The best people need to feel they are being judged by the best people, and because faith in this panel has to be absolute, it took a little longer than anticipated for the names to be finalised.
The newly formed 10-member Stakeholder Panel, which includes provincial, Super Rugby, Players’ Association, Pasifika Advisory Group, Rugby Māori Board, New Zealand Rugby Foundation and New Zealand Schools Rugby Union representatives, had to nominate three members to the ARP, with the New Zealand Rugby (NZR) board appointing one and nominating another two independent members in consultation with the Institute of Directors (IoD), one of whom will be chair.
The final six who made the cut are former Lions executive, NZR director and current Highlanders chairman Peter Kean; former NZR chairman Mike Eagle; IoD chief executive Kirsten Patterson; Rachel Taulelei; Forsyth Barr managing director Neil Paviour-Smith; and Pauline Winter, who has strong experience in the public sector.
The board will shortly choose a chair and begin sifting through applications, and the real pressure point for this panel is going to be working out how much weight to place on the importance of continuity, and by extension, how many members of the existing board should be kept on to ensure a retention of knowledge about various ongoing projects and plans.
The Herald understands seven members of the current board are likely to reapply – Dame Patsy Reddy has already signalled she won’t be staying on and Farah Palmer has served her full tenure and has to step down – creating a fascinating judgement call for the ARP.
While there is validity to the continuity argument, that has to be weighed against the very fact this change is happening because the current system which put the existing directors in place was deemed to be not fit for purpose.
Further, there have been multiple examples in the last four years in which the governance of NZR has been poor – such as the aggressive way in which the national body tried to force through an ill-considered Silver Lake deal in 2021, the poor leadership and decision-making around the All Blacks coaching scenario, and the lack of appropriate risk assessment about taking a second tranche of money from Silver Lake late last year.
Additionally, the independent review highlighted that the board has poor and confused oversight of NZR’s executive leadership – a core function of any board – and so there is an equally strong, if not stronger argument to be made that it would be nonsensical and potentially damaging for the organisation to retain too many of the existing directors.
NZR has also lost close to $60 million in the last two years and burned through about $25m of cash in both 2022 and 2023, suggesting it desperately needs to get control of its expenditure and risk management – which, again, is a strong basis to question just how much continuity the board needs.
Existing board members will be treated the same as all other applicants should they want to stay on – their skills and experiences measured against the needs of the role.
How strong a case the existing seven can make is debatable, but potentially the final judgement by the ARP will be that some continuity is the right call, and probably two can be accommodated on the basis that they firstly have the relevant skills and experiences, they bring additional value by having current knowledge and they may make a better contribution as part of a stronger, better-led board.
Gregor Paul is one of New Zealand’s most respected rugby writers and columnists. He has won multiple awards for journalism and written several books about sport.
