Tower survivor toughs it out

By Coran Lill

Friday 30th July 2004

Susie Staley isn't the type to hold back, which is completely at odds with her muted media profile.

The 41-year-old is Tower's longest serving director by more than four years, but trawl through media records and you'll struggle to find her quoted or even referred to.

When she is, she's likely to be incorrectly referred to as Susannah Staley. Or there will be some other stuffup.

In one lengthy piece in 2002 on the 150 most powerful women in New Zealand business, she was lumped under the agriculture category where her Pyne Gould Guinness directorship was correctly highlighted but nothing else.

Not her Tower directorships, not her Dunedin International Airport directorship, not her appointment three years earlier to the Maritime Safety Authority (which she now chairs).

Incidentally, she's the only woman on all those corporate boards.

The Tower gig is by far her most impressive achievement and she's rightfully proud of it.

In 1996, at the age of 33, the blonde lawyer replaced professional director Alison Paterson on the Tower board.

Eight years on, the Dunedinite having endured Tower's recent implosion is just as feisty as she must have been then.

Listen to her and you'll probably decide she's mightily opinionated about various former director colleagues and corporate governance. But she's probably earned the right to be heard being one of few pre-2003 directors to survive last year's gruelling Tower meltdown.

One of the main targets of her opinions is the Shareholders' Association and its chairman Bruce Sheppard.

"People have a right to jump up and down. But the Shareholders' Association has a lot of power and could be instrumental in destroying or destabilising a company. An accusation I find baffling is that directors are out to screw shareholders."

Yep this director is certainly no token board chick.

"He [Bruce Sheppard] seems to have a view that we're there lining our own pockets. There seems to be a prevailing view from the Shareholders' Association that we're out to do people over."

The view grates against her overly conscientious nature because, in relation to Tower's troubles, she used to lie awake at night agonising whether she could have done anything differently.

So she's conscientious and opinionated. What else?

In her words, stroppy, intelligent and "bloody" hardworking.

Central to achieving good corporate governance, she believes, is practising good communication. That's what she would have done differently with Tower. Started the conversation earlier between directors, and with management.

Another thing that irritates her is the concept of "named directors" which, with a smile, she says are a declining trend.

"You have to have an open mind about who you should have on the board" which is code for her dislike of directors of the eminent variety. On that note, "people think I'm running around trying to get directorships," she says disarmingly.

She denies the charge but is nevertheless happy to put forth her opinions and talents during a rare moment with the press.

"You don't have to be nasty or stroppy to be a good director. Just elicit information without killing people and learn to respect people for what they are good at. I don't see the point in picking up typos in the board meeting.

"I'm always prepared to ask the questions ... I'm not afraid to have the debate and the interaction."

She's happy to share unsettling private confessions too.

"I've always done the right thing. Well, one day I want to do the wrong thing. And I don't know what that will be like."

If she ever and that's a big ever sets her mind to doing the wrong thing, it seems unlikely anyone could stop her.

Comments from our readers

No comments yet