New Zealand Rugby finally has a new CEO.
Today, it was announced that Steve Lancaster will become the next permanent CEO of New Zealand Rugby - this follows a six month period where he served as the interim CEO upon the departure of Mark Robinson late last year.
Gregor Paul is a rugby writer for the NZ Herald and he joined D'Arcy to discuss the appointment.
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Sports Talk podcast with Dancy Wildergrave
from News Talk ZEDB.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
New Zealand Rugby finally have a chief executive officer. Today
it was announced that Steve Lancaster will become the next
permanent CEO of New Zealand Rugby. This follows a six
month period where he served as the interim chief executive
on departure of Mark Robinson late last year. Gregor Paul
Rugby writer for the New Zealand Herold, He joined us
(00:34):
now to discuss this appointment. Good evening, Gregor, welcome to
the program.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
Thanks for having me, Darcy.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Great to talk about. This is right in your wheelhouse.
He must be having a hell of a day writing
all this up now that we've got a brand new CEO.
I'll say brand new. He's been around for six months,
but not in that role. Happy days for Steve Lancaster.
And I suppose if anyone's going to about a talk
into this, it will be you, Gregor. What was your
initial reaction when he got the job?
Speaker 3 (01:04):
Double take. I was a Weeberts prized.
Speaker 4 (01:08):
I knew that the New Zealand Rugby board were happy
with the way he had been performing as interim CEO,
which he was made in November last year. But my understanding,
and it was entirely this that he was really definitely
one hundred percent an interim CEO, that he wasn't seen
(01:30):
internally as a potential candidate to be put in that
role permanently. And you may recall, Darcy, there was a
press release that New Zealand Rugby put in March this
year to announce that the high performance manager, Chris Lendron
was leaving New Zealand Rugby that had led to restructure
(01:51):
a new role of I think it was called Chief
Rugby Officer was being created. Yeah, it was, and the
release said and Steve Lancaster will move into that role
when his time as interim CEO comes to an end.
So going by that, even internally the board had no
(02:12):
intent or belief that they were going to be promoting
Steve Lancaster at that time because he was clearly destined
to move into a different jobs. So they were actively,
presumably actively looking for someone else.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
Well what do we read into this? They simply couldn't
find anyone else, or when they stepped back, they went,
hold on, he's been right under our those what are
we doing. We've just been going through this process, kicking
boxes to make sure we've got the right guy. What
do you read into it.
Speaker 4 (02:40):
Well, a bit of both. I don't want to be
disparaging and unkind about Steve. That is unfair. But I
think when you look at the process that they went through,
they start off saying New Zealand Rugby. When Mark Robinson
stood down, they said that we're going to begin a
global search where you know, we're looking for a heavyweight player,
(03:02):
someone who's got heavy duty corporate sports experiences. Yes, they
need to be ingrained and under and across the grassroots world.
That will be part of the job, but we're really
looking for someone that can drive this organization. It's a
complex one. It has a private equity investor. It has
money sitting there that is to be invested in revenue
(03:24):
generating streams that we do not know, you know, what
exactly they are.
Speaker 3 (03:28):
They've got to be able.
Speaker 4 (03:29):
To negotiate broadcast agreements, be across sponsorship agreements, you know,
be the face of the organization.
Speaker 3 (03:36):
Look it was.
Speaker 4 (03:37):
It was sold as a really really big corporate job.
They were clearly looking outside of New Zealand for candidates
in the end. You know, if you looked at where
they started, no one would have said that Steve Lancaster
was the guy for them. So without being rude, you
have to put two and two together and go did
they just simply not find who they were looking for?
(04:01):
And we're a bit exhausted by the search and decided,
you know what, what's worth and definitely worth me mentioning here,
Darcy is that simultaneously u Zaida and Rugby, we're also
recruiting at the same time for a chief financial officer
and a chief commercial officer, both of which were filled
in February this year. And my gut feel here is
(04:21):
that they hit gold with those two appointments. They've got
two good guys. I think they've got exactly what they
wanted there. They've come into the organization and the board
has going, you know what, we can actually rescale the
rema of the chief exec and say, look, we've got
really capable financial guy who can handle the complex instruments
and relationship with our private equity investors, silver Lake, you know,
(04:44):
make sure that the money side of the business has
taken well care of the accounting. They've got a chief
Commercial officer who will be doing you the major sponsorship deals,
the broadcast negotiation.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
When that comes around. So they've gone great.
Speaker 4 (04:59):
Well, he's highly competent too, So you know, Steve is
going pretty well as CEO interim. Why don't we just look,
we haven't found anyone else, Why don't we just promote
him and maybe rescale the job a little bit and
put heavier emphasis on the CEO being the champion of
community rugby, you know, the guy that pieces, the guy
(05:20):
that links the corporate side of the game to the
community side of the game. And because we don't have
that represented it over well through the CFO or c CEO,
and I think that's why they've landed on him.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
We're looking at delegation and we've seen this within the
all black coaching structure. Now they are individuals who have
been given a particular role and they'll stick with it.
So it takes the pressure off the coach, for example,
the expectation that he needs to do everything. And I
suppose you have that with Steve Lancaster too. I mean
the two guys you're talking about, chris Kinraid and Chris
(05:56):
Brown who've rolled in, they will manage that seriously. So
he really doesn't need to be over that, does he,
And this is going to release some of the pressure
on him. He needs to perform more of a public
place than anything else.
Speaker 3 (06:07):
Doesn't he.
Speaker 4 (06:08):
Yeah, yeah, I think so, AMBASSADORI will almost you know,
be the guy that the media talk to. I mean,
he does need to be over what's going on in
his organization. He just doesn't need to be driving it.
He doesn't need to be the one, you know, who's
carrying all the responsibility for making sure that works out
day to day. But yeah, it's it's a triumvirate. I
(06:29):
suppose it's a three way way of leading the organization.
And also, in David Kirk, New Zealand Rugby's chairman, you
have a really capable guy who for the last six
months has really been operating as I see it. He
might not agree, but I think he's been operating more
(06:49):
as an executive chair and American style chairman, where's he's
involved in issues that are perhaps on the edge of
his remit. But he's in there and he's having a
really good oversight of the organization and he's playing a
really strong role. And that's helpful too in some respects
(07:10):
because it's giving another dynamic experienced corporate leader at the
very top of the organization who's there to guide and
steer a CEO such as Steve who, to be honest,
he wouldn't necessarily have the level of corporate or outside
Rugby experience to feel comfortable with some of the requirements
(07:35):
of the role.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
He's almost a CEO by proxy. David Kirk, here's a
lot of control on there. Is that a worry to
the commercial officer or the financial officer or the executive
officer that he's behind the scenes with that much power
you could?
Speaker 4 (07:50):
I mean, it depends on your outlook in life, how
you see these things, and it depends how it works
out in reality. Having a really experienced corporate chair like
David who understands Rugby, high performance, corporate world governance, government,
all of these things which are actually really really relevant
with private equity where the all blacks are today, I
(08:11):
would think is a really good feeling for a CEO, CFO,
c CEO to have that knowledge, experience and leadership saying
above you to lean into to have available. The question is,
you know, where are the lines demarcation lines around doing jobs?
Speaker 3 (08:29):
You know?
Speaker 4 (08:29):
Sometimes and I'm not saying this is who David is
at all because I don't know and I'm not in
the organization. But there are clearly times and everyone in
the corporate world will will know this, that there are
times where you know, leaders can be micromanagers, they can
be overbearing, they can get overly involved in issues that
they shouldn't and you end up with a feeling that,
(08:50):
you know, the leaders that are there to drive the
business are not getting the opportunity to do it because
someone else is overseeing it and getting involved. That's the danger,
I guess I have no belief that that's what's happening.
Speaker 3 (09:03):
I think Kirk is so experienced he knows where.
Speaker 4 (09:06):
The lines are and he knows not to blair you know,
where governance and ends and management begins. Like for example,
the all Black coaching process to find a new coach.
He you know, he made the decision or the board
made a decision to part company with Scott Robertson, and
the board made the decision to say, right, we will
now begin a process to find a new one. But
(09:27):
once they had done that, Kirk wasn't involved. He handed
over responsibility for finding that coach to Lancaster and his team.
And then when Lancaster and his team put forward a
recommendation to appoint Dave Rennie. The board went with that recommendation.
So he's really careful about knowing, you know, where where
(09:49):
lines of responsibility and accountability lie. So I would have
thought it's a it's a real positive to have a
guy like David and a few of the and a
strong board and to have that around Steve Lancaster, I
think he'd be pretty grateful for that.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
Final piece of the puzzle pretty much when it comes
to the management and the fish heads. If you hill
in New Zealand Rugby, so you look at our new
man and you say to him, what's your first job?
What does he have to address first and foremost? Steve Lancaster,
what's at the top of us hitlist?
Speaker 4 (10:22):
I'd actually say super Rugby. I think a lot of
the things that needed to happen have already happened. There's
been a high performance restructure that would have been priority
number one three months ago. That's kind of happened. You know,
they've got a new all black culture and so that
bit's happened. New broadcast deal got signed off at the
end of last year. So I would say really working
(10:43):
out what to do with Super Rugby, because that's the
call face.
Speaker 3 (10:46):
At the moment.
Speaker 4 (10:47):
You know, you win the fan base at that stage,
you can take them with you into All Blacks. You
can build a much bigger all Black fan base if
you've got a bigger Super Rugby fan base. And I
think Super Rugby at the moment struggling for engagement, struggling
for a broadcast audience, competition structure doesn't feel right necessarily.
The ownership models around sort of this kind of half
(11:09):
private half public ownership.
Speaker 3 (11:11):
I don't know about that.
Speaker 4 (11:12):
That's a big thing that he needs to address and
see if they can get that part right. And then
and I guess the other one is they've got Front
of Jersey's sponsorship to renew by the end of this year.
And I know he won't be driving that, but I
think it's really important that he is. He is seen
by potential sponsors, he's seen by people that might be
(11:33):
signing checks, and then they feel comfortable and confident with
him being the leader or the organization. And he's going
to put forward a vision because that's how partnerships with
big firms that are going to spend you know, thirty
forty to fifty million dollars putting the name on the
All Blacks jersey, whatever the number.
Speaker 3 (11:48):
Is going to be.
Speaker 4 (11:49):
They need to feel comfortable with the guy who is
a CEO, not just a c CEO.
Speaker 3 (11:53):
So I'd say that's probably option. That's task number two.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
And in one short scene in Sgrigor is he the
man for the job?
Speaker 3 (12:01):
Is this going to work?
Speaker 2 (12:01):
Are you satisfied that Steve Lancaster is in the right
position and is right man?
Speaker 4 (12:07):
I'm going to give you the example of Michael Carrick
at Manchester United. They promoted a guy from within and
it's working out really well for them.
Speaker 3 (12:14):
So that's an I hate to go to man.
Speaker 2 (12:17):
You didn't you? Hey, Grega Paul, I know you're writing
all of this up and it'll be inzidher dot co
dot inzed if you want to pick through the finite
details in the mind of our rugby man. Mister Gregapoul,
We thank you very much for your time, my pleasure.
Speaker 1 (12:31):
For more from sports Talk, listen live to News Talks
it'd be from seven pm weekdays, or follow the podcast
on iHeartRadio.
You're listening to the Sports Talk podcast with Dancy Wildergrave
from News Talk ZEDB.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
New Zealand Rugby finally have a chief executive officer. Today
it was announced that Steve Lancaster will become the next
permanent CEO of New Zealand Rugby. This follows a six
month period where he served as the interim chief executive
on departure of Mark Robinson late last year. Gregor Paul
Rugby writer for the New Zealand Herold, He joined us
(00:34):
now to discuss this appointment. Good evening, Gregor, welcome to
the program.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
Thanks for having me, Darcy.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Great to talk about. This is right in your wheelhouse.
He must be having a hell of a day writing
all this up now that we've got a brand new CEO.
I'll say brand new. He's been around for six months,
but not in that role. Happy days for Steve Lancaster.
And I suppose if anyone's going to about a talk
into this, it will be you, Gregor. What was your
initial reaction when he got the job?
Speaker 3 (01:04):
Double take. I was a Weeberts prized.
Speaker 4 (01:08):
I knew that the New Zealand Rugby board were happy
with the way he had been performing as interim CEO,
which he was made in November last year. But my understanding,
and it was entirely this that he was really definitely
one hundred percent an interim CEO, that he wasn't seen
(01:30):
internally as a potential candidate to be put in that
role permanently. And you may recall, Darcy, there was a
press release that New Zealand Rugby put in March this
year to announce that the high performance manager, Chris Lendron
was leaving New Zealand Rugby that had led to restructure
(01:51):
a new role of I think it was called Chief
Rugby Officer was being created. Yeah, it was, and the
release said and Steve Lancaster will move into that role
when his time as interim CEO comes to an end.
So going by that, even internally the board had no
(02:12):
intent or belief that they were going to be promoting
Steve Lancaster at that time because he was clearly destined
to move into a different jobs. So they were actively,
presumably actively looking for someone else.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
Well what do we read into this? They simply couldn't
find anyone else, or when they stepped back, they went,
hold on, he's been right under our those what are
we doing. We've just been going through this process, kicking
boxes to make sure we've got the right guy. What
do you read into it.
Speaker 4 (02:40):
Well, a bit of both. I don't want to be
disparaging and unkind about Steve. That is unfair. But I
think when you look at the process that they went through,
they start off saying New Zealand Rugby. When Mark Robinson
stood down, they said that we're going to begin a
global search where you know, we're looking for a heavyweight player,
(03:02):
someone who's got heavy duty corporate sports experiences. Yes, they
need to be ingrained and under and across the grassroots world.
That will be part of the job, but we're really
looking for someone that can drive this organization. It's a
complex one. It has a private equity investor. It has
money sitting there that is to be invested in revenue
(03:24):
generating streams that we do not know, you know, what
exactly they are.
Speaker 3 (03:28):
They've got to be able.
Speaker 4 (03:29):
To negotiate broadcast agreements, be across sponsorship agreements, you know,
be the face of the organization.
Speaker 3 (03:36):
Look it was.
Speaker 4 (03:37):
It was sold as a really really big corporate job.
They were clearly looking outside of New Zealand for candidates
in the end. You know, if you looked at where
they started, no one would have said that Steve Lancaster
was the guy for them. So without being rude, you
have to put two and two together and go did
they just simply not find who they were looking for?
(04:01):
And we're a bit exhausted by the search and decided,
you know what, what's worth and definitely worth me mentioning here,
Darcy is that simultaneously u Zaida and Rugby, we're also
recruiting at the same time for a chief financial officer
and a chief commercial officer, both of which were filled
in February this year. And my gut feel here is
(04:21):
that they hit gold with those two appointments. They've got
two good guys. I think they've got exactly what they
wanted there. They've come into the organization and the board
has going, you know what, we can actually rescale the
rema of the chief exec and say, look, we've got
really capable financial guy who can handle the complex instruments
and relationship with our private equity investors, silver Lake, you know,
(04:44):
make sure that the money side of the business has
taken well care of the accounting. They've got a chief
Commercial officer who will be doing you the major sponsorship deals,
the broadcast negotiation.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
When that comes around. So they've gone great.
Speaker 4 (04:59):
Well, he's highly competent too, So you know, Steve is
going pretty well as CEO interim. Why don't we just look,
we haven't found anyone else, Why don't we just promote
him and maybe rescale the job a little bit and
put heavier emphasis on the CEO being the champion of
community rugby, you know, the guy that pieces, the guy
(05:20):
that links the corporate side of the game to the
community side of the game. And because we don't have
that represented it over well through the CFO or c CEO,
and I think that's why they've landed on him.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
We're looking at delegation and we've seen this within the
all black coaching structure. Now they are individuals who have
been given a particular role and they'll stick with it.
So it takes the pressure off the coach, for example,
the expectation that he needs to do everything. And I
suppose you have that with Steve Lancaster too. I mean
the two guys you're talking about, chris Kinraid and Chris
(05:56):
Brown who've rolled in, they will manage that seriously. So
he really doesn't need to be over that, does he,
And this is going to release some of the pressure
on him. He needs to perform more of a public
place than anything else.
Speaker 3 (06:07):
Doesn't he.
Speaker 4 (06:08):
Yeah, yeah, I think so, AMBASSADORI will almost you know,
be the guy that the media talk to. I mean,
he does need to be over what's going on in
his organization. He just doesn't need to be driving it.
He doesn't need to be the one, you know, who's
carrying all the responsibility for making sure that works out
day to day. But yeah, it's it's a triumvirate. I
(06:29):
suppose it's a three way way of leading the organization.
And also, in David Kirk, New Zealand Rugby's chairman, you
have a really capable guy who for the last six
months has really been operating as I see it. He
might not agree, but I think he's been operating more
(06:49):
as an executive chair and American style chairman, where's he's
involved in issues that are perhaps on the edge of
his remit. But he's in there and he's having a
really good oversight of the organization and he's playing a
really strong role. And that's helpful too in some respects
(07:10):
because it's giving another dynamic experienced corporate leader at the
very top of the organization who's there to guide and
steer a CEO such as Steve who, to be honest,
he wouldn't necessarily have the level of corporate or outside
Rugby experience to feel comfortable with some of the requirements
(07:35):
of the role.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
He's almost a CEO by proxy. David Kirk, here's a
lot of control on there. Is that a worry to
the commercial officer or the financial officer or the executive
officer that he's behind the scenes with that much power
you could?
Speaker 4 (07:50):
I mean, it depends on your outlook in life, how
you see these things, and it depends how it works
out in reality. Having a really experienced corporate chair like
David who understands Rugby, high performance, corporate world governance, government,
all of these things which are actually really really relevant
with private equity where the all blacks are today, I
(08:11):
would think is a really good feeling for a CEO, CFO,
c CEO to have that knowledge, experience and leadership saying
above you to lean into to have available. The question is,
you know, where are the lines demarcation lines around doing jobs?
Speaker 3 (08:29):
You know?
Speaker 4 (08:29):
Sometimes and I'm not saying this is who David is
at all because I don't know and I'm not in
the organization. But there are clearly times and everyone in
the corporate world will will know this, that there are
times where you know, leaders can be micromanagers, they can
be overbearing, they can get overly involved in issues that
they shouldn't and you end up with a feeling that,
(08:50):
you know, the leaders that are there to drive the
business are not getting the opportunity to do it because
someone else is overseeing it and getting involved. That's the danger,
I guess I have no belief that that's what's happening.
Speaker 3 (09:03):
I think Kirk is so experienced he knows where.
Speaker 4 (09:06):
The lines are and he knows not to blair you know,
where governance and ends and management begins. Like for example,
the all Black coaching process to find a new coach.
He you know, he made the decision or the board
made a decision to part company with Scott Robertson, and
the board made the decision to say, right, we will
now begin a process to find a new one. But
(09:27):
once they had done that, Kirk wasn't involved. He handed
over responsibility for finding that coach to Lancaster and his team.
And then when Lancaster and his team put forward a
recommendation to appoint Dave Rennie. The board went with that recommendation.
So he's really careful about knowing, you know, where where
(09:49):
lines of responsibility and accountability lie. So I would have
thought it's a it's a real positive to have a
guy like David and a few of the and a
strong board and to have that around Steve Lancaster, I
think he'd be pretty grateful for that.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
Final piece of the puzzle pretty much when it comes
to the management and the fish heads. If you hill
in New Zealand Rugby, so you look at our new
man and you say to him, what's your first job?
What does he have to address first and foremost? Steve Lancaster,
what's at the top of us hitlist?
Speaker 4 (10:22):
I'd actually say super Rugby. I think a lot of
the things that needed to happen have already happened. There's
been a high performance restructure that would have been priority
number one three months ago. That's kind of happened. You know,
they've got a new all black culture and so that
bit's happened. New broadcast deal got signed off at the
end of last year. So I would say really working
(10:43):
out what to do with Super Rugby, because that's the
call face.
Speaker 3 (10:46):
At the moment.
Speaker 4 (10:47):
You know, you win the fan base at that stage,
you can take them with you into All Blacks. You
can build a much bigger all Black fan base if
you've got a bigger Super Rugby fan base. And I
think Super Rugby at the moment struggling for engagement, struggling
for a broadcast audience, competition structure doesn't feel right necessarily.
The ownership models around sort of this kind of half
(11:09):
private half public ownership.
Speaker 3 (11:11):
I don't know about that.
Speaker 4 (11:12):
That's a big thing that he needs to address and
see if they can get that part right. And then
and I guess the other one is they've got Front
of Jersey's sponsorship to renew by the end of this year.
And I know he won't be driving that, but I
think it's really important that he is. He is seen
by potential sponsors, he's seen by people that might be
(11:33):
signing checks, and then they feel comfortable and confident with
him being the leader or the organization. And he's going
to put forward a vision because that's how partnerships with
big firms that are going to spend you know, thirty
forty to fifty million dollars putting the name on the
All Blacks jersey, whatever the number.
Speaker 3 (11:48):
Is going to be.
Speaker 4 (11:49):
They need to feel comfortable with the guy who is
a CEO, not just a c CEO.
Speaker 3 (11:53):
So I'd say that's probably option. That's task number two.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
And in one short scene in Sgrigor is he the
man for the job?
Speaker 3 (12:01):
Is this going to work?
Speaker 2 (12:01):
Are you satisfied that Steve Lancaster is in the right
position and is right man?
Speaker 4 (12:07):
I'm going to give you the example of Michael Carrick
at Manchester United. They promoted a guy from within and
it's working out really well for them.
Speaker 3 (12:14):
So that's an I hate to go to man.
Speaker 2 (12:17):
You didn't you? Hey, Grega Paul, I know you're writing
all of this up and it'll be inzidher dot co
dot inzed if you want to pick through the finite
details in the mind of our rugby man. Mister Gregapoul,
We thank you very much for your time, my pleasure.
Speaker 1 (12:31):
For more from sports Talk, listen live to News Talks
it'd be from seven pm weekdays, or follow the podcast
on iHeartRadio.
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