Is it time for Farah Palmer to smash glass ceiling at NZR?
There is a position at the top of New Zealand Rugby that needs to be filled and the appointment could be history-making for an organisation that has previously been criticised as pale, male and stale.
Incumbent chairman Brent Impey will step down in the coming months – his exit was revealed exclusively by Stuff on Thursday – and that means a new chair will have to step up.
Enter Dr Farah Palmer, the wellcredentialled board member and current chair of the New Zealand Ma¯ori Rugby Board.
Is Palmer about to crash through one of the last remaining glass ceilings in New Zealand sport and help run the national game?
First, let’s insert a caveat: you would not necessarily begrudge Palmer or any potential candidate for the NZ Rugby role from viewing it with a degree of caution.
Even before Covid-19 arrived, the game was facing multiple challenges and the legal action a group of players announced in December following diagnoses of early-onset dementia ended rugby’s grim year on a fittingly depressing note.
It is also a sad truth that accomplished woman such as Palmer have previously felt reluctant to put themselves forwards for big roles.
‘‘I suppose I wasn’t sure if I was the right person to even consider putting my name forward and so I had a lot of self doubt and that was the hardest part for me was just being brave enough to go ‘look, just be brave, put your name in the hat and just see what happens’,’’ Palmer told RNZ in 2018 about initially going for a NZ Rugby board position in 2016.
That said, should Palmer be persuaded to succeed Impey it would be nothing short of a transformational change for NZ Rugby.
The 48-year-old has an excellent resume for the job, and plenty of mana. After a celebrated playing career, Palmer has excelled in academia and has served on the New Zealand Ma¯ori Rugby Board for well over a decade.
She is a senior lecturer in Massey University’s School of Management and director of the university’s Ma¯ori Business & Leadership Centre (Te Au Rangahau).
Significantly, she was elected to the NZ Rugby board in 2016, giving her five years to accumulate institutional knowledge and build relationships.
But her appointment would be a much bigger story than the standard one of a well-equipped candidate rising through the ranks.
It would provide NZ Rugby with a different perspective at the top as it deals with all the challenges facing sporting organisations.
It would also be in itself an inspirational act for others to follow, something that should not be taken lightly.
Palmer would not be sole woman to hold an important role in New Zealand sport. Tonia Cawood has been the chair at the Chiefs since 2018, a role she stepped into just 18 months after the franchise’s reputation was dragged through the mud after a stripper was booked for the players’ end-of-season drinking session.
Rowena Davenport was tapped for the chair position at Otago and stepped into the role in 2019, becoming the first woman among the five ‘big’ provincial rugby unions to occupy the role. Raelene Castle now runs Sport New Zealand, having returned from across the ditch and a spell as CEO of Rugby Australia.
And at Sky, Sophie Moloney has replaced Martin Stewart as CEO – an enormously important position given the company’s vital role in funding Kiwi sport through its broadcast deals.
Progress has been slow but it is happening. Many would say that it’s about time.