Comments on: Should an Irishman run Australia’s most iconic brand?

By: John

John — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

Stephen, Frank Lowy was born in what is now Slovakia

By: JamesK

JamesK — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

As they say in Ireland: ‘what has this got to do with the price of potatoes?’

By: John Parkes

John Parkes — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

Frank Lowy is, I assume, an Australian citizen, and by all reports a very good one, bujt he makes no secret of his background of having been a refugee from post WW2 Europe.
How therefore can Westfield be excluded from the list of companies with foreign born CEOs?

By: David Sanderson

David Sanderson — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

One half of Stephen Mayne is the legitimate shareholder activist and the other half is the oddball crank. It is the oddball crank who shines through here. It is hard to know exactly what is bothering him about Joyce’s Irish background other than some general feeling that it just ain’t right.
When he says that “An Irish airline can’t buy Qantas but an Irishman can run it” he compares two concepts that have nothing in common and entirely different orders of economic magnitude. He also ignores the fact that this is an internal promotion and not the product of headhuntng overseas.
He says it is “fascinating” that many top CEOs were born overseas but then says nothing to explain it. A few explanations spring readily to mind: Australia’s relatively small economy, our physical isolation from major capitalist centres and our many-stranded ties to the rest of the ‘Anglo’ world..