The Lend Lease leaders

The elevation of John Morschel to the chairmanship of the ANZ Bank caps a long run of success by people who honed their leadership skills at Lend Lease.

Morschel is one of many members of the Lend Lease diaspora.

Members of this tribe have dispersed to all corners of the corporate world, but most notably to senior positions in property and financial services (evident in the who's who list at the end of this article).

This begs the question: why have so many executives from a Sydney-based property development company had such a big impact on Australian business?

The answer is actually pretty simple. It all gets back to the culture and business philosophy instilled by the company's founder Dick Dusseldorp.

Dusseldorp came to Australia in 1951 to build 200 houses at Cooma for workers employed by the Snowy Mountains Authority.

The joint venture construction company which did that work, Civil and Civic, expanded into Canberra, Sydney and nationally. In 1958 Dusseldorp founded Lend Lease Corporation to fund Civil and Civic projects.

Dusseldorp's mantra at Lend Lease was to build the bridge between labour and capital. He favoured a co-operative approach that included the first company-wide staff share scheme.

The company invested in its staff to lift their skills. This philosophy lives in the Dusseldorp Skills Forum.

The typical progress through the organisation was to start as a site engineer and then become a project manager and possibly a state manager. For example, Morschel started as a quantity surveyor.

Each construction or development project was handled like an independently run enterprise, giving the managers the opportunity to show their leadership skills.

Innovation was encouraged. This showed through in the construction techniques as well as the architects favoured for Lend Lease projects such as Harry Seidler.

Lend Lease was a project management driven company. People were given an opportunity to learn every aspect of the business.

Above all, talent was not boxed in by the typical hierarchical management structures.

More than 30 years after it was founded, Lend Lease still did not have a centralised human resources function. Finance and staffing responsibilities were the responsibility of the head of each division.

In many ways, there are parallels between the Lend Lease business model and Macquarie Bank.

At Macquarie, the financial capacity and risk assessment functions are centralised but responsibility for running individual businesses sits with the heads of those businesses.

The influence of the Lend Lease tribe remains strong.

Earlier this month, a leading investment bank keen to cement its influence hosted a lunch made up exclusively of former employees. Morschel was unable to attend.

The Lend Lease diaspora is so extensive that any list is bound to omit executives who warrant a mention. The following are some prominent examples of former Lend Lease executives:

- John Arthur: was previously Lend Lease corporate counsel. He went on to chair Investa Property Group and then became its chief executive before it was sold to Morgan Stanley. He is now group executive, counsel and secretariat at Westpac.

- Roger Burrows: was previously finance director at Lend Lease. Is now finance director at Perpetual.

- Michael Cameron: was previously chief financial officer of Lend Lease subsidiary MLC. He became CFO at the Commonwealth Bank and then CFO at St George Bank. Now CEO at former Lend Lease property fund GPT.

- David Clarke: was previously chief executive of Lend Lease subsidiary MLC, before it was sold to NAB. He went on to become CEO of Westpac's BT Financial Group, followed by CEO of Allco Finance. Now CEO of Investec Bank Australia.

- David Higgins: was previously chief executive of Lend Lease. He left to become CEO of English Partnerships, the UK government's national regeneration agency. Now CEO of the Olympic Delivery Authority in London.

- Bob Johnston: was previously the global chief executive of Bovis Lend Lease; now CEO of Australand.

- Geoff McWilliam: was previously in senior roles across the Lend Lease property development business. Later was CEO of Commonwealth Bank's property activities. Now non-executive director of Challenger Diversified Property Group, Lend Lease Real Estate, Gandel Group and St Laurence.

- John Morschel: was previously chief executive of Lend Lease. He went on to become an executive director of Westpac, running retail banking and wealth management. Served as chairman of Rinker Group, Leighton Holdings, CSR and Comalco, and non-executive director of Rio Tinto. Now chairman designate of ANZ Bank.

- John Mulcahy: was previously chief executive of Lend Lease subsidiary Civil and Civic. He went on to run Commonwealth Bank's retail bank and then its investment and insurance services division. He was CEO of Suncorp and is now on the board of guardians of the Future Fund.

- Chris O'Donnell: was previously a senior executive at Lend Lease subsidiary Civil and Civic before running the Lend Lease property investment division. He was later CEO of Investa Property Group. Is now CEO of Arab property developer Nakheel.

- Tom Pocket: was previously general manager finance at Lend Lease. He was later deputy CFO at the Commonwealth Bank and is now finance director at Woolworths.

- Geoff Summerhayes: was previously head of retail customer services at Lend Lease subsidiary MLC. Stayed with the company after it was bought by NAB. Is now group executive Suncorp Life.

- John Tabart: was previously chief executive of Lend Lease homes/development. He was later CEO of Explore Capital in the UK and then CEO of VicUrban, developer of the Melbourne Docklands. Now CEO of the Barangaroo Delivery Authority in Sydney.

- Ross Taylor: was previously global chief executive of Lend Lease construction and development; now CEO of Tenix.