Here are 6 ASX CEOs who departed their companies in 2024

Here are 6 ASX CEOs who departed their companies in 2024

Larry Diamond – Zip (ASX:ZIP)

Since Afterpay’s acquisition, Zip (ASX:ZIP) has been the flagship BNPL company of the ASX. It managed to survive a cash crunch, a spectacular collapse in its valuation as interest rates rose, a merger attempt with Sezzle that ended up getting canned and the humiliation of backtracking on many of the markets it tried to enter. Yet it managed to survive. It closed FY24 with A$868m in revenue (up 28%), $10.1bn TTV (up 14%) and 79.3k merchants (up 10%). 5 years ago these figures were just $84.2m, $1.1bn and 16.2k. Well done. And another 6 years before that, Larry Diamond founded the company with Peter Gray.

Well, after 11 years at the helm, Diamond announced he was standing down as CEO and leaving the company to start a family office and a philanthropic foundation. The AFR reported he sold 30m shares at $3.35, retaining 25m shares in the company. He no longer has to lodge a directors’ notice for selling shares and he never had to specifically disclose as a substantial shareholder because his stake was just below 5%.

Richard White – WiseTech (ASX:WTC)

OK, maybe Richard White shouldn’t be on this list because he’ll be back within a year as a consultant on the same salary as before. But he will not be CEO. White founded the company 30 years ago and operated it privately for 22 years before its ASX listing. He ended up resigning due to investor pressure after allegations of inappropriate conduct were made against him as well as eyebrows over his share sales.

Don Meij – Dominos (ASX:DMP)

For over 20 years, the company has been led by Don Meij who started from the bottom as a deliverer for Silvio’s Dial-a-Pizza, and within 6 years becoming an operational executive. When Silivos bought Dominos in 1993, Meij became General Manager but continued to work on the front line, becoming a franchisee in 1996. In 2001, he and another franchisee merged their stores into the Dominos corporate store network in return for a 20% stake in the company. He became CEO in 2002 and the growth continued, doubling sales between then and its 2005 IPO.

Overall Meij had a great tenure, growing sales from $120m in 2001 to $4bn today. However, no CEO stays in place forever, and the longer they stay, the easier it is to say that a stagnating company can change as soon as its boss departs. Meij began to come under criticism as sales stagnated post-COVID. Scruitany around some of his property transactions (or a lack thereof) added up too. There were also eyebrows raised when his sister Kerri Hayman became ANZ head for the brain. To be fair, she had a Dominos career in her own right, including as operations director in the UK and a franchisee in the US.

In November 2024, one day before its AGM, DMP announced Meij would be succeeded as CEO by Mark van Dyck, a one time executive of food services company Compass Group. As he is an outsider, you have to imagine this was planned behind the scenes for some weeks, and indeed the company told investors there had been a global search. He will be paid $1.585m per annum including super, and will work with Meij over the next 12 months as part of a handover period.

Steve Donohue from EDV,

Here’s another CEO who worked his way up over a long period of time. He began in 1994 as a summer casual then rose up the ranks to assistant store manager, then headed Woolworths’ New Zealand business and then Dan Murphy’s. Dan Murphy’s and BWS were under the Woolworths umbrella before they were emerged into Endeavour Group in 2021.

Since 2018, Endeavour’s sales have grown from $8.3bn to $10.2bn, although the company’s share price is under pressure and alcohol sales are softening as consumers struggle with the cost of living and stigma around alcohol. Donohue’s departure in September was nonetheless a surprise. Even though there had been attempts to remove him as CEO earlier in 2024, these issues had been resolved after board changes.

Joseph Healy – Judo Bank (ASX:JDO) 

Healy announced his resignation in February although he only walked out the door in June after a handover period. Healy founded the business in 2016 and grew it to the first fully licensed Australian bank to list in 25 years, with a loan book of over A$10bn. Judo is unique because of its focus on SMEs and traditional model of servicing them via account managers.

Brad Baducci – Woolworths (ASX:WOW)

Baducci spent 13 year with Woolworths, eight and a half of which as CEO. The reasons attributed are scruitany over its high profit margins and accusations of price gouging, not to mention that infamous interview with the ABC’s Four Corners over those matters where he walked out. From an investor standpoint, one would be disappointed with how it is lagging Coles. He was replaced as CEO by Amanda Bardwell, who was promoted from managing director of WooliesX.

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