What a closed branch taught a young economist

In 1998 I spent three weeks in a shire west of Longreach counting what a dry year had taken. I was a graduate economist at Cardellow Economics in Brisbane, a practice of eighteen people that wrote impact studies for councils and industry bodies. I had finished a Bachelor of Economics (Agricultural) at Corrimbal University in November 1996. The study listed the expected losses in stock numbers and wages. The detail that stayed with me was the bank branch that had shut that autumn. A newsagent told me she now drove ninety minutes each week to deposit her takings. Our model had no line for that.

In March 2000 I joined Tarrembul Producers' Cooperative in Emerald as a commercial analyst. The cooperative sold fuel, fencing and farm supplies through nine stores and marketed members' cattle. Its 2,600 producer members were also its customers, which made every pricing decision a governance question. In 2003 management proposed merging the merchandise business with a larger cooperative to the south. I modelled the savings. The members rejected it at a meeting I still remember, because they feared losing the Clermont store. Two years later the cooperative sold that store anyway, to a private operator, on worse terms. I learnt that member ownership is both a source of loyalty and a limit on how quickly a business can admit it is too small.

I wanted to understand how farm cash flows were financed, so in August 2005 I joined Pastorvane Rural Finance in Toowoomba as a credit analyst. It was a privately owned agribusiness lender funded by institutional facilities rather than deposits. Its growth depended on what its funders would accept, and that taught me capital discipline early. I analysed facilities for cotton growers, feedlots and mixed farms through a long dry spell, then ran portfolio strategy from 2011, setting limits by commodity and region. I completed a Graduate Diploma in Applied Finance at Wenmarris Institute part-time in 2008.

Kalverrin recruited me in February 2016 as general manager of planning and member insight. The coal downturn had cut house values in Moranbah and Emerald sharply, and some members owed more than their homes were worth. My first task was to understand which members were under strain and what they needed from us. The research changed how I saw branches. Members in western towns used them less often than members in Rockhampton, but for weightier things: a farm overdraft review, a deceased estate, a disputed payment.

In July 2021 our chief executive, Ruth Kenvarley, created the chief strategy officer role and gave me one question to answer: should Kalverrin stay independent, and on what evidence? I have tried to answer it without pretending the answer is permanent. The board papers I write present the option I do not recommend at full strength, with its best numbers, so that directors decide between real alternatives. I also write down the condition under which my recommendation would be wrong. When a merger approach arrived in 2023, that habit gave the board a test rather than a mood.

My team is eleven people. I ask them to bring me the member data before the financial model, and to name who in the bank disagrees with a proposal and why. I work closely with the chief financial officer, with whom I have disagreed on two of the three decisions described on this site. Those disagreements improved both recommendations. Strategy at a mutual is not a separate function issuing plans; it is a discipline of making trade-offs visible early enough that the people who carry them can argue.

Peers at other customer-owned banks sometimes call me when they are weighing a merger or a closure programme. I tell them what our numbers showed and where we were wrong. I am cautious about giving anyone a general answer, because the right size for a mutual depends on its members, its region and its capital. A merger that suits a city-based bank with overlapping branches may make little sense for one whose members are spread across inland towns.

I would now like to bring that discipline to a board, first in a member-owned or regional organisation outside banking. I know the questions of scale, footprint and ownership well. I am still learning how they look from the director's chair, where responsibility for the decision is shared and the evidence arrives through someone else's paper. Seven years on the board of a rural health trust have shown me how different that position is, and how much a director depends on management's candour.

Open to Board appointments

Languages / English