Nadia Lim comments ‘stupid and offensive’ but not unique in business, Campbell says

MY FOOD BAG

Professional director Rob Campbell told an Advanced Directors Course the comments about My Food Bag co-founder Nadia Lim were ‘stupid and offensive’.

Comments about celebrity chef Nadia Lim by DGL executive director Simon Henry were “stupid and offensive” but the sentiments are not unique in business, according to professional director Rob Campbell.

Henry has been widely panned for misogynistic and racist comments about Lim in My Food Bag’s prospectus, after he called the meal kit company’s co-founder and brand ambassador “a little bit of Eurasian fluff” who was showing cleavage to sell the company’s shares.

Campbell, who has been a director for more than four decades across community, government and corporate entities, told an Institute of Directors advanced directors course in Wellington on Sunday that the sentiments were not unique or from the past.

“They should be but they are not,” Campbell said. “Whether we are perpetrators or bystanders the use of aggressive personal put downs is not uncommon in business, nor are sexism, ageism or racism. We are no better served by pretending everything is fine than by the occasional flash of unattractive reality.”

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Boards were essentially the servants of the company owners, and were very likely to reflect the attitudes and attributes of the owners, he said.

Potential new members to a board were likely to be ranked highest for their compatibility, which meant they would be “someone like us”, he said.

“We all bring different things, or potentially do, to governance and there is no telling which will be of most value,” he said. “That suggests the net should be cast wide.

“We have to find more effective ways to really hear the voices of different cultures and age groups,” he said.

LAWRENCE SMITH

Professional director Rob Campbell says boards have to find more effective ways to hear the voices of different cultures and age groups.

“As a critical and pressing example in Aotearoa we need to find creative ways to link with Te Ao Māori (the Māori world view) in how we conduct everything from business to government to social services,” Campbell said.

“This is not solved by appointing advisory groups or granting seats at unchanged tables considering unchanged matters in an unchanged way. We need to experiment and engage with Māori on their terms, their space, recognising their rights and expectations to rangatiratanga and mana motuhake (self-determination).”

The answer to exclusion is not inclusion on the terms of the dominant culture but recognition of the rights of other cultures, he said.

Campbell said boards should also be considering how they listen to young people, as they were the future.

“Any forward-looking board should be considering how to effectively listen to the future,” he said. “The answer to this is not to appoint one or two young people to the board. We must find ways to hear and respond to views developed within a young person’s context, invest in this and respect it.

“We are simply the door men and women of the future, either barring the door, letting in only the always chosen few people and ideas, or enabling the gatecrashers, the uninvited and the different who shape the future,” he said.