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Speaker 1: Welcome to Fear and Greed Sunday feature. I'm Michael Thompson.

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Speaker 1: In February of last year, legendary admin Harold Mitchell passed

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Speaker 1: away and you'll hear more about him in a moment.

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Speaker 1: But I thought this interview was a very timely one

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Speaker 1: to revisit this weekend because it's not just about Harold

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Speaker 1: Mitchell and the incredible career that he did have. It's

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Speaker 1: also about the role of the celebrity CEO, the culture

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Speaker 1: personality and what happens in a founder led business, and

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Speaker 1: the interview even references Wise Tech and Richard White very

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Speaker 1: much in the headlines this week. Overall, though, it's just

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Speaker 1: a fascinating conversation between Sean Aylmer and Damon Kitney, columnist

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Speaker 1: for the Weekend Australian and the author of The Fortune Tellers,

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Speaker 1: who know so many of these business leaders and knows

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Speaker 1: what drives them and what drives their business. It's a

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Speaker 1: great chat. I hope you enjoy it.

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Speaker 2: Welcome to the Fear and Greed Business Interview. I'm Sean Aylmer.

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Speaker 2: Over the weekend, the business world lost one of its

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Speaker 2: large than life characters, Harold Mitchell. Mitchell dominated the ad

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Speaker 2: buying space after founding Mitchell and Partners in nineteen seventy six.

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Speaker 2: By the time he sold to Egypts Group for hundreds

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Speaker 2: of millions of dollars more than a decade ago, his

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Speaker 2: company was booking ten percent of all media advertising in Australia.

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Speaker 2: After selling, he remained a constant presence in the industry.

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Speaker 2: As well as continuing his passion for philanthropy and the arts,

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Speaker 2: he also knew how to generate a headline. One man

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Speaker 2: who saw that firsthand is Damon Kidney, columnist for the

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Speaker 2: Weekend Australian and the author of The Fortune Tellers, the

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Speaker 2: stories of some of Australia's greatest business leaders. Damon, welcome

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Speaker 2: back to Fear and Greed. Thanks Sean Harold Mitchell. You

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Speaker 2: interviewed him a number of times over the years. What

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Speaker 2: was he like in person, because certainly we heard lots

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Speaker 2: about him. For those of us who didn't know him,

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Speaker 2: what was he really like?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I would say Sean a very enigmatic character and

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Speaker 3: also larger than life. And unfortunately, in Harold's early years

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Speaker 3: and you can look up the first as he was

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Speaker 3: literally larger than life. He had a major weight issue

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Speaker 3: during his media buying Supremo days, you would say, And

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Speaker 3: he went very publicly on the record to say that

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Speaker 3: he had gas band surgery or how you described that,

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Speaker 3: and yeah, he just looked a completely different person. Also,

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Speaker 3: Harold was very public in talking about his battles with

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Speaker 3: alcohol and basically giving it up for good, and he

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Speaker 3: founded a charity which now deals with a particularly young

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Speaker 3: people with alcohol issues. So Harold was always very open

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Speaker 3: about his health. As a business person, as they say,

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Speaker 3: he's an advertising legend, probably one of the most gifted

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Speaker 3: people in terms of the gift of the gap that

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Speaker 3: I've ever dealt with. Harold always had an ad scept

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Speaker 3: for everything and often would talk verbetum about about all

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Speaker 3: that he was doing. And yeah, just a consummate deal maker,

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Speaker 3: I guess you would say if you look at what

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Speaker 3: Harold did over the years and the relationships that he forged,

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Speaker 3: that gift of the gad got him some amazing transactions

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Speaker 3: for his media buying firm, and then that extended into

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Speaker 3: other parts of his life later where he was on

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Speaker 3: the Crown Board for a number of years. He did

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Speaker 3: major transactions around sport and with Kerry Stokes at Channel seven.

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Speaker 3: It was one of the first out on Sunday afternoon

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Speaker 3: to Lord Harold. They were very close. So LOOKI yeah,

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Speaker 3: he was just one of a kind in terms of

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Speaker 3: me personally. He would always take your phone call, always

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Speaker 3: call you back, even through the most difficult days of

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Speaker 3: Crown when you were desperate for Harold to call you back,

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Speaker 3: he would always do that. Unfortunately, at those moments he

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Speaker 3: would not tell you anything, which was also a testament

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Speaker 3: to him. Didn't leak unlike some others. So he was

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Speaker 3: always very proper, I guess is the word. I know

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Speaker 3: he's been criticized in some circles on that and had

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Speaker 3: some tangles as regulators, but certainly in my experience, a

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Speaker 3: very proper businessman too.

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Speaker 2: He was kind of one of the last of a

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Speaker 2: generation of the cult of the CEO. So there are

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Speaker 2: people like Lindsay Fox, there was Harold Mitchell, there was

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Speaker 2: John Singleton's probably another one you can throw into that

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Speaker 2: category older gentlemen now, but really built their businesses around themselves.

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Speaker 2: All those three people were owner builders, so to speak,

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Speaker 2: in terms of the business world. Is that still around me?

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Speaker 2: Are we seeing that kind of cult of the CEO

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Speaker 2: like we did in the seventies eighties nineties. John Elliott

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Speaker 2: of course was the great one, the great Melbourne identity

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Speaker 2: on that, but we just don't seem to have that

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Speaker 2: as much anymore, no, And I.

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Speaker 3: Think, to be honest, investors have lost patients with the

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Speaker 3: cult of the CEO. And when you do see it

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Speaker 3: now in a couple of those names you mentioned, they're

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Speaker 3: usually in private business, they're not in public company markets.

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Speaker 3: And I think, you know, obviously there's been some wonderful,

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Speaker 3: you know, cold figures as CEOs of public companies over time.

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Speaker 3: You mentioned a few, but I think investors now see

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Speaker 3: through hubris a lot quicker than they did in the past,

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Speaker 3: because there's just so much scrutiny now from every edge,

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Speaker 3: through social media and media everywhere of public company CEOs.

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Speaker 3: And I actually find that, you know, there's been an

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Speaker 3: increase too in the in the public relations industry that

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Speaker 3: surrounds the public markets, which has really sanitized I think leadership,

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Speaker 3: and you know, that sort of cult of personality probably

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Speaker 3: wouldn't survive the public relations scrutiny and regime that's now

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Speaker 3: in place with a lot of these businesses. It's all about,

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Speaker 3: you know, focusing on obviously the shareholders, but also, you know,

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Speaker 3: stakeholders is the bigger question. So that's about bringing in

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Speaker 3: you know, the community, particularly around the environmental, social and

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Speaker 3: governance issues fantas ESG. So you know that's really taken

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Speaker 3: away from I guess the concentration on the personality that

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Speaker 3: we saw previously. And that's at the end of the day.

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Speaker 3: I think if you ask some of the big investors,

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Speaker 3: that's not a bad thing. We all have super in

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Speaker 3: these companies and I think, you know, the focus on performance,

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Speaker 3: the focus on stakeholders has been to the benefit of

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Speaker 3: us as investors through our super Compared to the past.

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Speaker 3: I mean, the last great could and personality CEO that

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Speaker 3: I dealt with was woll King, who ran a company

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Speaker 3: called Layton Holdings, and that was the ultimate culture personality.

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Speaker 2: Well for good and bad, damon for good and bad.

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Speaker 3: True, true, And unfortunately, Laton is no longer with us.

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Speaker 3: You know, it's now morphed into a company called Simic.

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Speaker 3: It's owned by the Spanish, isn't it. It's still a

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Speaker 3: public company, but you know it's majority owned offshore. And unfortunately,

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Speaker 3: and while we'll acknowledge, I think, you know, the cold

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Speaker 3: of personality in that company, the key man risk. Basically

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Speaker 3: in the end, it was the dismantling of late and

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Speaker 3: that can be the negative part of the cult of

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Speaker 3: personality story for a CEO.

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Speaker 2: Stay with me, Damon, we'll be back in a minute.

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Speaker 2: My guest this morning is Damon Kidney, columnist for the

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Speaker 2: Weekend Australian and the author of The Fortune Tellers. What

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Speaker 2: about Alan Joseph Quantas because he's not far off the

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Speaker 2: sort of cultish until the end there. Obviously it went

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Speaker 2: bad for him, but his predecessor, a guy called Jeff Dixon,

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Speaker 2: very similar. He certainly worked media very well. So in

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Speaker 2: airlines they just it seemed to attract people like that,

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Speaker 2: or maybe that's just how they run their business. Now

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Speaker 2: I'm guessing Vanessa Hudson's not going to be like that.

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Speaker 2: But where does Alan Joyce fit into this?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean Allen was a like ERL Mitchell enigma

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Speaker 3: really because you know, famously, a gay Irish guy comes

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Speaker 3: here and takes probably the biggest brand in the country

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Speaker 3: and you know, builds it up into a bulletproof machine essentially.

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Speaker 3: Then they encountered the COVID pandemic and obviously, you know,

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Speaker 3: all airlines went through a disastrous period there at the

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Speaker 3: end of the day, you know, if COVID hadn't happened,

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Speaker 3: Alan probably would have stepped down earlier. He's always claimed

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Speaker 3: publicly that he stayed on to see the airline through

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Speaker 3: that period. And unfortunately, like in politics and in sport,

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Speaker 3: you can outlive your days, and unfortunately, I think for Alan,

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Speaker 3: the last period of his reign really turned into one

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Speaker 3: of a bit of hubrious I still am amazed to

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Speaker 3: this day about the share sales transactions that happened, the

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Speaker 3: fact that they were approven. That was really the beginning

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Speaker 3: of the end for Alan. But look, you know, Sean,

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Speaker 3: you know, I know, I'll enjoy us pretty well. And

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Speaker 3: I admired amazingly what he built, the resiliency, showed a

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Speaker 3: very charming character, intellectually gifted, build amazing relationships. But unfortunately

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Speaker 3: there was a streak of Allen nothing against him being irish,

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Speaker 3: but he did have a bit of a temper sometimes.

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Speaker 2: And or something like that.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, and unfortunately, you know, he Look, the thing you

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Speaker 3: admire about Alan is an emotional guys, so that's what

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Speaker 3: helped him build the business. But unfortunately, when things go

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Speaker 3: bad and emotion takes over, you see what happened. So yeah,

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Speaker 3: it's he could well be, you know, the last great

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Speaker 3: cult of personality CEO that we see in this country

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Speaker 3: in public markets. Private market is different.

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Speaker 2: They're still there, So I'm going to alter that a

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Speaker 2: little bit in public because we still do have some CEOs,

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Speaker 2: so Greg Goodman running Goodman Group, Richard White running WIS

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Speaker 2: Tech Global, but they certainly don't try and find the

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Speaker 2: limelights like some of these other guys. But I'm assuming

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Speaker 2: investors and employees are very keen on greed. Greg Goodman

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Speaker 2: running Goodman Group and Richard White running Wise Tech Global.

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Speaker 3: And you can say the same for Kerry Stokes at

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Speaker 3: seven West and the same for Jerry Harvey at Harvey Norman.

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Speaker 3: I mean, yeah, you're right, there are still a few

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Speaker 3: in the public markets. Those are certainly Jerry Harvey's not

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Speaker 3: tried publicity. But I think, look, there's a there's there's

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Speaker 3: research that's been done for over the years where you know,

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Speaker 3: studies have been done on owner founder lead companies and

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Speaker 3: at the end of the day, they tend to outperform

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Speaker 3: over the over the longer term. And that's a difference

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Speaker 3: from the Allen Joyce Well King scenario because they're they're executives,

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Speaker 3: not owners and founders. So there's a key difference I

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Speaker 3: guess between that sort of owner my mindset that you

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Speaker 3: see in players now like Richard White and Greg Goodman,

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Speaker 3: as you said, versus us to use the term celebrity CEO.

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Speaker 3: I think that's the key distinction that should be made.

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Speaker 3: But you know, as the Crown experience has shown with

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Speaker 3: James Packer and the difficulties of that firm, you know

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Speaker 3: it doesn't always work out for the best. Although Packer

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Speaker 3: would very clearly say that he created a lot of

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Speaker 3: shareholder value over his time as the major sharehold of Crown,

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Speaker 3: and that is correct.

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Speaker 2: As a biographer of Packer, Damon. This segues nicely into

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Speaker 2: your new book, The Fortune Tellers. So the stories of

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Speaker 2: some of Australias grows business leaders in thirty seconds. Give

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Speaker 2: us a rundown on what it's about.

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Speaker 3: Thirty seconds, Jane, Well, look, it's just it's really just

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Speaker 3: a collection I guess of the work that I've done

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Speaker 3: in the Weekend Australian and a couple of other outlets

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Speaker 3: over recent years. There are a couple of stories from

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Speaker 3: my further past when I work with you at the

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Speaker 3: AFR Sean. But really it's a story of celebrating stories

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Speaker 3: of success, and that's what the title is. And all

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Speaker 3: these stories are very human stories, many that haven't been

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Speaker 3: told before, of people who have gone through amazing challenges

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Speaker 3: in their life and have succeeded in business. And I hope,

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Speaker 3: you know, people that buy it will really learn from

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Speaker 3: the stories that are told in the book. And as

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Speaker 3: I said, some of them have only told this story

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Speaker 3: for the only time in the book, so yeah, hopefully

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Speaker 3: people will learn from it.

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Speaker 2: I look forward to reading it. Damon, thank you for

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Speaker 2: talking to.

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Speaker 3: Fear and Greed Pleasure Sewan. Thanks.

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Speaker 2: That was Damon Kidney, columnist for the Weekend Australian and

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Speaker 2: the author of The Fortune Tellers. This is the Fear

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Speaker 2: and Greed Business Interview. You join us every morning for

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Speaker 2: the full episode of Fear and Greed, Australia's best business podcast.

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Speaker 2: I'm Sean Elmer. Enjoy your day.