Opinion: Alan Joyce v the world

The CEO of Qantas admits he was one of Australia’s most divisive business leaders – but how will his enemies judge him?

There’s an old saw that states you can judge a man by the quality of his enemies. Based on this notion, outgoing Qantas CEO Alan Joyce was a titan among men indeed. Over the course of his 15 years at the helm of the Flying Kangaroo, Joyce made enemies of the unions, the ACCC, his own shareholders on occasion, and by the end a hefty chunk of the flying public, with Qantas becoming the nation’s most-complained-about airline.

Now – after his observation last August that he’s “had more resignation requests than any other CEO and probably any other public figure out there” – Alan Joyce is finally making his exit from the national carrier, with CFO Vanessa Hudson being anointed his successor to take over the reins at the company’s AGM in November. But what will we remember from Joyce’s tenure?