Tesla names director Robyn Denholm as chairwoman

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11-09-18, 09:02 AM

#16

Sulu

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Originally Posted by swajames

that’s actually one of the specific responsibilities of a corporate board... The CEO answers to and is appointed by the board, not the other way around.

The board, under the leadership of its Chairman, is responsible for setting goals and strategy. That’s usually done in partnership with the CEO. The CEO is then responsible for the execution of the agreed strategy.

At Tesla, as Musk had dual roles be was broadly answerable to himself. It looks increasingly like the problems at Tesla largely came about because of the failure to separate responsibilities and because Tesla’s board failed to do its oversight job and let Musk act as if he were the owner of a private company. They let him operate autocratically. That’s understandable to some extent as Musk and Tesla are synonymous and clearly Musk is such a big part of their identity and culture, but when you are a public company you have to play by a different set of rules.

Well said. This is why the SEC insisted that Tesla split its Chair and CEO roles, and add new members to the board, to keep an eye and better control of the CEO, so that one person (Elon Musk) could not -- again -- go off on a tangent.

11-09-18, 09:17 AM

#17

Sulu

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Originally Posted by G Star

This is bitter sweet because none of us will ever know, neither will this wonderful (I'm sure) lady, if she was brought on as chairwoman for her merits or for the new CA legislation passed that forces public companies to install token females on the board.

This new social justice diversity quota is just sad.

Let's not go there. The last thing we need in any discussion is for it to go off on a misogynistic rant.

Robyn Denholm seems to be well-qualified for this new position she is taking on, as an accountant, experience as Chief Financial Officer and life-long interest in cars (and working at Toyota Australia).

And maybe having a woman as his boss is what Elon Musk needs to keep him from going off on a tangent again.

Quote:

Denholm was born and raised in Milperra, New South Wales, where her parents owned a service station. Working at her parent's service station, Denholm handled the financial accounts, repaired cars, pumped petrol and and became interested in cars.

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After graduating was Denholm worked in accountancy for Arthur Andersen in Sydney.[3] This was followed by seven years at Toyota Australia. Denholm worked at the IT companies Sun Microsystems, and then Juniper Networks for nine years in finance and operations roles, rising to chief financial officer of Juniper. In 2014, Denholm became a non-executive director of Tesla, Inc. In the following four years as a non-executive director of Tesla, including as chair of the audit committee, Denholm received $17 million in Tesla stock options.

In early-2017, Denholm was appointed as chief operations officer (COO) of Telstra, Australia's largest telecoms company.

In November 2018 Denholm became chair of Tesla, with a plan to transition to full-time following six months working out her notice period for as chief financial officer (CFO) and head of strategy at Telstra.

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