Mrs Vautier on FCL board

Press, 20 December 1985, Page 10

Mrs Vautier on FCL board

The appointment of a woman to the board of Fletcher Challenge, Ltd, should not be’ considered tokenism or a reaction to pressure, said the company’s chairman, Sir Ron Trotter, yesterday. Fletcher yesterday announced the appointment of Mrs Keirin Vautier, an Auckland research economist, to the board. She replaces Mr lan Small, the company’s assistant managing director, who will retire as a director when he also retires from the company on December 31.

The appointment of Mrs Vautier comes five weeks after a Wellington chartered accountant, Miss Peg Hutchison, failed at Fletcher’s annual meeting in Christchurch to be elected to the board.

At that meeting, Miss Hutchison told shareholders that she was standing for election to draw the attention of the community to the fact that qualified women were available to do such work.

Mr Trotter said yesterday that the appointment of Mrs Vautier was not related to the challenge by Miss Hutchison. The company had been asked every year since it was formed to appoint a woman board member, and had consistently answered that it had no bias against women.

The company had inherited 21 directors and had

decided to reduce the number to 14 and possibly fewer. Fletcher had looked at candidates to fill the vacancy created by Mr Small’s retirement on the basis of qualifications and age.

Mrs Vautier will retain her membership of the Commerce Commission when she joins the board from January 1. She will resign as a director of Marac Holdings, Ltd, because of the take-over of the finance company by NZI Corporation, Ltd. The chairman of the Commerce Commission, Mr John Collinge, said that the appropriate disqualification would be made if a conflict of interest arose with any matters relating to Fletcher

Challenge. It was considered important that members of the commission were involved in business, and drawn from the business community, he said. Mrs Vautier is also a part-time lecturer in economics at the University of Auckland and was a member of the McCaw committee on tax reform. Mr Small, is retiring after 35 years with Fletcher and its predecessors to become chief executive and a major shareholder of Rothwells Corporation, Ltd, a new New Zealand associate of Rothwells, Ltd, an Australian merchant bank.