Chair of Fremantle Press reflects on the long-lasting legacy left by outgoing Chair Clair Medhurst
Taking a moment to reminisce on Clair Medhurst’s history with Fremantle Press, current Chair of the Board Louise Jones shares some of her fondest memories of their time together.
If I were to properly catalogue Clair’s contributions to Fremantle Press, and particularly her stewardship of the Board as Chair, over the past eight years this would be a very long piece.
I first met Clair when I was a relatively new lawyer in a law firm in Perth. I remember news reaching the young employees that a whip-smart lawyer from London had joined the corporate team. And that was Clair. I left the firm to work overseas several months later but followed her stellar legal career from a distance.
Bizarrely, we didn’t meet again for twenty-nine years when she interviewed me to join the Fremantle Press Board in 2019.
Clair had a very long and, at times as I understand, challenging history of serving on arts boards. So challenging that by the mid-2000s, Clair was known to say that she would never, ever serve on a not-for-profit arts board again.
But, when [former Board member] Felicity Ruse approached Clair to join Fremantle Press in 2016, there were a few reasons why she couldn’t resist.
Clair’s first full-time gap-year job was at a book publisher in London, and she loved every minute of it. So much so that she continued to work there during her uni years, and Clair has said this experience changed her perspective on the world.
The other reason is that fifteen years later, well after Clair emigrated to Perth, [her husband] Paul’s parents gave her a copy of Sally Morgan’s My Place for her birthday – introducing Clair to Fremantle Press and starting her on a journey to learn about the First Nations people of Western Australia.
At the time Clair joined the board, Jane Fraser was CEO. Running a small not-for-profit business is rarely smooth sailing, and that makes the relationship between the CEO, the Chair and the Board a very important component of success.
Jane had to run an exceedingly tight ship. She had carefully restructured Fremantle Press, and was striving to achieve a level of sustainability and make incremental changes by the time Clair joined the Board. Indeed, many of the challenges Jane faced back then, Alex continues to face today.
In 2018, the then-Chair resigned and Clair arranged for the Board to participate in a reset session. Lyn Harding (one of Fremantle Press’s first Champions of Literature) agreed to run the session as an independent facilitator. The purpose was to address the Board’s role in the oversight of the business.
Clair believes this session was fundamental in resetting the governance at Fremantle Press. Adopting contemporary governance principles created more open interaction between the CEO and the Board based on mutual trust and respect.
At the end of the session, Lyn addressed the elephant in the room – who was going to be the next Chair? And everyone pointed at Clair. She reluctantly agreed to take on the role, but for just a few years … and that was eight years ago!
For all those years, Claire stewarded the Board seamlessly. I joined in 2019, as did [board member] Deb Leavitt, and it was as if Clair had been leading for many years prior.
Pretty much as soon as we joined, the world was hit with Covid, which ultimately turned out to be a relatively positive thing, but in the moment, it was a very uncertain and rocky time – for small publishers generally, and particularly for the Fremantle Press staff and for the prospect of ongoing funding.
I know how much the staff and Board appreciated having Clair fiercely and confidently in their corner at that time, and ever since.
I asked Clair to identify some Fremantle Press highlights during her period as Chair, and these are her top five:
- finding an excellent new CEO when Jane decided to retire in 2022
- building a small financial reserve, which has sustained the company for several years
- building a significant philanthropy stream for the company
- facilitating Board renewal
- finding and securing a permanent home at Parry Street.
I would add a sixth item to Clair’s list of highlights – the Books for Little Bookaburras program. Although we endured repeatedly closed doors and woolly meetings, it raised our visibility in early education circles and focused our attention on our relationships with philanthropists in Western Australia. To date, 36,000 families have benefited from the program, and is entering its fourth year.
I think it is especially fitting that Clair’s last act in her term was celebrating the milestone of fifty years of Fremantle Press, and very fitting that we were able to make such a strategically sustainable move to acquire our own premises at 10 Parry Street. Our first permanent home was something we talked about and dreamed about for years.
On behalf of the team and the board, I want to thank Clair so much, we will miss her wise counsel and unflinching dedication to Fremantle Press.
Louise Jones
Chair