Andrew Penn: Telstra CEO

While a good number of CEO rise from the bottom of the corporate ladder in one company, others like Andrew Penn made their mark in another company before being hired to a new company which they will eventually lead. 

Andrew Penn was born on January 1, 1964, in the United Kingdom.  Andrew earned an MBA from Kingston University and a FFCA from the Advanced Management Program of Harvard Business School. He moved to Australia in 1992. 

From  1990 to 2011, Andrew worked for National Mutual which later merged with AXA Asia Pacific. While at AXA he held a number of positions. Andrew was Chief Executive for Asia and spent time based in Australia, Hong Kong, Thailand and Indonesia. Richard was Group Chief Financial Officer, as well as Chief Executive Officer for Australia and New Zealand. He was  Group Chief Executive of AXA from 2006 to 2011. 

Richard joined Telstra in March 2012 as Chief Financial Officer and in May 2014, Group Executive International was added to his responsibilities. He was promoted to CEO on May 1, 2015, following the retirement of David Thodey who hired him. 

Ian Narev: Commonwealth Bank CEO

Ian Narev’s parents both survived the Holocaust. They left post-war Europe to start a new life in New Zealand were they met and got married. They shortened the family name from Narewczewitz to Narev.

Ian was actually a child star at the age of 12 appearing in “Children of Fire Mountain”, the 1979 television series in his native New Zealand.  Instead of focusing on acting he change priorities and did very well in his academics. He graduated from the University of Auckland with a degree in English and law. He was also the Editor-in-Chief of the Law Review.

Ian did his masters degree in international corporate law in 1994 at Cambridge University in the United Kingdom. He was the top student of his year. Ian earned a Masters of Laws in International Relations in 1998 from the New York University where he was a Hauser Scholar.  

He worked as a lawyer specializing in mergers and acquisition then later joined consulting firm McKinsey & Co. as a consultant in the financial institutions practice of the firm, working in strategy and organizational change engagements for four of the 10 largest financial institutions in the U.S.  Ian worked in McKinsey’s New York, Sydney, and Auckland offices between 1998 and 2007. He became a global partner in 2003, and from 2005 until he left in 2007 was head of the New Zealand office of McKinsey.

Ian joined Commonwealth Bank, one of the largest banks in Australia and the world in 2007. He was Group Head of Strategy and was responsible for corporate strategy development, mergers and acquisitions and major cross-business strategic initiatives. He led the Group’s $2.1 billion acquisition of Bankwest in 2008 and the Group’s investment in Aussie Home Loans.

Then on January 2009 until September 2011 Ian was Group Executive, Business and Private Banking, which is one of the Group’s six operating divisions. It has about 200,000 business customers, 1 million trading customers, and employs over 4,000 people.

For his outstanding work Ian became the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Commonwealth Bank on December 2011. 

Grant O’Brien: Deep Woolworths Knowledge

Grant O’Brien is the current CEO of Woolworths the Australian supermarket giant.  He was appointed Managing Director and CEO effective October 1, 2011. While some companies hire outside talent for the top job Grant is an inside company man having a career with Woolworths that spans more than 25 years.

He started as an accountant in Purity Supermarkets in Tasmania, a division of Woolworths Limited. Other positions he has held included Marketing and Merchandising Manager of Purity, Director New Business Development, Chief Operating Officer Australian Food and Petrol, and Deputy Chief Executive Officer and CEO Designate.

Most companies would like to have their CEOs with deep knowledge and experience with regards to the company. Possessing this kind of information means the CEO cam make very informed decisions. Grant has this kind of knowledge because even when he wasn’t hired as an account in Tasmania he had already worked in the company before as a night filler stacking shelves at the Purity supermarkets, while studying accountancy in 1986.

Grant is one individual who really started from the bottom and worked his way to the top gaining knowledge and deep insight about Woolworths along the way.

Sam Walsh: Rio Tinto Big Boss

One of the largest mining companies in the world, Rio Tinto appointed Sam Walsh as CEO in January 2013. Walsh has a new challenging position to say the least. He replaced the former CEO Tom Albanese after Rio Tinto had write-downs of $22 billion in two years.

Walsh did not start out in the mining sector. Before joining the company he spent twenty years in the automotive industry at General Motors and Nissan Australia. An Australian citizen, Walsh went to Brighton Grammar School in Melbourne.  He earned a Bachelor of Commerce from Melbourne University. Walsh also completed a Fellowship Program at Kettering University in Michigan, USA.

At Rio Tinto Walsh has held a number of senior positions.  He was chief executive of the Aluminum group from 2001 to 2004.  During 2004 to 2009 he oversaw the rapid expansion of the Iron Ore group. Walsh led the successful mining operations and expansions in Pilbara, Western Australia. Under his leadership the productive Pilbara iron ore business developed to account for over 80 percent of Rio Tinto’s net earnings.

Rio Tinto and its shareholders are hoping Walsh can spread his profit making talents to the rest of the company.

Gail Kelly: Top Banker

It’s a common practice for some executives to have protégés and fast-track them to one day run the company. For Gail Kelly she worked at major banks in Australia and became the CEO for two banks. For her it can really be said that it was her talent that brought her to the top more than being a protégé of a more senior executive.

Rising to the highest post of a company is challenging enough and not everyone gets that lofty position. For Kelly it’s been tougher. Unfortunately the way human society is setup the woman is usually the one expected to raise the kids and take care of the household.  So unless you partner is willing to be a househusband (in Kelly’s case her husband is a pediatrician) it’s one hell of a balancing act.

Kelly only gave birth twice but has four children because she had triplets. Imagine having to raise three babies of the same age at the same time. As she recalls there was a time she forgot to drop one of her kids to school only realizing the child was at the back seat of the car when she was already at the company parking lot. There was also an instant when she had one of child admitted to a hospital (where her husband worked) so she could get some much needed sleep.

Her banking career has been marked by outstanding work.  Originally from South Africa, she started as a teller in 1980 for a South African bank. She quickly rose to managerial positions. In 1997 Kelly and her husband decided to move to Australia. Applying with the four major Australian banks she was hired in a senior position at Commonwealth Bank.

Once again she proved her worth and rose through the ranks. She was so good that in 2002 another bank, St. George hired her as CEO. There Kelly increased profitability and capitalization. This led to rumors of her returning as CEO of Commonwealth Bank in 2005 when its CEO was set to retire.

She stayed on at St. George Bank then became CEO of another major bank, Westpac in 2008. St. George was subsequently taken over by Westpac the same year.

Gail Kelly has simply been a notch above the rest.