CASE STUDY : Toll NZ - From the C-Suite

New Zealand Management, Feb 1, 2008 by Vicki Jayne

There's a definite sense of synergy between Toll NZ chief executive David Jackson and chief financial officer Grant Devonport - even to the shared and "mo"mentary discomfort of extra facial hair sprouted for a fundraising event. Although they've only worked together for just over a year, they're a good example of why skill complementarity rather than skill cloning works well at C-suite level.

Jackson is the people person; Devonport is more comfortable with processes. One comes from a shopfloor background with a strong customer focus; the other from a banking background where structure rules. Recognition of their respective strengths made for a straightforward allocation of responsibilities.

"Grant and I came up with an agreement - I said I'll look after the customers and people if you look after the costs and the process - and that is effectively where we concentrate our efforts," says Jackson.

"My strengths are not in finance. I love the people side of the business and the most value I create as a leader of this business is to do with the people and customers. Grant's value is about costs and the robustness of the process. I'm not really an attention-to-detail person, he is. It's that complementary thing that is so important and why we work so well together."

Not only are their skills complementary - their personalities provide a useful balance.

"David is good in front of a group of people - I'm more one on one," says Devonport. "I'm happy to be the backroom person - it doesn't bother me to play second fiddle on that side. But if David knows we're going into a discussion that's more finance-oriented then he's happy for me to lead it. He doesn't believe, because he's the CEO, that he has to up front every time on everything. There is a lot of mutual trust, but it is also about knowing each other's strengths."

This complementarity in styles showed up from the start. Although the two men had both worked in Melbourne at the same time, they'd never previously met - Toll headhunted Devonport on the basis of a recommendation from one of its clients. At that stage he'd already left the banking industry (he'd been CFO for the United Kingdom operations of the National Australia Bank in Glasgow before returning to Australia) in part because he was disillusioned by what was then a somewhat stultifying and hierarchical culture. His role in Melbourne was in the entertainment industry - setting up a distribution business for the Village Roadshow.

"I did that for five years and it was a great job. Because we used Toll as the freight business to distribute DVDs, I got to know the Toll culture very well and saw it was the sort of company I could do well in. So when I got the approach to work in New Zealand - it was a pretty mutual thing."

But he was still surprised by the rapidity with which his next career move - back to New Zealand - was concluded. The two men met for the first time at Melbourne airport, chatted for about 35 minutes and Jackson decided he'd found his new CFO.

"Grant was amazed he'd got the job so quickly - I didn't reference check him which is unusual for such a senior position. But I had a lot of faith in the guy who recommended him and we knew what he'd been doing at the Village," says Jackson.

"Also Toll is a very pragmatic place. There isn't much hierarchy. If you want to talk to [parent company Toll Holdings CEO] Paul Little, you can; if you want to do a job you just roll up your sleeves and get on with it. Grant struck me straight away as a no- nonsense sort of guy."

The sense of cultural fit was pretty mutual. What gelled for Devonport was the sense of personal chemistry and organisational culture.

"I know I'm most effective in a role where the CEO says - 'go wherever you need to go to push to make the business better'. David was very upfront about the areas he believed he needed a CFO to be good at and a lot of it complemented my skill set. That was the first thing.

"Second was the culture - the meeting was an affirmation of what I already knew about the company culture and I know how important that is for me to be able to operate at my best because I've had a bad experience with a culture. The banking culture at the time was very constraining - you weren't encouraged to put your head above the parapet because you'd likely get shot down."

However he did wonder whether he hadn't rather jumped in the deep end when he got his first insight into the gap between their operating styles.

"I'm used to being very structured and David isn't as structured so he challenges me. Imagine - it's my first day on the job. I have to fly to Invercargill. David tells me we're off to do some presentations on the annual report. That's fine. Then on the plane he hands me the annual report and says you're doing a speech. I was a bit blown away. But I've got used to that from him and it's been good for me because it makes me think on my feet."

He's also started to adopt the more informal style that holds sway at Toll - finally abandoning a tie.