the Board appointed Rob Murray, Kathy Gramp and Glen Boreham as Non-Executive Independent Directors. They will commence duties as of 1 September 2014 and stand for election at the forthcoming AGM in October this year.
Rob Murray’s experience across major international and domestic food and beverage industries and as CEO of the former Lion Nathan business (now Lion) brings the insights and needs of major marketing and sales organisations to the Board.
Kathy Gramp is a Chartered Accountant and has direct knowledge of the media industry, having served as the CFO of the Austereo Group between 2003 and 2011.
Glen Boreham has a strong technology background, having had an executive career at IBM which culminated in his role as CEO of IBM Australia and New Zealand between 2006 and 2010. Glen is Chairman of the Advisory Boards of the University of Technology NSW and that institution’s Business School.
Leon Pasternak is Deputy Chairman and Lead Independent Director. He fulfils the role of chair whenever the Chairman is absent or conflicted due to his other roles, assists the Board in reviewing the performance of the Chairman and provides a separate channel of communication for stakeholders.
Leon Pasternak, Chris de Boer and Peter Harvie will continue in their respective roles to ensure Board continuity and to provide support to the incoming Board members and management. It is important that the Company retains the benefit of their knowledge of the business and its corporate history.
The company this week also appointed Nick McKechnie as CFO, following the recent surprise resignation of Peter Lewis.
McKechnie was previously CFO at ConnectEast, a private company operating Melbourne’s EastLink tollway. Prior to that he worked at Virgin Media in London, where he was Head of Finance for Virgin’s Consumer Division in 2005-2006.
That's another two gone, plenty more from the board, management and senior programming roles to be swept along before SCA can truly claim they have renewed themselves.
It will take an acquisitive shareholder to make that happen.