When she appeared at the Hayne royal commission, the CBA chairman’s transformation of the bank was already under way after a string of scandals.
Catherine Livingstone has never enjoyed the limelight. In November 2018, sitting in the witness box at the Hayne royal commission, she looked uncomfortable.
Eight months later, in April 2018, the prudential regulator published a scathing report on a multitude of governance shortcomings. The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority said financial success had made the bank arrogant., was asked by the royal commission to explain her thinking on CBA’s culture before AUSTRAC’s revelations. She had joined the board in March 2016.
Livingstone’s remarkable resurrection of CBA was a product of her methodical, data-driven, and scientific approach – consistent with the way she had led Cochlear, the CSIRO and Telstra, which she chaired between 2009-2016. Insiders say decisions were no longer based on emotion or gut instincts, but on data and detailed analysis.Business Council of Australia chief executive Jennifer Westacott says Livingstone brought to CBA the values it needed at a time of enormous turmoil.
But they are ingrained deeply in the Livingstone legacy, after she used the troubles to motivate one of the most drastic cultural and governance transformations of any Australian company – and pulled it off. “We are recognising it’s a very tough report – but it is very fair, and we are embracing its recommendations in full”, she said at the time. “We are not disputing or taking a legalistic approach to the report, to aspects of the report – we are taking it in full, as it stands.”
“She has demonstrated that in her handling of the significant and necessary changes in the governance and culture of the CBA. Her example should be followed by many of our so-called elite directors,” he says.
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