Gattung wrong to play feminist card
There can hardly be a more politically correct nation than New Zealand, so I found it hilarious when former Telecom NZ boss Theresa Gattung said her successor Paul Reynolds faces less scrutiny than she did because he is a man.
As we brace ourselves for what seems like a worthy and entertaining book in Gattung's Bird on a Wire, we should remember the New Zealand of her era, one that is a little different today.
New Zealand was Clarkistan, with its capital Helengrad, named after its most powerful Prime Minister. Helen Clark was our country's second female Prime Minister, after National's Jenny Shipley, so we were used to women leaders by then.
A coven of Amazons ruled the roost; from parliament, to the judiciary and across much of the state sector. The noughties were a "Golden Decade of Female Leadership" according to a blog by Wellington-based awarding-winning journalist David McLoughlin.
The IT sector also had many women leaders and was not a boys club of geeky nerds. There was Geraldine McBride at SAP and Katrina Troughton at IBM. In the much smaller telco space, I also recall Annette Presley, founder of CallPlus and Slingshot. I am sure there were others.
Of course, leading what was then New Zealand's biggest corporate, Gattung was bound to attract attention, but I don't see Reynolds getting any less scrutiny today.
Perhaps the Telecom board of the day thought a woman in charge would be good for its image; that it would be modern, daring, in tune with the spirits and ideology of the age. Perhaps it thought to curry favour with the feminist Labour government, which had appointed so many women leaders, creating a coterie branded as the "sisterhood".
So then, does that mean Gattung was promoted above her ability? That Telecom put Gattung out of her depth and she made some wrong choices, choices which have led to many criticisms of Telecom and her tenure over the years?
Whatever the truth of it, Gattung is wrong for playing the feminist card in defence of her record, because if anything, her sex worked more for her than against.