Page 180 - Be Reasonable – Do It My Way , Peter E. Daly AM, My Story

CHAPTER 18 - INDUSTRY AFFAIRS, ICA AND MY BOARD CAREER TAKES OFF
appointing Grahme Bond as Chief Executive. Three years later, in 1991, as I alluded to in the story of CIC, I succeeded Grahme as the CEO myself. How it came about is in itself interesting. I retired from NW in 1991 after 39 years of service. During my NW years, I was on 12 Boards, mostly inter-company Boards and in addition I was on the Zoological Parks and Gardens Board including the ICA Board on which I served as President for two years (1986/1987).
Soon after my retirement I was approached by the President of the ICA enquiring whether I had any interest in becoming the CEO and Managing Director of ICA on the retirement of the existing CEO, Grahme Bond. I remember having a discussion with Ray Willing of NRMA and John Cloney of QBE stressing
that I would like to be in a position to seek other Boards on the understanding my appointment would be for a limited period; which did not happen. The point I was making was that I would like to remain in the industry after ICA. They agreed, subject to me declaring the details of any Boards I contemplated going onto and there was no conflict.
This was a good arrangement because it did provide me with the opportunity to go on Boards or alternatively become involved in other matters outside of the industry. It certainly worked and on retirement from ICA in 1997 I found it comparatively easy to find remunerative Boards. Over time I served on 29 Boards.I must explain that this included associated companies, but nevertheless it did involve me in a large number of meetings. To top it off, there were Committee memberships on the other Boards, mainly in the area of Audit and Compliance.
You may well ask how on earth can anyone run a company (ICA) and also serve on a number of boards at the same time?
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