Another Harbour City socialite concurs. “There are people who get to their 50s and 60s and think they’ve earned the right or paid their dues,” they said. “There’s a group of people who are really eager and then there’s a group of people who don’t do much. You sit in these rooms and you think who’s going to do something and no one raises their hand.”
At the Australian Chamber Orchestra’s “Chairman’s Council” the perks are explicit. For $17,500 a year you get “special concerts” and “cocktail parties and dinners in private homes” with hosts including “Aussie” John Symond, David Murray, Neville Crichton, Milgrom and Simon and Katrina Holmes à Court.
Many institutions, according to Australian Business Arts Foundation CEO Jane Haley, revolve around a power group of “magnets” like Mordant, Rupert Myer (the new chairman of the Australia Council), David Gonski (STC and countless others) and visual art overlords the Kaldors. Between them they control a substantial minority of sinecures and are permanently pestered for their trouble.
Haley, whose organisation advises arts boards on who to hire, says it’s the “work, wealth or the network”?—?not the prestige?—?that effective boards look for in new members. When you get someone on, you’re not only tapping their bank balance, but also their work ethic and contact list.
While AbaF offers a formal matching service, Haley says established networks tend to be relatively self-sufficient, offering up last week’s example of Bruce Parncutt’s elevation to president of the NGV’s board of trustees, succeeding rich lister QC and rural restaurant owner Allan Myers. Myers was then in turn named chair of the National Gallery of Australia.
(The switcharoo followed a spat earlier this year when Myers was re-appointed amid suggestions that director Naomi Milgrom was behind a push to install herself in the top job?—? Milgrom is married to John Kaldor who in 2008 gifted a record $35 million collection to the Art Gallery of NSW).
According to Mordant, a good skills mix remains key. “You’re not looking for a mates board. You’re looking for people who bring the skills that will be valuable to the organisation and who collectively can be impactful,” he said.
Lachlan Murdoch, Geoff Dixon and Katie Page-Harvey sit amid the MCA’s heavy hitters, but all are happy to put their shoulder to the wheel to defend and extend the museum’s daunting collection. Murdoch’s many friends from a stint on the MCA’s youth committee in the 1980s persist to the present day.
Positive Solutions director Cathy Hunt, whose firm founded a “board connect” service to professionalise arts boards, says the presence of business leaders is an overwhelming positive, especially on less glamorous not-for-profits that can struggle with fundamentals like balance sheets.
“There’s a big different between different types of boards and different types of organisations,” she said. “Things have changed a hell of a lot. It’s good when business leaders get on arts boards, because then they go back to their organisations and espouse what’s good about the arts. I believe a lot of the people that are on those boards are actually passionate about those organisations.”
It’s not just arts boards sprinkled with magic dust. Government approved or independently appointed boards like the ABC and the Reserve Bank also command serious respect. The Australian Museum is chaired by Telstra chair Catherine Livingstone and the Salvos’ Southern States division sees Myer chief Bernie Brookes saddling up next to Herald & Weekly Times executive Peter Blunden.
And it would also be remiss to skip over members of sports boards like the Melbourne Cricket Club and the AFL Commission, which, if they were killed in a plane crash, would seriously gouge Melbourne’s cultural fabric. There’s also a curio in Sydney’s high-powered Centennial Park Trustees?—?some of whom, like Ita Buttrose reside nearby. The private school boards examined by Crikey last month in the wake of the sacking of high-profile MLC principal Rosa Storelli also rate, but struggle for the most part to reach a critical mass.
Sydney-based entrepreneur Rose Herceg suggests one way to overcome the vanity issue is to develop an informal working committee that has specific roles and responsibilities attached. On a functional board, if the work isn’t getting done and purses aren’t being prised open, expect to be executed.
“I remember when I sat on the old Text Media board (Crikey chairman Eric Beecher was an owner) I knew what my role was: it was to write strategy and think of big ideas and new businesses. Otherwise you’re just a tyre-kicker. I’d like to think that if I didn’t do that Eric would have chucked me out the window,” she said.
Tony Grybowski?—?executive director of the arts organisations division of the Australia Council, the body that provides $120 million in government funding to the sector each year?—?says corporate governance has massively improved since the release of the landmark 1999 Nugent review into the nation’s 31 major performing arts organisations. There were initial fears the review would lead to the “corporatisation” of the arts.
“Helen Nugent was absolutely right,” he said, having just concluded friendly chats with his 28 chairman over the last couple of months. ”Over that time the ‘I want to go on a board’ thing has significantly changed. People that go on an arts board work really hard for no money. And they want to make a contribution.
“They are just so passionate and committed, it really is just so amazing.”
