Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Gail Kelly talks strategy

I was lucky enough to listen to Gail Kelly talk at her first major business lunch since she took over as CEO of Westpac - and WOW what an impact she made. She did not speak from carefully scripted notes and captured the audience with words straight from the heart, spoken with passion and conviction.
She summarised her first 18 months in office by using the word 'intensity' and said that she had been required to navigate external economic forces as well as developing and implementing Westpac's new strategy.
She spoke of her determination to ensure that the Westpac goals remain completely customer-centric and that the bank works to earn business from customers and to delight customers through their efforts. She is looking to achieve a high level of customer advocacy and with 10 million customers between St George and Westpac, this is truly an opportunity to delight them!
She believes that the operating environment remains challenging. There are certainly some positive signs and she describes herself as 'cautiously optimistic'.
She also spoke about the importance of reputation particularly for banks at the moment. There is a huge amount of anger and distrust and how does one begin to re-build that? Reputation is like a coconut tree - it takes so long to grow yet is so quick to cut down. Banks would need to be more transparent and show their high level of ethics and strong conduct over time.
Driving an active customer focused culture has had its challenges. Although each employee knows the strategy and can talk the right words, it needs to be "baked" into them. This requires change in all aspects including systems, processes, reward and recognition, traditions and so on. Even as CEO, Gail herself had trouble in getting these changes across the line. She was determined to do this in a systematic, deliberate and ruthless way. She emphasised that this is a journey over many years.
She said that many transformations fail for a number of reasons. Sometimes we underestimate the size of the task. At other times we declare victory too soon. You need to have the commitment to carry on and to have all the champions behind you. Be very clear on where you are going and measure how well you are tracking.
Kelly sees her legacy as having built a customer-centric organisation that is admired for its reputation.

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