Page 181 - Be Reasonable – Do It My Way , Peter E. Daly AM, My Story

CHAPTER 18 - INDUSTRY AFFAIRS, ICA AND MY BOARD CAREER TAKES OFF
At the time of writing my autobiography, I am currently on 12 Boards, which again includes associated companies. The majority are not-for-profit Boards. I never really sought any further Boards following my retirement from being active in the industry apart from ADICA, a subsidiary of the MS&AD Insurance Group, which is one of the largest Japanese companies in the world. My relationship with them goes back some 24 years as I was the original agent in Australia prior to them underwriting Australian business which officially occurred some 10 years ago.
During my periods on the respective Boards, I have built great relationships with people who have served on them. Whilst I will reflect on some of the Boards, to cover them all is impractical., but I will talk about a few of them and in particular some of the stories arising out of the appointments which will be of interest.
Joining the ICA as Chief Executive and Managing Director was quite a change and a challenge. Even though I had been President of the Council for two years, there was still a lot to learn. Indeed, what I expected to be a brief interlude lasted six years until 1997. They were exciting times.
I found myself appearing in every communication and newspaper, particularly the Financial Review. If there was media interest in a subject on insurance, I would be involved. We also forged a much closer relationship with the National Insurance Brokers Association (NIBA) and there was not a single NIBA conference where ICA was not a keynote speaker.
Terry McMullan’s function at this time was to get me in front of people. I spent much time preparing speeches, most of which were written by Terry or other public relations people. I even found myself talking about technical matters on insurance which was quite a change, given that basically I was a marketing person. If as sometimes happened, I was asked a ticklish technical question at a conference I always found the answer by calling on colleagues in the audience, who were far better experienced that I was, to respond.
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