As Australians head for the airport and their summer holidays, it’s a good time to reflect on one business leader who defied characterisation in our annual good, bad and ugly list: Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce.
If anything, 2023 looms as an even more fascinating year, when the true impacts of war, rising interest rates and a spluttering energy transition are fully felt. But that’s tomorrow’s story. For now, bask in a year of stunning highs and staggering lows.Whatever you think of Atlassian’s billionaire co-founder Mike Cannon-Brookes, there’s no denying he shook Australian business to its core this year.First came his audacious low-ball bid for AGL Energy in partnership with Canada’s Brookfield.
While Forrest’s green hydrogen revolution is at least a decade away, this month the billionaire instantly made himself a major player in Australia’s energy transition with the $4 billion acquisition ofHe is now the country’s largest owner of renewable energy assets, with 2.4 gigawatts of wind, solar and firming projects either operating or in the late stages of construction, and a 20 gigawatt pipeline of long-term projects.
Communication is arguably the second most important tool for a central banker, behind interest rates. For the RBA governor to suggest punters shouldn’t listen to him is bizarre.You know you’ve got a problem when a $250 million writedown on a failed software project isn’t your biggest problem.
Within weeks, the company’s co-founder and talisman, Hamish Douglass, had departed on medical leave, never to return in a full-time role. The performance of the company’s funds has sunk, as have funds under management – from $116 billion in November last year to just $50.2 billion a year later. NewFormer Star chairman John O’Neill and former CEO Matt Bekier.