CEO INSIGHTS – Week Ending 6 September 2024

Tourism

"Tourists are good. They come in, they spend money, they generally don’t get sick, they don’t break the law and then they go home." Greg Foran, CEO, Air New Zealand Ltd

European Manufacturing

“The European automotive industry is in a very demanding and serious situation. Germany in particular as a manufacturing location is falling further behind in terms of competitiveness. In this environment, we as a company must now act decisively.” Oliver Blume, CEO, Volkswagen Group

Social Media

“If you think about it, Indonesia today is the second biggest TikTok country in the world.” Hein Schumacher, CEO, Unilever Plc

Banking & Mortgages

“Broking provides a variable channel for lenders, and they don’t pay a cent until a loan settles. That’s a pretty good deal, and a reason why the banks have closed around 2500 branches over the last five or six years.” David Bailey, CEO, Australian Finance Group Ltd

Fashion

“The fact that fashion is far too tied to pyrotechnics and less to an actual offering for real people has long been one of my pet peeves…Unfortunately, today’s collections are often created to impress and not to be worn” Giorgio Armani, Chair, Giorgio Armani Corp.

Computers & IT

“Overall, the demand environment this quarter has improved.” Antonio Neri, CEO, Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co.

Marketing & Advertising

“The level of concern is not what it was in, say, middle of '23, but we definitely thought that we needed to call out that conversations with clients that were moving at a slightly different pace. So, whether it was certain things were being delayed, there was just a measure of caution that had not been there.” Philippe Krakowsky, CEO, The Interpublic Group of Companies, Inc. [top global media agency]

Global Retail

“The first thing I'd say is we all need to recognise China emerged from COVID, I think, in a very differentiated fashion as compared to almost every other economy. I mean really, if you look back, it's only been out of kind of its post-COVID phase for about a little over a year...And I think that's what we're seeing now. Currently, I would tell you that we are seeing some pressures on the consumer discretionary front in China that we haven't seen recently.” John Vandemore, CFO, Skechers Inc

Cinemas

“So China has 80,000 screens, which is about double the amount in the U.S., growing pretty rapidly. Middle East growing pretty rapidly. Japan growing. And then Western Europe and the U.S., which are kind of more aged infrastructures are looking for new revenue sources.” Richard Gelfond, CEO, IMAX Corp.

Household Appliances

“Now what's different now is in 2018 and 2019, the appliance industry still was in a growth type of mode. Right now…yes, you've got replacement [appliance purchases], but the discretionary side is down, which has made it a relatively flat industry, and that would say that promotions don't necessarily make sense in this environment right now.” James Peters, CFO, Whirlpool Corp.

Rice & Proteins

“Through this, we'll continue to focus on our branded product sales. However, implementing effective pricing strategies and pressure from lower priced offerings across our business portfolio in financial year '25 will be challenging. Particularly in markets where consumers are facing increased cost of living pressures impacting discretionary spending and driving more trading down to lower-priced products.” Paul Serra, CEO, SunRice Group

“But people around the world continue to increase their protein consumption. If you think about the U.S., we consume about 280 pounds of protein per year. China is about 180 pounds. The rest of the world is 80. So, the opportunity to increase protein consumption is enormous, and that's going to happen with chicken and with pork” Juan Luciano, CEO, Archer-Daniels-Midland Co.

Legal Services & AI

“At this stage we are not seeing any decline in demand for graduates or junior lawyers. We expect in the longer term there will be changes to the way certain legal services are delivered and therefore the nature of some graduate and junior roles. It is too early to tell what that will mean for overall demand for these roles.” Sam Nickless, CEO, Gilbert + Tobin

Private Hospitals & Insurers

“The issues in the industry now are really about that shift in profitability and margin from the hospital sector to the insurance sector. That’s what needs to be reversed.” Craig McNally, CEO, Ramsay Health Care Ltd

“[For private hospitals] there are some structural changes that they need to come to grips with. For example, quite a profound shift away from keeping people in hospital for five days to more short-stay procedures.” Mark Fitzgibbon, CEO, NIB Holdings Ltd

Inflation

“I understand that people are hurting from high interest rates…[but] it’s actually high inflation that is really causing trouble for people. If we don’t get inflation down, it’s bad for everyone. Absolutely everyone.” Michele Bullock, Governor, Reserve Bank of Australia

Small Business

“The operating environment has not necessarily improved [since COVID] as people hoped and there isn’t that same level of [government] support.” Luke Achterstraat, CEO, Council of Small Business Organisations Australia