SEN said he was on the panel to select the new CEO and then ended up getting the gig himself. If true, then Essendon only have themselves to blame.
Yep Damien Barrett says he headed up the panel to select the CEO in his opinion piece below.
BARRETT: Dons set for more change after latest 'ego-driven' messA MERE seven and a half weeks have unfolded since David Barham set in motion, out of nowhere, a takeover of the Essendon Football Club.
Having been a low-profiled Bombers director for nearly seven years, Barham suddenly thrust himself into the lead role on Sunday August 14, before his club's second-last match of another bad season, when he started action to roll the president.
He got the head he wanted, Paul Brasher, by just one vote of fellow directors – Kevin Sheedy being the casting vote – and he has since rolled a coach, three other directors and two CEOs, the second of those lasting a mere 30 hours between a joyous, self-backslapping public announcement about the appointment itself and then an embarrassing public exit.
Barham himself now needs to exit the mess he has created. His own words about proper process and care for Essendon people have not been reflected in actions.
There was nothing wrong with his approach to four-time premiership coach Alastair Clarkson days after his boardroom coup, but there was everything wrong about doing that while Ben Rutten was still the Essendon coach.
But it was Barham's blind obsession with Andrew Thorburn – who was appointed CEO on Monday and who exited that post on Tuesday – that is even more damaging to his club's standing with its own members and supporters.
On the day Barham officially sacked Rutten, Sunday August 21, the day after the completion of the home-and-away season, then-CEO Xavier Campbell drove to Rutten's house to commiserate over the former coach's treatment. Upon leaving, Campbell informed Barham he would be resigning.
It was the response Barham wanted. He then brought in Thorburn, who was formally criticised in the banking royal commission when in charge of NAB, to Essendon, empowering him with reviewing all club operations, giving him a seat on a sub-committee to find Rutten's replacement, and asking him to interview candidates for the vacated CEO post.
Extraordinarily, and about the same time some candidates were being put through second and even third interviews for the CEO role, Thorburn decided he wanted the job himself. And was given it, clearly without the type of proper "process" and "due diligence" being applied to others, those phrases being ones which Barham had been smugly using against those who had run the club in the past.
In announcing Thorburn as Essendon CEO on Monday, Barham and the Bombers congratulated themselves, claiming the "process to find our next CEO was comprehensive and led by (Ernst & Young), with the support of club director Dorothy Hisgrove", and that Thorburn was a "highly credentialled leader", a "man of great integrity".
The very next day, Thorburn was challenged by the Bombers, after the Herald Sun had raised his connection to a church that had publicly made negative comments about inclusion and diversity generally, and abortion and homosexuality specifically. Thorburn chose the church involvement over the Essendon role.
A chartered accountancy firm, Barham, Hisgrove and other Bombers could have identified the very issues which saw Thorburn exit the club via a simple Google search.
Richmond executive Simon Matthews was one of those who subjected himself to Thorburn's grilling in interviews about the vacant CEO post. There were many others. Their information and answers may well have been used by Thorburn in his own pitch to Barham for the job.
Thorburn was involved in the securing of Brad Scott as coach, the one clear positive amid the Barham frenzy. Scott would have been bemused at best and angered at worst on Tuesday night after the Thorburn issue had played out, as the one thing he had always wanted in a second senior coaching opportunity was solidarity, ample resource and consistency in off-field operations.
It would surely be a line-ball call for Scott as to what has most disappointed him since being announced as Essendon coach only last Friday: the public declaration on that very day by Bombers director Kevin Sheedy that he wanted James Hird and not Scott as coach, or the events around Thorburn.
If in the next 48 hours Barham if himself doesn't announce intent to formally follow out of the Essendon doors the many others he has forced out, he will be told of plans – which were being formulated deep into Tuesday night and resumed first thing Wednesday – of people seeking to remove him, possibly in an extraordinary general meeting.
Significant support for Bombers board member and highly successful businessman Andrew Muir was being mounted behind the scenes on Wednesday.
When Barham rolled Brasher in late August, he did so by just one vote, that casting vote being Sheedy's. Barham extraordinarily chose not to demand Sheedy stand down after his breach of board governance in the Hird comments, and Sheedy's next public move, as always, looms as highly intriguing.
There was opposition on the Bombers board to Barham being president, even before the approach to Clarkson while Rutten was still coach, and weeks before the Thorburn debacle.
An extraordinary general election may be the only way to properly fix this almighty mess of a football club. The ego-driven politicking certainly hasn't worked.
https://www.afl.com.au/news/854440/barrett-dons-set-for-more-change-after-latest-ego-driven-mess
