CIT CEO Leanne Cover resigns

CIT board chair, Kate Lundy, addresses CEO Leanne Cover's resignation

Transcript

00:00Today, the board has advised the staff of CIT of the resignation of Leanne Cover.

00:08That is effective as of yesterday.

00:10The CEO's decision is her own, and I'm not able to comment any further on her decision.

00:16I'm not in a position to speculate about the Integrity Commission's ongoing inquiry.

00:23That inquiry is ongoing, so I have no comment in relation to that.

00:26The CIT board was deferring our investigation because of the priority of the Integrity Commission

00:33investigation.

00:34The Integrity Commission investigation has taken priority, so we await the outcomes of

00:39the Integrity Commission investigation.

00:43Procedural fairness is very important.

00:44The Integrity Commission must be allowed to conduct its work in its own time.

00:50The board made a decision to stand down Ms. Cover on paid leave to allow procedural fairness

00:55to occur.

00:56The next steps are really important for CIT.

00:59The decision by the CEO to resign enables us to initiate the activities to recruit a

01:06permanent CEO, an ongoing CEO.

01:09We do have an interim CEO who's doing an excellent job, and so we have her on contract

01:15for another 12 months.

01:17That gives us enough time to recruit a CEO going forward, and we can initiate that process

01:23now.

01:24Of course, it's difficult for people to understand why we've needed to pay the CEO while she's

01:30been stood down, but I think any reasonable person would agree that procedural fairness

01:36is the first principle that we apply, and we have abided by that principle to allow

01:41procedural fairness to occur.

01:44The board's future considerations will depend on what other action is taking place.

01:49I'm just not prepared to engage in any speculation about the Integrity Commission's processes.

01:54They need to be respected, and I'm not going to comment on them today.