Thursday, May 5, 2011

Qualmark's Head Resigns

We started hearing rumours yesterday and later today our Auckland spies have confirmed that in a shock move, Qualmark NZ's GM, Paula McCallum has resigned.

McCallum's previous position was General Manager, Auckland and Northland for Fastway Couriers. She has operated two of her own businesses and held a significant channel management and marketing role with United Networks in Auckland.

We were looking forward to the influence that McCallum would add to Qualmark with her experience in the private sector. Her tenure has sadly lasted less than a year and McCallum is to leave at a critical time leaving behind plenty of unfinished business.

McCallum commenced her position on 1 September 2010 with bold plans to take the quality benchmarking organisation in a new direction.

Last year we commented on the new appointment:
"Hopefully, Paula McCallum's appointment will not prove to be a hospital pass. She will have an exciting ride over the next couple of years as Qualmark goes through the pain of evolving from a government funded social adjunct to a lean and mean business unit that will be privatised in the National led government's second term."
Has the GM's position at Qualmark become a poisoned chalice? It will be a difficult task for McCallum's replacement to continue managing a major culture change, a reduction in public funding, coping with outside interference from Qualmark's shareholders and communicating with high maintenance tourism businesses. Understanding the dyslexic personality of the motel sector will continue to be a major challenge.

In hindsight, maybe it wasn't a such a good idea for Qualmark to divert attention and resource into a new brand?

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