Allan Bollard: A man of surprising reserves

By ALISON HORWOOD

He has a great economic mind and has held the position as our top civil servant.

But when he stood up at a recent charity function, he announced, "Hi, I'm Alan Bollard and I'm between jobs at the moment."

For those who don't get it, he's crossing the road from No 1, The Terrace, to No 2.

That is from the Treasury, where he held the top job as secretary, to the Reserve Bank, where he has been appointed governor. That makes him the man who sets our interest rates.

His job change prompted my job challenge of interviewing Bollard for a personal profile. Economists, I feared, were dry. Dryer than double-toasted Vogels in the morning. Long on opinions and short on answers - and that didn't make good reading, I thought.

Then a Reserve Bank spokesperson pointed out that Bollard would not be interviewed until he had finished negotiating the policy targets agreement (or what you and I might call a job description) with Finance Minister Michael Cullen.

Disaster. Then I talked to his friends, colleagues and former workmates and, by all accounts, it seemed the only similarity between my opinion of an economist and Bollard was the glasses.

As well as the predictable responses about his professional capabilities, this son of two scientists is apparently funny. Not rib-crackingly funny, but funny in a dry, intellectual way.

"He's got a great sense of humour, it's just that it takes you a while to figure out he's got one at all," said one former colleague. Given Bollard's reputation as private and self-effacing, I figured it was better that those around him told me about the real him, rather than me running the risk of not finding out at all.

"We have a particular picture of economists as people who are narrow and obsessive," said Brian Easton, a Wellington economist who hired him at the Institute of Economic Research in 1984. "I notice that there is only a handful of economists you are likely to see at a concert, or at the theatre. One of those may be Alan. He has a wide range of interests."

First, he does needlepoint. One friend says there is a piece of work he can describe only as a Van Gogh lookalike hanging in his Kelburn home. He also assembled a kit-set car known as a Spartan in his garage. In his youth, he wrote the great unpublished conspiracy novel, Chocolate Soldiers in the Sun, and is working on another about the German Enigma cipher machine, the code for which was famously cracked by the Allies, allowing them to read vital German military communications in World War II.

He lived on the southern Cook Island of Atiu for a year - no, it wasn't a holiday - studying aid projects for his PhD. He has developed a multi-media software game where players act as the Treasurer. And he lists as one of his interests the reassembly and operation of Bill Phillips' famous hydraulic economic model (the world's first economic computer).

The mix of people at Bollard's 50th birthday bash last year is testimony to his wide range of interests. Not only were there prominent civil servants but also a handful of "oddities" gathered on his back lawn in Kelburn.

He has an eccentric element, say his friends, which makes him very attractive company and fun.

Then there's the sense of humour which, according to those who know him well, means he often wears a wry smile.

"Go and find the old Christmas cards from Treasury," says Easton, referring to the cards Bollard commissioned during his time there.

The 2001 version has a Dr Seuss-style figure of Bollard on the cover, dressed in a Santa suit and next to a bag bursting with vote bids. It reads, He pondered for hours till his brain got too sore. Then the Sec thought of something he hadn't before! What's fiscally prudent for me to explore? What spending's peripheral and what is core? Perhaps after Christmas I'll ponder some more ... Then he doffed off his hat and he walked out the door.

The card from the year before reads, 'Twas the night before Christmas , and through Treasury's home, not a creature was stirring but one solitary gnome. His brow deeply furrowed, he tugged at his hair, and pondered the capital accounts with great care.

That's a soupcon for Super and a portion for planes, a bit for the bank, and a tranche for the trains. Then carefully, checking his numbers were right, he laid down his ledgers and switched off the light. But I heard him exclaim, 'ere he went for a beer: Happy Christmas to all and a peaceful New Year!

Just as the cards seemed a departure from Treasury tradition, Bollard also broke a few moulds when he arrived at the organisation in 1998. For starters, he was the first "outsider" appointed as secretary for 80 years, and he got there by a slightly circuitous route.

At Mt Albert Grammar School in Auckland, where he was dux, the young Bollard was more interested in English and history than maths. His mother taught at Avondale College and his father, Ted, was an eminent plant scientist at the old Department of Scientific and Industrial Research who later headed the Royal Society. He made a pact not to follow in their footsteps and once told a journalist that the ghastly task of helping his mother dispose of foetal pigs waiting for dissection helped him come to that decision.

Intent on being a historian, Bollard decided on an economics history course at Auckland University, with an accompanying economics paper. He was on the way to becoming what some colleagues would call the best industrial economist in the country.

After finishing his thesis, the young PhD got his first job working for the South Pacific Commission in New Caledonia. It was a development that led to marriage to fellow economist Jenny Morel, now a prominent venture capitalist.

They married in a Wellington registry office. Mark Prebble (formerly Treasury budget manager and now with the Prime Minister's Office) was best man, and they all celebrated afterwards at a coffee bar in Victoria St.

After New Caledonia, Morel landed a job in Paris with the OECD, which is where Bollard wrote Chocolate Soldiers in the Sun. ("He's not the only economist to have written a novel, but I don't know any who have published one," says Easton.)

After several years in London, the couple returned to Wellington in 1984.

Bollard was hired as an industrial economist at the Institute of Economic Research, and became director in 1987.

"I saw him as an extremely competent economist, possibly the best industrial economist in the country," says Easton. "He gave enormous intellectual leadership at the institute."

He says Bollard approaches things in a scientific manner, possibly because of his father's influence.

Bollard left the institute to become chairman of the competition watchdog, the Commerce Commission. Peter Allport, his deputy at the commission who took over the chairmanship for 14 months when Bollard left, describes him as a "a good people manager with a strong, analytical mind".

"When he arrived at the commission I wondered whether he was a bit academic, but he wasn't at all. He had a strategic mind and he took the Commerce Commission and developed it in ways that had not been done before."

Bollard's appointment to the Treasury in 1998 could be considered the pinnacle of his career, but his subsequent move to the Reserve Bank can only be a move up, says Allport, now a director of No 8 Ventures, a venture capital fund where Morel is also a director.

"Not only are Alan and I good friends, but I have a great deal of respect for his ability. I couldn't think of a better person for the Reserve Bank position and filling his shoes at Treasury will be a hard task."

Easton puts the same sentiment in a different way.

"I was very disappointed when Alan went to Treasury because the country lost a fine industrial economist, and I was equally disappointed when he was appointed to the Reserve Bank because the country lost a fine Treasury Secretary."

During his time at the Treasury, Bollard was credited with leading a culture change. He was appointed during a National Government, but oversaw a shift away from New Right policies.

Cullen credits Bollard with the Treasury's more open-minded style these days, and its more collaborative approach with other Government departments.

Iain Rennie, a deputy secretary and manager for the budget and macro-economic branch at the Treasury, says Bollard's approach was in part thanks to his academic background and that of heading smaller organisations.

"Alan has a strong intellectual curiosity," he says. "He had an interest in ideas. There was a real desire for Treasury to share our ideas and pull in the ideas of others."

Bollard took out a layer of management, allowing junior staff more delegated authority, and went open-plan.

"A positive feature about Alan is that he sets a framework where people can do things differently. He had a clear idea about where he wanted Treasury to go, but allowed autonomy about how we got there," says Rennie.

"He rarely said, 'This is the way things have got to be done.' He put a framework around people, asked questions and helped them come to their own judgments."

Bollard's style is quiet and effective. He is not an extrovert and doesn't like to be the centre of attention. (But at the Reserve Bank he will be, like it or not.)

At the Treasury, Bollard made time to sit down regularly with all 300 staff members and talk about their work.

"We had a staff member leave recently and they said at their leaving function that he was probably the only secretary who could put a name to every face," says Rennie.

"Alan enabled and empowered people. There are systems under his ownership in this organisation. Those systems work well and they are likely to continue."

Although he put in the long hours, Rennie says Bollard delegated effectively and would get home each night at a reasonable hour.

"He managed to balance well his home and work life."

Allport agrees that family life is important to Bollard, Morel and their two teenage sons, Albert and Lewis. They often spend time together at a forestry block in the Tararuas.

"I'm still not sure how they fit everything into the 24 hours in the day," he says. "In this case you have both parents at a very senior business level."

A neighbour who has known the family for years and is "sometimes lucky enough" to attend their regular parties, says an aunt helped with Albert and Lewis when they were younger.

"Those boys are a credit to the family; you couldn't get nicer, more humble kids," he says.

Albert, 17, has just won the prestigious Girdlers' Scholarship and will attend Corpus Christi College at Cambridge University. He gained 464 in Bursary and was ranked fourth in the country.

Formerly a keen sportsman, he threw himself into his studies after being diagnosed with a bone tumour in his knee in the fourth form. He underwent six months of chemotherapy, much of it in Auckland, and has since had several operations.

"Albert's illness put a lot of strain on the family," says Allport. "But outwardly they all seemed to have coped with it really well, and it's pulled them together."

Roger Moses, headmaster of Wellington College, says, "Albie is a fab kid."

Not only has he excelled academically, but the way he has risen above adversity has been an inspiration to everyone, he says.

Following his first operation - when he was forced to give up his much-loved rugby and cricket - each pupil put in $1 to buy him some golf clubs.

"I know the Bollards could afford to do it, but it was a nice gesture.

"The day we gave him the golf set, Alan was there, and it was the most moving thing that I have seen happen at the school," Moses recalls.

As the neighbour from Kelburn says, "They are just a close, loving family. They are accessible and gregarious. I can't think of a nasty thing to say about them."