Hunting for truth at Macquarie’s annual confessional
Executives spent most of the conference denying, defending and deflecting. But the week’s most revealing moments came when they talked about their plans for humans in an AI world.
What was the through-line at this year’s Macquarie Australia Conference? Was it the week for hard truths, in keeping with the event’s long-associated tagline ‘Confession Season’?
There were certainly the expected downgrades, including from the likes of Aurizon and Super Retail, but of the CEOs owning up to the predicaments their businesses are in, they were few and far between.
There were some, if you looked closely.
Guzman y Gomez co-CEO Hilton Brett was overtly downbeat on his company’s flailing US expansion.
“I’m not going to tell you that in the US it’s been easy,” he told investors on Wednesday.
