Club Mgmt. Board of Directors as led by President Dave Barham

[Lore]

Spoiler: Timeline of events

• 15/8: President, Paul Brasher resigns, replaced by Dave Barham who foreshadows external review
  • Votes for Brasher: Peter Allen, Simon Madden, Sean Wellman
    Sean Wellman

    Age

    49

    Ht

    193cm

    Wt

    90kg

    Pos.

    Def

    Career

    Season

    Last 5

    D

    14.1

    4star

    K

    9.7

    4star

    HB

    4.5

    3star

    M

    4.5

    4star

    T

    1.0

    3star

    No current season stats available

    D

    8.0

    2star

    K

    4.4

    2star

    HB

    3.6

    3star

    M

    2.6

    3star

    T

    0.8

    3star

  • Votes for Barham: Andrew Muir, Dorothy Hisgrove, Melissa Green, Kate O’Sullivan, Kevin Sheedy
• 21/8: Senior Coach, Ben Rutten
  Ben Rutten

  Age

  40

  Ht

  190cm

  Wt

  98kg

  Pos.

  Def

  Career

  Season

  Last 5

  D

  13.4

  3star

  K

  6.3

  2star

  HB

  7.0

  4star

  M

  5.3

  5star

  T

  1.3

  3star

  No current season stats available

  D

  10.6

  3star

  K

  6.2

  3star

  HB

  4.4

  4star

  M

  3.6

  4star

  T

  1.0

  3star

  sacked
• 24/8: CEO, Xavier Campbell resigns
• 24/8: Directors to resign
  • Paul Brasher, immediately
  • Simon Madden, immediately
  • Sean Wellman, after new football director is appointed
  • Peter Allen, after AGM & finance portfolio handover in December
• 26/8: Details of coaching selection committee appointment
  • Sub-committee of 6: Josh Mahoney
    Josh Mahoney

    Age

    46

    Ht

    180cm

    Wt

    83kg

    Pos.

    Fwd

    Career

    Season

    Last 5

    D

    11.3

    3star

    K

    6.8

    3star

    HB

    4.5

    3star

    M

    3.5

    4star

    T

    1.6

    4star

    G

    0.9

    4star

    No current season stats available

    D

    9.2

    3star

    K

    5.4

    2star

    HB

    3.8

    3star

    M

    2.2

    3star

    T

    1.6

    4star

    G

    0.4

    3star

    (Chair, GM-Footy), Robert Walls, Jordan Lewis
    Jordan Lewis

    Age

    38

    Ht

    186cm

    Wt

    86kg

    Pos.

    D/M

    Career

    Season

    Last 5

    D

    23.5

    5star

    K

    12.1

    4star

    HB

    11.5

    5star

    M

    5.5

    5star

    T

    2.7

    4star

    MG

    310.5

    4star

    No current season stats available

    D

    15.0

    4star

    K

    6.8

    3star

    HB

    8.2

    5star

    M

    4.8

    5star

    T

    2.8

    5star

    , Simone McKinnis OAM, Andrew Thorburn and Dorothy Hisgrove (board member).
• 26/8: Details of external review process
  • Ernst & Young to coordinate with support from Andrew Thorburn, working closely with Nick Ryan (Acting CEO) & Dorothy Hisgrove (board member)
  • Focusing on four areas: (1) Board effectiveness & composition, (2) a review of leadership, operations and culture including the footy department, (3) the senior coach appointment and (4) the new CEO appointment.
• 26/9: Andrew Welsh appointed to the board of directors, replacing Simon Madden
• 29/9: Brad Scott appointed as Senior Coach
• 30/9: Kevin Sheedy claims decision to appoint Brad Scott was 6-1 against him
• 3/10: Andrew Thorburn appointed as CEO - alternative link
• 3/10: “External review to be handed to the board next week”: Andrew Thorburn, Crichton Medal Address
• 4/10: Andrew Thorburn resigns as CEO
• 11/10: External review preliminary findings
• 24/10: External review preliminary findings II
• 2/11: Dan McPherson appointed as General Manager of Performance & Cam Roberts as Head of Development
• 11/11: Dean Rioli appointed to the board of directors, replacing Paul Brasher
• 14/11: Tim Roberts & David Wills appointed to the board of directors, replacing Sean Wellman and Paul Allen respectively
• 28/11: Dorothy Hisgrove announced as first female vice-president (at the Essendon Women's Best and Fairest night)
• 1/12: Craig Vozzo appointed as CEO
• 13/12: Board director election results: Andrew Welsh and Andrew Muir elected
• 15/5: The club's First Nations Advisory Council established, to be led by Dean Rioli (chair, Indigenous board member), and including: Leanne Brooke (EFC EGM – Community & The Long Walk. Essendon FC), Dorothy Hisgrove (EFC VP and National Manager Partner KPMG), Kane Ellis (CEO of Illawarra Aboriginal Medical Service), John Evans (Pro Vice-Chancellor Indigenous Engagement at Swinburne) and Che Cockatoo-Collins (EM, Indigenous Affairs NBN, EFC Past Player)
• 16/5: Board of Directors declare support for the First Nations Voice to Parliament, after consultation with the new First Nations Advisory Council
• 28/8: EGM - Football, Josh Mahoney has accepted a role as GM Football Operations at the AFL
• 10/10: GM - Performance Daniel McPherson, and Head of AFLW/AFL Operations Manager Aysha Ward have been elevated to the club executive as joint leaders of the club's football department, as GM-AFL and GM-AFLW respectively

 

[Reximilian]

So this clears the way for Hird to appointed now.

 

[JT_the_Man]

Well this has been fun.

 

[Howard Moon]

When it's apparently 'acceptance' by force, I'd suggest wrongly.

Are we going to start screening potential draftees on their personal/religious views now?

You reckon they don't already? What do reckon they analyse in all meetings and psych tests and combines pre draft, Footy smarts?

 

[bennyg12]

i've conducted a review of the club's operations and have found that i should be the next ceo

Done I will back ya

 

[DapperDon]

i've conducted a review of the club's operations and have found that i should be the next ceo

You better not be vegan!

 

[Mr Bultitude]

I think I'll just stick just to footy chat from now on.

 

[Bunk Moreland]

Aston doesn’t miss much, and he hasn’t here.

God saved Essendon from Andrew Thorburn

Joe Aston
Columnist
Updated Oct 4, 2022 – 6.51pm,
first published at 6.33pm

The appointment of former National Australia Bank boss Andrew Thorburn as the CEO of Essendon Football Club landed like a turd in the punch bowl.

The fierce indignation centred around Thorburn’s extracurricular role as the chairman of a church that espouses Old Testament views of homosexuality as a “sexual immorality” and compares abortion to the Holocaust. “Absolutely appalling” is how Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews described these attitudes on Tuesday, and himself as a “disappointed Essendon supporter”.

That’s low-hanging fruit, to be sure, but Thorburn’s fire and brimstone side hustle has completely overshadowed two other preposterous ingredients of this story: first, the way in which Thorburn finagled the gig; and second, the Essendon board’s collective delusion in believing him “a man of great integrity and exceptional vision”.

Late on Tuesday, Thorburn resigned just 24 hours into his commission. Earlier in the day, he was defending how “my faith has helped me become a better leader”.

“That’s really what I want people to look at, look at my actions, look at my words as a leader and the organisations I’ve created…”

His last organisation charged customers – including dead ones – more than $650 million in fees for no service, then in the witness stand he tried to dismiss it as carelessness.

This man of great integrity was so soundly flayed by the Royal Commission into Misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation and Financial Services Industry that he was forced to resign immediately upon the release of its final report.

It caused commissioner Kenneth Hayne some umbrage that “Mr Thorburn sought to assert that no one knew this was happening. The money just kept ‘falling into NAB’s pocket’… He sought to portray the charging of fees for no service as a product of poor systems and carelessness. It was, in his words, ‘just professional negligence’… I cannot and do not accept this.”

‘Rotten culture’

Hayne found that “NAB also stands apart from the other three major banks. Having heard from both the CEO, Mr Thorburn, and the chair, Dr [Ken] Henry… I was not persuaded that NAB is willing to accept the necessary responsibility for deciding, for itself, what is the right thing to do, and then having its staff act accordingly … Overall, my fear – that there may be a wide gap between the public face NAB seeks to show and what it does in practice – remains.”

This is unequivocally the description of an unethical organisation whose rotten culture flowed down from the very top.

On Monday, Essendon president David Barham boasted that, “to my knowledge, no other AFL club has ever secured the services of an ASX-listed top 10 company CEO to run its club”.

Barham omitted a key adjective here. Thorburn is a disgraced former ASX 10 company CEO. No other AFL club has ever secured the services of a disgraced former ASX 10 company CEO for the very good reason that no other AFL club has ever sought to.

How was it, precisely, that Essendon secured Thorburn’s services? Melbourne’s Herald Sun reported on August 27 that Thorburn had been engaged by Essendon to “conduct an independent review … which will focus on”, among other things, “the appointment of a new CEO”.

That’s right, Thorburn did at Essendon Football Club in 2022 precisely what David Gonski did at the Future Fund in 2012 and what Dick Cheney did in 2000 as chairman of George W. Bush’s vice-presidential search committee: he used his position as the headhunter to win the job for himself.

Thorburn even interviewed other (unsuspecting) candidates for the role – memorising the best parts of their pitches, no doubt! – before declaring himself a candidate. How is that ethical?!

Essendon is obviously sensitive about the dreadful optics here, given its torturous explanation of how Thorburn went from refereeing the race to raising the trophy.

You also couldn’t expect Thorburn to fix Essendon’s historically scandalous culture. This is the same guy who’s chief of staff defrauded NAB of $5 million without him having a clue. The judge said he found it “absolutely staggering that those frauds were not detected by some appropriate system of internal auditing”.

It is a striking reality that in football today, being on the wrong side of diversity and inclusion issues is considered a far bigger black mark on a person than their questionable integrity or their record of ripping people off.

Barham is quite clearly out of his depth. His first press conference as president – defending the sacking of coach Ben Rutten

Ben Rutten

Age

40

Ht

190cm

Wt

98kg

Pos.

Def

Career

Season

Last 5

D

13.4

3star

K

6.3

2star

HB

7.0

4star

M

5.3

5star

T

1.3

3star

No current season stats available

D

10.6

3star

K

6.2

3star

HB

4.4

4star

M

3.6

4star

T

1.0

3star

– goes down as one of the worst in AFL history.

But Essendon is a weird club full of deeply weird people. Thorburn would’ve fit right in.

God saved Essendon from Andrew Thorburn

The appointment of the former NAB CEO to run the Essendon Football Club landed like a turd in the punch bowl.

www.afr.com

 

[Howard Moon]

I think I'll just stick just to footy chat from now on.

In all this commotion I forgot to check the trade thread, bowes and 7 in a polo yet?

 

[Stopher]

You reckon they don't already? What do reckon they analyse in all meetings and psych tests and combines pre draft, Footy smarts?

Imagine not drafting a Muslim for his 'bigoted' views and that information got out.

Oh boy.

 

[Gabe251]

To be perfectly clear, a person who leads your organisation should hold the values of the organisation. If it's clear the person does not hold the values ie. Will not denounce homophobia even though they have close ties to a homophobic organisation, they should not be able to be in that position.

Yes. Screen them for bigoted ideas. Being Christian does not mean bigoted. Being bigoted means bigoted. Many Christians are not homophobic

 

[Old Campaigner]

So does Barham go after the Clarkson and Thornburn balls up's ?

Probably. So far his only real successes have been outsourcing a review of the club and outsourcing the selection of the new coach. Both of which I agree with for what it's worth, but they aren't really decisions that needed any kind of tactical genius.

 

[Bombermania]

I agree that Thorburns record suggests he is no homophobe. BUT I don’t know how to reconcile that with his belonging to a church that espouses views to the contrary.

His statement is disingenuous. The issue is not his Christianity. Its dry specifically the views on homosexuality seemingly held by his church, his tacit endorsement of those views via his chairmanship and eventually his refusal to repudiate those views.

Rightly or wrongly, there is effectively zero societal tolerance for views on homosexuality other than explicit acceptance these days. Anything else WILL lead to “cancellation.” What happened was inevitable.

Its surprising this didn't become an issue when Thorburn was at the NAB.

 

[andleanback]

I can’t see how Barham stays on, not a single supporter would be confident in the board and the decisions it makes for the football club.

I was a fan but he should walk

 

[Gabe251]

Many Muslims are not homophobic too.

 

[Duckworth]

At least we didn't need a Royal Commission to get him to leave

and to think, Thorburn had a longer career than Clarkson at North.

 

[Lore]

Wonder how EY would be feeling having their brand dragged into it

 

[Old Campaigner]

When it's apparently 'acceptance' by force, I'd suggest wrongly.

Are we going to start screening potential draftees on their personal/religious views now?

They probably do that already, no one wants to burn a high draft pick on the next Israel Folau.

Just like stamping out racist attitudes, when you're trying to build a tight knit group of players who trust each other implicitly you can't afford divisive attitudes.

 

[DapperDon]

But Essendon is a weird club full of deeply weird people. Thorburn would’ve fit right in.

Ouch! Right in the feels

 

[MiguelM]

To be perfectly clear, a person who leads your organisation should hold the values of the organisation. If it's clear the person does not hold the values ie. Will not denounce homophobia even though they have close ties to a homophobic organisation, they should not be able to be in that position.

Yes. Screen them for bigoted ideas. Being Christian does not mean bigoted. Being bigoted means bigoted. Many Christians are not homophobic

Scomo didn't get hounded out of running Australia.

Ah well, at least he would have had a nice Red to go with his last supper @ the B & F!

 

[carnthedons]

The irony in this post is palpable

Yeah except it’s not. These type of views are held by those who are unaffected by them yet create division and hurt for some of our most vulnerable. What other consenting adults do is none of your concern, if nobody is being hurt then tolerance would be letting them live whatever life they want. It’s like old white republicans banning abortion in the US, it literally does not concern them in any way so they shouldn’t be able to impose their will on anyone else. How are these concepts hard to grasp?

 

[Vander18]

When it's apparently 'acceptance' by force, I'd suggest wrongly.

Are we going to start screening potential draftees on their personal/religious views now?

Dunno….but I reckon a google search will be a very real feature of our next CEO search.

 

[Lore]

 

[bennyg12]

The director of the Benny Hill show would like to apply for the job

 

[Stopher]

To be perfectly clear, a person who leads your organisation should hold the values of the organisation. If it's clear the person does not hold the values ie. Will not denounce homophobia even though they have close ties to a homophobic organisation, they should not be able to be in that position.

Yes. Screen them for bigoted ideas. Being Christian does not mean bigoted. Being bigoted means bigoted. Many Christians are not homophobic

But many Muslims are. So the scenario I posed is far from impossible.

The irony that the same media would then smash the club for Islamohobia...

 

[Vander18]

Swiftness may be the only things that saves Barham. He brought it to a head and resolved it in a day which is something I guess.