Government scours around for talent for new board

By Deborah Hill Cone

Friday 21st September 2001

Prime Minister Helen Clark says the two independent appointments to the restructured Air New Zealand board will be "absolutely critical."

And Ms Clark has outlined the ideal candidate she would like to see for the two board appointments into which the government will be have an input - but don't expect Stephen Tindall to be up for the job.

Ms Clark said practically everyone in New Zealand, including herself, has a very high opinion of The Warehouse founder but "he hasn't run an airline."

She said she has not got anyone in particular in mind for the job.

"If you were looking at the range of skills on that board, you would want someone who had a good feel for marketing, a good insight into the tourism business and you need people who could keep an eye on the accounts. The odd thing is [the current] board would seem to have all that but it hasn't worked well," Ms Clark said.

Ms Clark said the public was starting to get more insights into the difficulties of the board and how it was structured - and that this would have to be remedied.

"You had the block from Singapore Airlines and the block from Brierley... and some handholding between the two and independent directors not representing any shareholders ...who bats for Air New Zealand in that set up?" Ms Clark said.

Asked whether the new board structure would be any different, Ms Clark said that was why who took on the new board roles would be so important.

Meanwhile the two names being bandied about in the tourism industry as likely contenders for the jobs are former Tourism Industry Association chief executive Glenys Coughlan and Sky City chief executive Evan Davies.

Ms Coughlan spent seven years as strategic planning director at Air New Zealand, has an MBA and marketing experience as well as putting together the new tourism strategy unveiled two months ago. Being a woman is not a negative either.

Evan Davies won Ms Clark's approval for overseeing the new tourism strategy as chairman of the NZTIA - she liked its "partnership between industry and government" approach. Under Mr Davies' leadership Sky City has been one of the country's most profitable companies.

An outside contender would be Television New Zealand chief executive Rick Ellis, a former chief executive of Ansett New Zealand who also spent some time at Ansett Australia.

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