Nearly a century and half of experience departs as Dickason swings the changes at Hays ANZ
The role of managing director for specialist recruitment in Australia has been made redundant as part of a major restructure of the Hays ANZ business, which was announced yesterday in an email to all Hays ANZ employees by Asia Pacific CEO Matthew Dickason (pictured, right).
As a result, Jane McNeill, the incumbent and long-time Hays executive in the UK and Australia, will leave the company at the end of the financial year, and four other senior executives will also depart over the next seven weeks.
McNeill’s role has been split along regional lines, with four new ANZ managing directors being appointed.
Incumbent regional director for Western Australia, Claire Forsyth, will have responsibility for WA and South Australia.
Simon Bristow is given responsibility for the Northern Territory, in addition to his existing Queensland role.
Sydney-based Andrew Hanson, currently the managing director for corporate and professional in ANZ, will lead the New South Wales, ACT and federal government divisions.
David Trollope, having relocated from the Netherlands three years ago to run Hays New Zealand, will relocate again, from Auckland to Melbourne, having been handed responsibility for Victoria and Tasmania in addition to his existing NZ responsibilities.
The restructuring and new appointments have created a domino effect: other senior Hays executives, now with a narrower remit or left with a diminished career path, have accepted redundancy packages or chosen to leave.
Melbourne-based senior regional director Sue Drew, departs after more than three decades with the company.
Also finishing at the end of the current financial year, along with Drew and McNeill, is incumbent New South Wales state director David Cawley.
The managing director for technology and technical workforce solutions Adam Shapley and director of the mining specialism, nationally, Ged Welsh have both chosen more immediate exits. Welsh finishes tomorrow and Shapley leaves next Friday.
The other direct reports of Dickason’s who have an Asia Pacific remit, Shane Little (MD, Enterprise Solutions, APAC), Lisa Morris (Chief Customer Officer, APAC), and Marc Burrage (MD, Asia), remain within the new structure, with the same reporting line.
The elevation of Dickason to the APAC MD role in early 2023 was at a time when the turnover of senior executive leaders at Hays globally, including notable local executives, Melbourne-based ANZ managing director Nick Deligiannis and Sydney-based global customer experience director, Jacky Carter, was uncharacteristically high.
Dickason has sought to re-size the ANZ business in the face of an ongoing slump in sales and profit, most significantly overseeing a dramatic reduction in fee-earner headcount.
In its most recent half-year results Hays ANZ reported 645 fee-earners as of 31 December 2025, representing a 42% decline from 1110 consultants employed as of 31 December 2022.
The imminent departures of McNeill, Drew, Shapley, Cawley and, Welsh, represent a combined 145 years of Hays experience walking out the door over the next seven weeks, which will undoubtedly be felt across the local business in a variety of ways.
However, a declining business means fewer opportunities for the talent coming through the ranks unless there is movement in the upper layers of leadership.
If that movement is not voluntary, then it’s up to the person at the top to make the tough calls.
Otherwise there is a risk of the next generation of talent, seeing the log jam of people ahead of them, departing for greener pastures.
Whether Dickason has made the right calls will be seen in the trajectory of the Hays ANZ business in the next three years.
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A time of significant change in the industry generally.