The CEOs who got away

John Alexander: Fairfax foolishly sacked him in 1998 after cost blowouts at The SMH when they really should have sacked their dunderhead CEO Bob Muscat and installed JA in the top job. Instead, he was lost to the Packers although his divisive style certainly didn't help at Channel Nine.

Keith Barton: Missed out on the top job at CSR in 1993 when outgoing CEO Ian Burgess and the board backed the wrong man in Geoff Kels. Barton then defected to James Hardie where he did a good job before clearing out as the asbestos shenanigans really started under Peter Macdonald.

Terry Davis: Should have succeeded Ted Kunkel at Foster's but the board stuffed it and Ted's huge ego got in the way, so Davis took the offer from David Gonski and did an excellent job running Coca Cola Amatil.

Gail Kelly: David Murray was allowed to stay on for way too long at the Commonwealth Bank when Gail Kelly would have been an excellent successor if she hadn't been lost to St George, before Westpac picked her up to become its CEO.

Grant King: Was running a large part of AGL's gas business but long-serving plumber-turned CEO Len Bleasel was showing no signs of retiring so he defected to Boral and has built Origin Energy into a power house when he would have been a better choice than Greg Martin as the next CEO of AGL.

Paul Little: Was a senior executive at Mayne Nickless in 1986 when he quit to run a private hospital in Geelong and then participated in the management buyout of the little-known Toll Holdings, which is now a $4.5 billion logistics and transport giant. Meanwhile, Mayne is now totally out of logistics and is only capitalised at $3.5 billion. Little would have saved Mayne from itself.

Mark McInnes: After doing a great job launching Officeworks for Coles Myer, he should have been fast-tracked but instead defected to David Jones and is now causing his old employer enormous problems.

John Mulcahy: Same category as Gail Kelly. Would have been a good successor to David Murray at the CBA but instead is now running Suncorp.

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