*Following the announcement by Transporting New Zealand on the appointment of Cameron Bagrie to the association’s board, our own Dave McCoid published the following comment on LinkedIn.

It has attracted the interest of many in the industry, including the association itself, and has been reproduced by the association as its Friday Blog today. Since we’re running it here, there will be no Transporting New Zealand blog in this EDM.

The PR from Ia Ara Transporting New Zealand last week announcing the appointment of Cameron Bagrie as independent director and chairman, and Dom Kalasih confirmed as CEO, was both interesting and welcome news.

Congratulations to both men, and it might be worth TNZ contacting the Guinness World Records people to see if Dom has the record for being the longest serving “interim” CEO.

Kalasih deserved the opportunity to stamp his brand on the CEO role; a more diligent, personable, and intellectually complete transport industry person you will not find. He will serve as a humble, approachable, doggedly hard-working servant to his team, and to the transport industry.

Bagrie is an interesting, crafted, and clever appointment, and maybe just what we need. A ‘history’-free, agenda-free, pragmatist. An intellect few would feel comfortable challenging, with little apparent desire or need to win favour with any party, especially if it comes at the detriment of New Zealand.

Looking on from the bleachers it appears outgoing chairperson Warwick Wilshier has yet again performed his specific brand of alchemy, getting a doggedly entrenched and intensely regionalised representation around the table talking, and restructured such that they might remain an effective voice of industry twenty years from now.

To succeed him with an instrument as blunt as Cameron Bagrie has the potential to be a stroke of genius. I’ve always said the day things improve for the road transport industry will be the day it begins to take itself seriously, and that day may be closer now than it’s ever been.

While Bagrie will undoubtedly have an impressive list of contacts in the halls of power, it’ll be his introspective industry view and his intolerance for the shenanigans that have dogged the industry association and operation for decades that might prove his most effective service in governance.

In an association taking its first tentative steps on a new, promising, yet at the same time potentially rocky path, there could be no better appointment in the senior governance role than someone whose only interest is the welfare of the industry and those it serves.

All the best,

Dave McCoid
Editorial Director