Brad Banducci earned $8.65 million last financial year as CEO of Woolworths. With that kind of compensation, you’d think he could anticipate and answer difficult questions during a television interview.
We now know Banducci will be retiring from the role, announced within 48 hours of the trainwreck of an interview he shared on ABC’s 4Corners on Monday night that saw him rising from his chair and walking out, before later returning to complete the interview.
Amanda Bardwell will replace him from September 1. She will be the first woman to take the role and currently leads a key division of the supermarket giant, WooliesX.
It is unfortunate that the appointment of Woolworths’ first female CEO happens to come just as public scrutiny of the supermarket giant has further ramped up.
But regardless of whether Monday’s interview brought forward the retirement announcement, one thing is for sure: Banducci performed poorly during the interview. He was ill-prepared and hostile in threatening to end his participation. Dressed in a Woolworths shirt and wearing a ‘Brad’ nametag, he is far from being an average Woolworths employee.
The $8.3 million Banducci earned in the 2023 financial year is just the start. Having been at Woolworths for 14 years, including more than eight as CEO, he has amassed a significant portfolio of stock with the company, estimated to be worth around $24.4 million.
CEOs at Australia’s biggest companies earn around 55 times that of the average Australian, according to recent analysis of the Australian Council of Superannuation Investors. Most of these CEOs are men and all but one in the top highest earning CEOs in Australia are men. Shemara Wikramanayake is in the 5th sport.
It has been sickening to consider for years, but these astronomical amounts keep getting bigger just as the inequality gap gets wider.
Then there’s the issue of being a company CEO so intrinsically linked to our experience buying groceries. Surely such a CEO should expect and prepare for public scrutiny, whether from the media, via a senate inquiry or elsewhere?
Banducci has been in the role for almost nine years, overseeing a supermarket chain holding 37 per cent of the grocery sector, and leading a company with great influence over many Australians. Some of us might be able to choose to avoid a certain supermarket chain, where there is access to alternatives available. But few of us can avoid what the lack of competition in this sector generally does to grocery prices.
So expect the questions. Stay in your seat and answer them.
Amanda Bardwell will receive a salary of $2.15 million a year, including superannuation. Subject to shareholder approval, she may take up to $3.23 million in short-term bonuses and up to $3.7 million in long-term bonuses.
She has been with Woolworths for 23 years and is credited with leading WooliesX from its early beginning in 2015 to becoming a $7 billion business today.
Bardwell will provide a fresh opportunity for Woolworths, especially if she can be spared having to front the senate inquiry. But like many women appointed to such roles following the public scrutiny of the men they succeed, it will be a job rebuilding trust with Australians who see big profits coming at the expense of consumer and supplier suffering.
With significant work ahead for Woolworths in dealing with the fallout and outcomes of a Senate inquiry and rebuilding trust with Australians, we can be included to think that Bardwell is in a “glass cliff” situation. It’s familiar territory, with the appointment of a “first” woman in the job coming just as there’s a mess to clean happening a number of times over the past six months. Vanessa Hudson’s start as CEO of Qantas, the first woman in the role, came as Alan Joyce suddenly moved his planned retirement and left Hudson with rebuilding trust among partners, unions, customers and the country.
But Woolworths says the timing of Banducci’s retirement announcement had nothing to do with the interview on Monday night and that a succession plan has been in the works for months. Banducci himself has said he will front up to the senate inquiry and that he’s not moving on because he’s “burnt out” but rather because he feels it’s time to “pass the baton on”.
“I do not intend to go quietly into the night,” he said.
So I’m not willing to describe this as a “glass cliff” situation, just yet. It may actually reflect the fact Woolworths has plenty of women in leadership pipeline positions.
But we do need more conversations about CEO pay, the rising inequality gap, and the responsibility CEOs take in return for earning so much.