Here are 6 of the longest serving ASX CEOs

One of biggest shocks among large caps this year was news that one the longest serving ASX CEOs, NIB boss Mark Fitzgibbon, was retiring. After almost 22 years in the job, Fitzgibbon revealed to investors in late July that he was standing down, initially at the end of August, but he agreed to stay on until the end of November to hand over the job of CEO to Ed Close, who had joined in 2017 as Head of Marketing and Products and worked his way up to the top through a number of executive positions. With Fitzgibbon gone, let us take a look at some of the longest-serving ASX CEOs that remain.

6 of the longest serving ASX CEOs

Sam Huppert – Pro Medicus (ASX:PME) 

Huppert founded the company fresh out of university as a computer science graduate, way back in 1980. He has been co-CEO of Pro Medicus ever since, all throughout its various businesses. In 2009, the company acquired the Visage software, that enables radiologists to view and download images. This may not seem like a revolutionary idea, but it was back in 2009 – or at least viewing them in a way without waiting too long. Pro Medicus today is capped at over A$14bn, as a direct result of the company’s successful penetration of the US market. Huppert shows no sign of departing the CEO’s seat anytime soon.

Tony Wall – Objective Corporation (ASX:OCL)

Objective Corporation has software products that can handle common problems or manually intensive tasks local governments and businesses in highly regulated sectors undertake on a daily basis as well as to store data. This software increases the ease, security and efficiency with which such tasks can be accomplished.  

It was founded by Tony Wall who is still CEO of the company today and owns roughly two thirds of the company. The company IPO’d in mid-2000 at just 50c per share, raising $6m. It has not raised a cent of capital ever since.

Before it listed, Objective Corporation was an on-premise license business, but has transitioned into a subscription model.  It makes over 75% of its revenue from Australia, but has gradually built a significant presence in New Zealand and the UK.

Scott Didier – Johns Lyng (ASX:JLG)

Johns Lyng Group (ASX:JLG) is a restoration services company, repairing properties after damage by insured events, including weather and other impact incidents. Yes, we acknowledge Johns Lyng has not had the best few months, but it is still ahead of where it was 20 years ago. It was named after the founding Lyng family who owned for 5 decades before selling it to Scott Didier.

He has made it a national business and a public one, overhauled the culture and increased the business’ turnover from $12m to more than $400m today. Under Didier’s tenure as CEO, Johns Lyng has a long term track record of earnings growth, both as a private and public company. It has achieved a 25% revenue CAGR since 2004 and a 35% CAGR growth in the past 5 years since its IPO.

Johns Lyng has been speculated to be one of the best ways to profit from climate change, given its role as a contractor that conducts repair and property assessment jobs. As long as Didier is CEO, the company’s leadership will be one of the key reasons to give it a close look.

Leigh Mackender – Service Stream (ASX:SSM)

Mackender became CEO in May 2014, following a few years in lower management levels at the company. The company specialises in the design, construction, installation, operation and maintenance of critical assets across Australia’s essential infrastructure networks. In other words, it provides end-to-end asset life-cycle services.

In FY24, the company delivered $2.4bn in revenue and a $50.1m profit, up 11% and 36% from the year before. It was able to triple its dividend form the year before.

Mark Allison – Elders (ASX:ELD)

Mark Allison has been in the hot seat for over 10 years now and is not set to be going anywhere. The parties had intended to part ways before backflipping because a superior candidate could not be found. He became CEO having already been on the board as chairman and overseeing a CEO hiring process…only for the process to end with him being hired.

The share price plunged 23% when he announced he was leaving, but it has not recovered, even though the company ultimately backflipped. Elders is a historic business, but (as an agriculture company) is highly vulnerable to weather conditions and commodity prices. Its most recent results were the worst in the past decade as its profits fell 76% – all due to El Nino.

Colin Goldschmidt – Sonic Healthcare (ASX:SHL)

For a non-founder, Goldschmidt has been in the hot seat for quite a while – for over 3 decades. He is a qualified medical doctor and pathologist, well qualified for Australia’s largest pathology stock and one of the largest medical stocks generally.

Sonic Healthcare is a medical diagnostics company, headquartered in Sydney but with operations around the world. It operates medical centres, pathology and radiology services. The company employs 42,000 people globally and has strong market positions. Even in the USA, it is the third-largest private pathology provider. It was founded in 1934 and listed on the ASX in 1987. It has grown both organically and through M&A. Looking at its healthcare peers on the exchange, only CSL (ASX:CSL) has a larger market capitalisation.

Sonic was one of the largest providers of COVID-19 tests during the pandemic and the benefit showed in its results. Unlike other peers, it had a solid core business, although it was a ‘rough landing’ to get back to normality. It has told investors it has catalysts to come including AI. In 2021, it bought into Harrison.ai, to develop AI solutions for pathology, including a chest X-ray AI tool and CT brain AI application. It has another joint venture with a company called Franklin.ai that will see the pair complete an anatomical pathology AI product that would eventually be deployed within Sonic and sold globally.

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