Rear Window
Mike Baird flags HammondCare exit
Myriam RobinRear Window editorIf Peter Dutton was hoping to recruit Mike Baird to run for the Liberals in a teal-held NSW seat, he had better get started now.
The relatively youthful former NSW premier and now HammondCare CEO demurred on Scott Morrison’s pitch at the last election, but will be, as of the second half of next year, a free agent.
Mike Baird: Looking to the next challenge. Dallas Kilponen
He flagged his pending departure to volunteers of the aged care company on Thursday, having already informed the board.
On his preferred timeline, it will put a four-year tenure on the role he took in 2020 after three years at National Australia Bank, where he reportedly withdrew from consideration for the CEO role after declining to relocate to Melbourne (though the demise of his sponsor in then NAB chief Andrew Thorburn, who fell victim to a royal commission lashing, can’t have helped his chances).
“I am proud of what we have achieved together and I’m looking forward to my next challenge,” he told HammondCare volunteers. “I don’t know what that is yet, except to say that I’m looking forward to a good break.”
Which, given Baird’s love of surfing, would be of the nautical kind.
Baird became the chairman of Cricket Australia in February, and in a Sydney Morning Herald profile published in July, he pondered that he probably had one more CEO role in him.
“It would want to be challenging and interesting, and it would have to be something I can finish my career on,” he told Anne Hyland.
And a return to political life? Well, he didn’t exclude it.
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