Switkowski is a self-professed “magnet for trouble”,having been involved in plenty of corporate war zones. But he has not gained a reputation as someone who recommends institutional demolition and complete rebuild. He is more about renovation.
At one time he was seen as a go-to guy for the Liberal Party. For example,he was Tony Abbott’s captain’s pick to chair the NBN in 2013 when it was struggling with the rollout of its service to all Australian households.
Abbott and his then communications minister,Malcolm Turnbull,wanted to overhaul Labor’s plan for the near universal rollout of the broadband fibre network,supplementing it with a cheaper mixture of different technologies.
Switkowski is a self-professed ‘magnet for trouble’,having been involved in plenty of corporate war zones.
Earlier,Switkowski had been tapped on the shoulder by the Howard government to review the hotly contested topic of developing nuclear energy in Australia.
Students of corporate history will remember him as the former chief executive of Telstra,who was ultimately pushed out by a deeply divided and dysfunctional board of directors at a time when Switkowski himself admitted the telco was facing challenges.
More recently,Switkowski was parachuted into Westpac as part of a three-person team tasked with assessing what ailed the banking giant,after themoney-laundering compliance scandal that cost it more than $1.3 billion.
AnAustralian Financial Review columnist remarked at the time that “the panel adopted an extremely sympathetic,even indulgent attitude in evaluating the board’s responsibility” and that “the advisory panel largely exonerates the Westpac board from any responsibility in the sorry saga”.
The report stood in stark contrast to a review commissioned by the prudentialregulator APRA into the Commonwealth Bank in 2018 slamming the board and senior management and culture,citing its widespread complacency,overconfidence,excessive complexity and insularity.
More recently still,Switkowski accepted the controversial role as chairman of Crown Resorts following several inquiries into the casino’s misdeeds that found Crownfacilitated millions of dollars being laundered through a bank account of its subsidiary,and allowed operators with links to organised crime to arrange for junket players to gamble at the casino.
Switkowski’s casino gig to oversee Crown’s rehabilitation was short-lived,ending abruptly when the company was acquired by private equity firm Blackstone.
PwC is shaping up as a challenge every bit the size of the others.
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