Found this New Zealand article
A2 Milk should be 'held to account' over CEO departure - Shareholders Association
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/farming/118044514/a2-milk-appoints-interim-chief-executive
A2's handling of the sudden departure of its chief executive Jayne Hrdlicka has been blasted by the Shareholders Association, which has described it as "a classic example" of why it opposes "golden handshakes, time-only payments and the like".
Shares in A2 Milk Company tumbled more than 6 per cent on Monday morning in the wake of the company's unexpected announcement that Hrdlicka's would step down immediately, before recovering somewhat to trade down 3.4 per cent in mid-afternoon trading.
Board members rushed to assure analysts and shareholders that Hrdlicka was leaving because of the demands of travel on her personal life.
A2 chairman David Hearn said the main factor was the amount of travel involved in A2's strategic plan, which would place "significant time and increased travel demands on the chief executive, given that our core growth markets are China and the US".
But he said at an investor briefing that he was limited in what he could say because of confidentiality provisions in relation to Hrdlicka's departure.
Shareholders Association chief executive Michael Midgley said it deplored A2's handling of the hiring and stepping down of Hrdlicka.
She knew A2 was a "worldwide company" when she took on the job, he said.
"It should not have come as a surprise that there was going to be a lot of travelling.
"The A2 board must be held to account. If there are any outstanding payments, other than base salary to the resignation date, then the board must use every legal avenue to deny them to Hrdlicka," he said.
"We would expect the A2 board to have had a catch-all 'board discretion' clause in the contract that will allow this. If not, this in itself is a glaring omission."
It was disappointing there were confidentiality provisions in relation to her departure, he said.
"'Confidentiality' is a very convenient excuse in these situations and may obscure other problems that shareholders have a right to know. As it stands shareholders will have every right to wonder if their money is disappearing into a confidential black hole."
Midgley described A2's board as "naive and excessively generous".
Hearn said A2's board had recruited Hrdlicka for her "experience and ability to develop and implement strategy" and her resignation was done by agreement.
She will be replaced by former managing director Geoffrey Babidge, while the company looks for a permanent replacement.
A2 reaffirmed its previous guidance for the year. First half revenue was expected to be between $780 million and $800m, and all other key financial metrics remained "strong and within our expectations", the company said.
Analyst Nick Dravitzki of Devon Funds Management said the resignation was "clearly an unusual and surprising turn of events for a CEO to leave in such a relatively short space of time".
However, Hrdlicka had been a "polarising" figure and it was notable that the company had replaced her temporarily with its very popular former chief executive.
Chelsea Leadbetter, senior equity analyst at Forsyth Barr, said it was difficult to know the fulls ins and outs, "but having Geoff [Babidge] back is obviously a good thing".Analysts had struggled to understand some of the strategic comments coming out of the company. But A2 had given good guidance at its annual meeting, abating some of those concerns.
"It's a business that is clearly moving really fast and there's a lot changing quite quickly, so I appreciate it's probably hard for them too."In a statement, Hrdlicka said she was delighted with the progress A2 had made, but the next phase of the company's strategy was going to be "too difficult to manage alongside my other commitments whilst also managing the health and wellness priorities of my family and me".
Hrdlicka provoked controversy when she
sold off $4.36m worth of her shares after only two months in the job last year. The sale was granted by the A2 board as compensation for forgoing certain benefits when she left Qantas
She made another trade of more than half her shares last month, cashing up over $2m worth of shares to meet tax obligations "arising from the vesting of her time-based rights," also with the board's approval.
Her earnings last year totalled A$2.08m ($2.19m) in a fixed remuneration payment of A$1.5m and a "transition benefit" of A$586,666.
She was also owed a "potential short term incentive" payment of A$1.8m for the year, which would be paid after the publication of the audited results. If received, that would take her total pay to A$3.88m.
Prior to joining the company, Hrdlicka was chief executive at Australian budget airline Jetstar for five years, having previously led the business transformation at Qantas from 2010 to 2012.
She also served as a non-executive director of Woolworths from 2010 to 2016.
In her earlier career, Hrdlicka was a partner at Bain & Company, where she was focused on consumer orientated businesses. She is also the current non-executive president of Tennis Australia.
Federated Farmers dairy chairman Chris Lewis said Hrdlicka's abrupt resignation would raise questions for farmers.
However, it was unlikely to impact them directly as the company collected its milk from Fonterra and Synlait.
"A lot of farmers have been curious about A2 because it's been a bit of a superstar in the last few years and some have started breeding to build A2 herds," he said.
"This will make them wonder, is it just a business issue or is there something else? Is there new science?"
A2 milk comes from cows that naturally produce milk with the A2 version of beta-casein, rather than the A1 version of the protein, which can impact the digestive system and has been linked to ailments including irritable bowel syndrome, eczema and diabetes.
The milk's popularity had soared in recent years, taking the The A2 Milk Company's share price with it.
At the end of December 2009, its shares were trading for 0.05 cents each. By the end of this November, they were changing hands for $15.52.
That's a growth rate of 18159 per cent.
Mark Lister, of Craigs Investment Partners, said A2 "took the cake" on a decade of great returns for stocks in general. "A $100 investment in A2 back then would today be worth a spectacular $18,082."