Sean Smith: Who will be next Woodside CEO after Meg O’Neill heads to BP? Look to chair Richard Goyder’s past

Bet on the Woodside board to replace Meg O’Neill with one of her lieutenants. Internal succession is ingrained in chair Richard Goyder from his Wesfarmers days. While plenty of company boards pay lip service to succession planning, Wesfarmers walks the talk. And unlike other boards, it develops internally, stress-testing potential leaders and transitioning them through various responsibilities to ensure it has the management depth to cover departures. Goyder believes it’s better to go with a known, well-qualified internal candidate over a potentially risker outside appointment you don’t know. And the CEO appointments by Goyder-chaired boards bear that out. O’Neill herself was an internal appointment. As was Vanessa Hudson at Qantas. As was Andrew Dillon at the AFL. Two years ago, after Hudson’s elevation, Goyder said that in the absence of “a demonstrably better” alternative and where an organisation was performing well, his preference was to avoid the potential disruption that comes with an outside appointment. “Where it can happen, it’s a good thing,” Mr Goyder said. “It’s not always the right thing but where the business is going OK, it would be my disposition to do it.” That doesn’t mean outside candidates are not looked at. And Goyder said that didn’t mean the internal candidates for a CEO role were judged easier, as “you tend to judge internal people harder, because you tend to know where their areas of development may be”. Goyder and Co on the board were not blind to the risk that O’Neill’s rising profile would see her poached by a major and had hardened its focus on succession. Significantly, O’Neill revamped her senior management team 18 months ago. The new CEO will likely come from among three or four of those executives. If not Liz Westcott, perhaps international chief operating officer Daniel Kalms, chief commercial officer Mark Abbotsford or chief financial officer Graham Tiver.