Welcoming John Atkin and Lorraine Berends to our Board

When it comes to appointing a Chair for your Board of Directors, they don’t come more qualified than John Atkin.

The new Chair of the Qantas Super Board, John is also Chair of the Australian Institute of Company Directors (AICD) and Chair of Outward Bound Australia. He also serves as a non-executive director of the Commonwealth Bank’s corporate super fund, and of ASX-listed companies IPH Ltd and Integral Diagnostics Ltd.

So, with no shortage of things to do already, what attracted him to the role at Qantas Super? According to John, it was Qantas Super’s outgoing Chair, Anne Ward, who first approached him to gauge his interest.

“I hadn’t met Anne, but I knew of her and of her reputation, which is outstanding. I feel a little bit daunted, but equally privileged, to be following in her footsteps,” John said.

Given he serves on the board of the Commonwealth Bank’s corporate super fund, John said he was also interested to learn more about the work Qantas Super does as a corporate fund.

“Corporate funds came from the employer’s commitment and interest in supporting their employees provide for their retirement. Seeing super as an element of the employment relationship was something that always appealed to me, because that’s what superannuation is about,” John said.

“As a company-specific fund you can also tailor your offering and your language to your employees…compared to the big industry funds, which have millions of members, you can provide a service that’s personalised to the context of employment within the group. I think Qantas Super has done that really, really well.”

John is also keen to apply what he has learned through his time on the board of the Commonwealth Bank fund to Qantas Super.

“There’s a value in being able to compare and contrast. It doesn’t mean you copy everything from one to the other, not at all, but there’s a lot of general knowhow to be applied and developed in the comparing and contrasting of the two,” he explained.

John is settling into his new role as Chair of the Qantas Super Board at an interesting time.

Almost a year on from the Royal Commission, he has a focus on organisations being able to learn from each other – and here, in fact, John believes we can learn from the aviation industry’s approach to air safety.

“If one of the airlines has a failing, everyone gets to learn from it, and there’s an industry-wide collective sense of responding to it and everyone improving their systems as a result,” he said.

“[Directors also] need to adopt that same ethos of continual improvement and learning from mistakes. The practice of safety and the improvement of operating procedures within airlines is a standout example of what we should be doing. If there’s a failing in any super funds, we should all be learning from it.”

As he dives into his new role, John said he is looking forward to working with the Board and the wider Qantas Super team to ensure members are taken care of throughout their super journey.