Rampart Talks: Jayne Hrdlicka

For the fourth episode of Rampart Talks, I interviewed Endeavour Group’s new chief executive Jayne Hrdlicka at the company’s Melbourne office.

Rampart readers will be all too familiar with Jayne’s career, a former Bain & Company consultant who transitioned into corporate leadership as the CEO of Jetstar, then the a2 Milk Company, then Virgin Australia. She is also known to the broader public as, until last month, the long-serving president of Tennis Australia.

Those with long memories might also remember that Jayne came in for some pungent criticism in some of my old Rear Window columns, so I was surprised and frankly impressed when she nevertheless agreed to sit down with me and talk it out.

Jayne might’ve been portrayed somewhat two-dimensionally by the media – and I certainly own my part in that – but nobody who watches this episode will be left in any doubt that she is an incredibly textured character.

We discussed her admiration for her former boss Alan Joyce, and her sadness at the way his career ended. We went over her explosive fallout with the board of a2 Milk, and how she could’ve handled that differently. We explored her plans for turning around Dan Murphy’s and Endeavour’s pokies barns, traversed her nine years as queen of the Australian Open and dealt with her personal tragedy: losing her husband Jason and father Richard in quick succession.

Here's Jayne’s take on Alan Joyce:

"Oh, look, he’s one of the most extraordinary CEOs I’ve ever had the privilege of working with just bar none. And as a consultant at Bain and Company, my lens is pretty broad in terms of the number of CEOs that I have worked with globally. And the thing that made him so uniquely capable was his listening capability. He listened well, he invited debate and discussion, he encouraged people to thrash things around. And we made exceptional decisions as a consequence of that… I don’t think he was the same CEO at the end as he was at the start. Encouraging active debate and discussion was a hallmark of his leadership, and the thing that I most respected, and people have to feel confident and safe to be able to do that effectively. I’d like to think that they might have made different decisions if everybody felt really comfortable debating and discussing the trade-offs."

Only Rampart subscribers can watch the full 66-minute version. A 15-minute cut is viewable for Rampart free list members as well as on YouTube, Spotify and all the major podcast players.

I hope you enjoy this as much as I enjoyed making it – and please share it with others. Look out for the next episode, with Afterpay co-founder Nick Molnar, coming on February 1.

Previous episodes: James Packer, Gillon McLachlan, Brad Banducci