Sunday 15 September, 2013

Dame Jenny Shipley reflects on Mainzeal collapse

Dame Jenny Shipley, who was the independent chairwoman of Mainzeal until she quit just weeks before it collapsed in February, has told TV One’s Q+A programme that the company’s failure led to a period of self-reflection.

“I think any failure, whether it’s losing elections or having a crisis as a chair and director, there are several tests you need to impose on yourself - whether you’ve done your best, and that’s a personal test but also a performance test; if you’ve done something wrong, you have to be prepared to be held to account, and I stand by that view; as a company director, you need to always ask yourself whether you acted in the best interests of the company. Taking employees, your contractors, your customers and clients, the law and so on. I have had to deal with that, and it’s not been easy, but I’ve learnt a lot. I’ve learnt a lot in self-reflection, but I’ve also learnt that companies do sometimes, with the best intention of the world, fail, and now all I’m doing is trying to assist the liquidator to see that whatever we can resurrect from this will assist creditors.”

Dame Jenny told Q+A host Susan Wood she had informed other boards she is a director on about the Mainzeal situation.

“Because if you’re a chair of one company, then the reputation that you carry, the benefits you bring, these are things your peers take into account. I’ve been completely transparent with them, as you would expect me to be,” she says.

Dame Jenny was speaking to Q+A about the upcoming 120th anniversary since women received the vote, and how far women had come since then. Dame Jenny says Kate Sheppard would “cheer in so far as we’ve changed most of the law, and women are equal in the law”, but would be disappointed that in some areas women’s participation was “stuck”.

Less than 15 per cent of NZ’s top 100 companies have women on their boards. She says women offer a different conversation and outlook to a board which can add value to a company.

“Diversity in a boardroom or in a Parliament means that you just have different minds, different life experience, different ways of thinking about patients or customers or voters so that when you bring that intellect, you look at opportunity and risk, and then you have it much better balanced. The boards I chair that are 50/50, we take a much broader view than the boards where I’m a complete minority still.”

Q+A, 11-midday Sundays on TV ONE and one hour later on TV ONE plus 1. Streamed live at www.tvnz.co.nz

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Q+A

SUSAN WOOD INTERVIEWS DAME JENNY SHIPLEY

SUSAN WOOD
Dame Jenny Shipley is chair of Global Women, an organisation that champions women’s success, and one that I have worked on on occasion, and she joins me now. A very good morning.

DAME JENNY SHIPLEY - NZ’s First Female Prime Minister
Good morning.

SUSAN What do you think Kate Sheppard would say 120 years later? How are we doing?

JENNY I think she would cheer in so far as we’ve changed most of the law, and women are equal in the law. She’d be disappointed that in some respects we’re now getting stuck, though. So, overall, terrific, but others are now overtaking us, Susan, and I’m sure Kate would say, ‘So what do you need to change?’ And that’s where the debate should go. Yes, we’re leaders; yes, we have been ahead; yes, we were first. We’ve been first in having women prime ministers elected, but, actually, we still need to pay attention, and there are things we can do.

SUSAN So, a couple of things. Let’s talk about Parliament for starters. A third of that is women. What do we need to do to change that? Why are stuck at this number?

JENNY Well, all political parties need to realise that voters won’t elect them if they don’t have diversity. And so it’s women, it’s Maori, it’s Pacific. But not only because we’re women. It’s just that it’s smart if you have women and men and others represented in your society at the table. So I would encourage all political parties to check who’s at the table.

SUSAN You’d need to be encouraging National, because they’re the worst. 25 per cent female.

JENNY That’s true, but it was a darn sight worse when I began, and so it’s always a journey. But I think every political party has to put this jersey on.

SUSAN Is there something in the way we, as women, front up? Is there something that we are doing? It’s all very well to say give us the chance, but is there something that we are doing that is not getting us there?

JENNY I think sometimes we talk about who we are and what we’ve done, but we don’t then say, ‘And this is how I dream. This is the sort of NZ I would like, this is the sort of skill I can bring to your company. While I’ve got this experience, if I applied it, you would be in a different space.’ So I don’t know that we extrapolate forward in a way, and we don’t sell our story. Men are shameless in selling their story. Women are often reserved. So we do need to encourage women to know their story and then tell it strategically as to how they can add value.

SUSAN We speak a different language, though.

JENNY We do.

SUSAN If you read a piece of paper a man has written and a piece of paper a woman has written, you can actually pick one written by women. We talk about emotion, we talk about feeling more. Is that part of our problem?

JENNY No, no, but that’s actually part of the opportunity. You see, diversity is not a politically correct idea. Diversity in a boardroom or in a Parliament means that you just have different minds, different life experience, different ways of thinking about patients or customers or voters so that when you bring that intellect, you look at opportunity and risk, and then you have it much better balanced. The boards I chair that are 50/50, we take a much broader view than the boards where I’m a complete minority still.

SUSAN So there are different discussions in boards that you’re chairing with more women?

JENNY Completely. There are different discussions not only in boards, but certainly in every for a; NGO fora that I work in, boards that I work in, my political experience. When you get women there, it changes, but when you get the balance of both talent - not just because we’re skirts - talent and qualification and experience, world view, but also understanding customers or voters and their aspiration. The sort of identity we want to be as New Zealanders, the sort of NZ we want to be, the sort of company and its potential. That’s when you see the massive difference if you have women and men and often other diversity around the customer profile. So a younger director or a Maori director or a Pacific director can often be highly relevant not because of the brand, but because of the experience and the interpretation they bring to the conversation.

SUSAN Speaking of directors, women sitting under 15 per cent. Diversity not particularly working in terms of the boardroom. Will diversity reporting make any difference? Will it have the impact, do you think?

JENNY Look, I think it will help, and I’m glad the NZ Exchange has taken some steps to say get on with this. But we need champions. I want every chairman listening to this and every chief executive, whether they’re women or men, to think about what is the talent you need on your board and whether you’ve got it, and then if there are identified areas, go and hunt them down. But I would encourage them that if it’s an engineer, go and look and see if there’s a woman engineer qualified. I found a brilliant woman engineer to sit on the Genesis board, and so she doesn’t only bring that experience, she brings her life view and also her managing director view. So diversity means that you need drive, and in Australia, the biggest change was when Sir Ralph Norris and others became champions for change, and they made changes in their organisation, and they said they wouldn’t do business with people who weren’t committed to change. We have some NZ business leaders now putting their hand up. The 25 Percent Club, Global Women, IOD [Institute of Directors], Michael Barnett’s organisation, Women On Boards. A lot of them, but actually it only really changes if you measure what you’re doing, because in my experience, it’s the champion, and then what gets measured, gets done.

SUSAN Failure. I want to talk about that, because we know women are more risk-averse than men. You certainly suffered a significant failure with the Mainzeal collapse. What have you taken from that?

JENNY I think any failure, whether it’s losing elections or having a crisis as a chair and director, there are several tests you need to impose on yourself - whether you’ve done your best, and that’s a personal test but also a performance test; if you’ve done something wrong, you have to be prepared to be held to account, and I stand by that view; as a company director, you need to always ask yourself whether you acted in the best interests of the company. Taking employees, your contractors, your customers and clients, the law and so on. I have had to deal with that, and it’s not been easy, but I’ve learnt a lot. I’ve learnt a lot in self-reflection, but I’ve also learnt that companies do sometimes, with the best intention of the world, fail, and now all I’m doing is trying to assist the liquidator to see that whatever we can resurrect from this will assist creditors. And that’s also an obligation of a director in a post event like this, along with trying to see that my employees, many of whom I knew, have done as well as they could, and I’m very relieved to say that the vast majority of them have found very good quality work, and that is a personal relief to me.

SUSAN And when you ask yourself those questions that you just outlined, how have you answered them?

JENNY Well, I’ve had to be very systematic, and I’ve been very direct with other boards that I’m a director on, and of course, those are also obligations. Because if you’re a chair of one company, then the reputation that you carry, the benefits you bring, these are things your peers take into account. I’ve been completely transparent with them, as you would expect me to be.

SUSAN Thank you so much for your time this morning.

JENNY Thank you.

ENDS

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