Dan Murphy's owner needs a rescue but can its new boss deliver?

Sydney Morning Herald

29-04-2025

Few Australian captains of industry play 'hrdball' like Australia's highest profile female executive - the recently departed Virgin Australia boss Jayne Hrdlicka. Few are as accomplished in the science of networking, the art of the business turnaround, and even fewer are more controversial.
Having accepted a new challenge to revive the fortunes of Endeavour, the company that owns the big box booze barns – Dan Murphy's, BWS – and a portfolio of 350 pubs, her focus now turns from getting customers onto Virgin's planes to having them fill bars and/or their trolleys with beer, bourbon and Bordeaux.
Hrdlicka was privy to a masterclass in the art of corporate ruthlessness by her former boss at Qantas, Alan Joyce. Credited as being part-architect of the airline's 2011 decision to ground the airline as part of the nuclear-level move against the company's unions, Hrdlicka has seemingly learnt her lessons well and certainly proved her chops by resuscitating Virgin Australia.
Hrdlicka's announcement to move to Virgin's departure lounge certainly caught most by surprise.
The airline's Lazarus-like revival from administration appeared to be a textbook restructuring, and its current earnings profile is more positive than it has been for a decade or more.
Despite years of industrial relations education at the feet of Joyce, Hrdlicka also managed to establish a workable relationship with Virgin's unions. Her tenure handed a magnificent return to Virgin's owner, Bain, and assuming we escape a Trump-induced global recession, the airline's prospects look rosy in the short to medium term.
Hrdlicka is considered tough, ruthless and polarising to her critics and fans alike, so there is little doubt that the under-performing Endeavour is in for radical change.
Having worked in the cutthroat world of private equity, reigned over infant formula group A2, run the discount airline Jetstar, and then its mid-tier competitor Virgin while holding court as head of Tennis Australia, Hrdlicka appears as energetic as she is industry-agnostic.