Big man, big job

It is extraordinary that the most decorated businessman in the country has never given an in-depth interview. It is even more extraordinary that despite his new job at the helm of TVNZ, the country's largest and most visible media organisation, he maintains the habit.

When you add the fact that TVNZ is publicly owned, it becomes almost outrageous. Yet it seems Sir John Anderson is so darned good at what he does, and inspires such loyalty, that he gets away with it.

Call his friends, family and former colleagues for comment and there is silence, a short intake of breath, followed by an anxious, "He doesn't like people talking about him; I'd rather not." Then, because they are all well-mannered, and able to be persuaded: "He's a very private person. He might be annoyed with me if I talk to you. You're not going to quote me are you?"

But even the most helpful won't reveal the names of Anderson's three adult children, for fear of upsetting the Big Man.

The ruckus around his predecessors, Craig Boyce and Ross Armstrong, is undoubtedly the kind of thing Anderson, who took up the chairmanship this week, is anxious to avoid. For 60 years he has resolutely kept his family out of the spotlight. Despite an outstanding career spanning 28 years in banking, five bank mergers (Southpac/ChaseNBA; Southpac/National; National/Rural Bank; National/Countrywide; and ANZ/National), a guiding hand in national and international cricket, NBR's New Zealander of the Year Award in 1995, Management's Visionary Leader 2003, the inaugural Blake Medal for leadership - and a seemingly blameless life, Anderson has kept himself in the shadows. As chief executive of the National Bank he preferred his chairman Sir Frank Holmes to front for him. At TVNZ he will undoubtedly encourage CEO Rick Ellis to do the job.

It is safe to say, however, that even in private he would not describe the politicians on a broadcasting select committee as "bastards" and "the enemy". He'd also have the judgment not to write it down.

Although born into Wellington establishment circles, Anderson reputedly has the common touch. He is not an idealogue and gets along well with conservative and liberal politicians. A close colleague and friend is former National Prime Minister Jim Bolger. Anderson is on good terms with Don Brash and was, obviously, sought out by the Helen Clark Government.

But why pick such a media-shy, self-effacing man for the highest-profile chairmanship in the country? Probably because he will keep his head down - and he has the skills and governance experience to pull TVNZ together after years of chaos.

"John's widely regarded as one of our best corporate leaders," says TVNZ deputy chairman Rob Fenwick, who worked with Anderson on the World Wide Fund for Nature. "He's also a great Kiwi - a great New Zealander to have at the helm at a time when we've been through such tumultuous waters."

When Anderson stood in the glass auditorium at TVNZ last week and addressed his battle-scarred troops, he was outstanding. He didn't speak for long. There were no notes.

"He talked about the importance of TVNZ to the country," says Fenwick. "Its role as a vehicle for expressing our national identity - and the reason it was going to succeed."

Adds Bolger, who had Anderson on his Enterprise Council: "If anyone's going to make sense out of that place, he will".

Anderson and his wife Carol still live next door to his parents' house in affluent Karori where he grew up. Anderson and his sisters Susan and Jill played tennis on their court with their mother Biff (Elizabeth), a champion tennis player. Anderson was packed off to board at posh Christ's College in Christchurch, the girls to Marsden. He did not enjoy Christ's.

He sent one of his own sons to Wellington College and served on their board of trustees.

Some time later the younger Andersons bought a third property next door and bowled the house so Carol could have a bigger garden. They also put in a pool for their three children.

Anderson is a dedicated family man. He taught his children to play bridge and tennis and when he retired planned to take the lot of them - 18, including the two grandchildren - on a trip to Italy.

He is a member of the Wellington Club, although he rarely goes there, used to play at the Victoria bridge club and plays golf (when his knee, or is it his hip? allows) at Heretaunga. But the clubs he enjoys most would be the Karori cricket and tennis clubs. All of which, say my 22 sources, does not mean Anderson is an overly social man. "He's not on the cocktail circuit every night."

Today he and Carol have houses at Taupo and on the Kapiti Coast. Soon they - and Biff - will move households to Oriental Bay.

The sport-mad, fiercely competitive Anderson graduated in accounting from Victoria University, then joined Deloitte in Wellington in 1962. He played on the wing for Wellington in rugby and played club cricket before moving to a sharebroking job in Melbourne in 1969.

He became chief executive and director of South Pacific Merchant Finance (Southpac) in 1979 and later was the driving force behind its merger with the National Bank of New Zealand, then owned by Lloyd's Bank PLC. Anderson, with his merchant banking skills, brought it into an era of academic excellence, technology and most of all people focus.

A National Bank manager who, unlike many of his colleagues survived the merger, remembers the culture change. "Anderson looked for academics, but never failed to recognise talent," he says. "And he could be bloody difficult.

"If you were good you were good, and if you weren't you were out. He was a hell of an enterprising guy and very highly thought of by the Lloyd's guys, appointed as a director of Lloyd's Merchant Bank in London - as distinct from the main board."

"John's a good strategic thinker," says Sir Frank Holmes, former chairman of Southpac and a director of the National Bank. "Too many chief executives are given an incentive to maximise the share price in the short run. John believes that's counter-productive. He believes in the long term."

Adds National Finance spokesman, John Key: "He's a first-class operator. Yes, he probably is aggressive but guess what? Bankers are friendly but only during cocktails and late at night. Mostly they're there to win."

Anderson will need both his strategic and calming management skills at TVNZ. The salary scandals, the U-turns and subsequent fall in ratings have compounded in a 5 percentage point drop in peak-time ratings for TV One. Advertising is down, forcing the channel to drop its ad rate by 20 per cent. The last two financial reports signalled further cost-cutting. The Charter, say some, is impossible to run alongside a commercial network. And hanging over the entire edifice like some latent thunderhead, is the spectre of digital TV.

But then, Anderson has overcome serious glitches before.

In those early, heady, days after the merger, Lloyd's' involvement was largely hands-off. Soon however, following major balance sheet risks, the fist of Lloyd's came down. The bank was required to make strenuous efforts to improve its cost-income ratio and risk management. A head rolled, but not Anderson's.

John Key remembers the era well. "They were very aggressive operators, took a truckload of risk. You simply don't get a reverse takeover when the smaller player [Southpak] gets to run the Goliath. Anderson achieved that - and turned it into a winner."

And, as Holmes says, "Part of John's capacity as a leader was his ability to get out of those glitches."

By 2000 the bank was achieving growth of 20 per cent plus - better than at any other time in its history. "He was visionary, always looks beyond the horizon at the deal after the deal I was working on," says another highly placed employee.

"He also had an incredible memory and great skills for developing people, allowing them to do what they wanted - and giving them the reins to do it." Those people, known as "Anderson's old boys" now head banks and companies here and abroad.

In 2003 the big-built, former hard-drinking chainsmoker underwent a quadruple heart-bypass operation. Soon afterwards he helped negotiate New Zealand's biggest banking coup - the $6 billion merger of the ANZ and National banks. Although the ANZ now owned National outright, Anderson ensured it remained a separate entity governed by his own frontline people - with himself as chief executive and a firm dress code. All employees must wear suits.

Anderson also believes an organisation that gets its people from the community has an obligation to give back. His first big corporate sponsorship, Daffodil Day, now in its 16th year, netted nearly $1 million last year for cancer research. National Bank's sponsorship of Cricket New Zealand, started in 1999, is secure until 2011.

Then there is his second career - the one he really loves. In the mid-90s, as chairman of New Zealand Cricket and on the International Cricket Council, Sir John set about reshaping world test cricket with then-chief executive Christopher Doig.

"His attention to strategic detail was fantastic," says current CEO Martin Snedden. "In the '90s there was no established playing schedule for the 10 top cricketing countries. John and Chris developed the Future Tours Programme which meant everyone was required to play each other. Without those two developing, arguing and seeing it through, cricket would have been in a far worse position."

At home he was equally effective: stalwart of the Karori Club, secretary of the Cricket Foundation and, says Snedden, the man who, with Doig, guided cricket into the professional era. "It was a huge transition. Having John steadying us through that has been huge."

Unsurprisingly, when the Rugby Union got into trouble over the sub-hosting rights to the World Cup in 2002, where did they head for guidance? John Anderson, of course.

Despite a drive to serve, Anderson knew when he was wasting his time. He left the Business Round Table because the executive director was not relating sufficiently to New Zealand society, preferring instead the discussion coming out of the Institute of Economic Research. He joined the Business Council for Sustainable Development but became dissatisfied with the direction of its activities.

One of the outfits he stuck with was Bolger's Enterprise Council, a group of leaders who got together once a week to feed back developments in the outside world.

"There's a degree of knowledge and ability to make sense out of history which I think will be extremely valuable at TVNZ," says Bolger. "He's a principled pragmatist, a very straight shooter. There's no spin with John Anderson. He's a lateral thinker who's intent on doing what's right, not squandering money."

Some things are for sure. When the the Big Man gets to TVNZ he will stick to his guns. There will be no nonsense. He will not move from his beloved Wellington. Rick Ellis will hog the spotlight. The names of his children certainly won't get into print.