How this Deloitte auditor got his chance to rescue AGL as CEO

Angela Macdonald-SmithSenior resources writer

It was when AGL Energy’s long-planned demerger lay in tatters, market confidence was at an all-time low and the company was at loggerheads with its famous biggest shareholder that then-chief financial officer Damien Nicks knew it was time to step up.

“For me, I was really clear then on what we needed to do as an organisation to reset confidence [of] both the external market, our shareholders and importantly, our people,” Nicks says of the turbulent period in mid-2022 suffered by the 187-year-old energy utility.

“I wouldn’t say I’ve sat there for the last 10 years going, I want to be CEO. But it comes up in points of your career, where you just know that it’s the right time to have a go.”

Nicks, who had joined AGL in 2013 when Michael Fraser was still CEO, said that despite the dire straits the country’s biggest electricity and gas retailer and largest carbon emitter was in, he was convinced its underlying business “was not broken”.

“We had the externalities of what we were dealing with, the media, the shareholder piece, and stakeholders: that was very challenging, but the underlying business is a great business.”

Almost two years on, Nicks has put some runs on the board, smoothing over a major board upheaval in late 2022 forced by then-11.3 per cent shareholder Mike Cannon-Brookes’ Grok Ventures, which dramatically scuppered the demerger plan earlier in the year. He put in place a decarbonisation plan for AGL that is broadly backed by Grok and overseen the closure of the Liddell coal-fired generator in NSW.

Importantly, the Melbourne-based company has also taken steps to progress its build-out of clean energy and storage capacity, as Nicks tackles the huge task of replacing its large coal power plants in Victoria and NSW to keep customers supplied with reliable, increasingly low-carbon – and hopefully affordable – energy.

AGL’s project pipeline has expanded from 3.2 gigawatts about 12 months ago to 5.8GW, with a target of more than 12GW to allow for projects that fall by the wayside or get sidelined by better options.

The shares, which hit an all-time low in November 2021 of $5.10, have since increased by about 70 per cent although remain well off the $20-plus levels typical of most of 2017-19.