Company directors’ endless feedback loop of mediocrity

(Image: Getty)

Sat, 13 Dec 2025

It’s always vexed me: why are New Zealand shareholders and institutional investors often content with mediocre, and sometimes plain incompetent directors?Put it another way. In the US or Australia, mediocre directors are not tolerated. If a director (especially a chairperson) presides over a run of value destruction, or a series of egregious decisions, then the director in question would see their head on a spike faster than you can say “ethical and sustainable decision-making for an agile shared future” (yuck) (that’s m...

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