Wayne Morris: Loyal To Bank And Illawarra

Illawarra Mercury

Saturday September 8, 2007

News that IMB chief executive Wayne Morris will end a 30-year career with the mutual building society on October 31 stunned the Illawarra business community this week. Most were surprised a manager with such an impressive track record would be leaving after eight years overseeing record annual growth. Illawarra Mercury business editor GREG ELLIS looked back over eight years of interviews to find why Mr Morris is so highly regarded in the business community.

WAYNE Morris started work as a teller at a new Figtree IMB branch on August 29, 1977.

When he returned to celebrate his 30th anniversary recently, his first workmate Leonie Erskine recalled a fresh-faced, clean-shaven, body shirt-wearing 19-year-old being thrown in the deep end.

From those humble beginnings Mr Morris embarked on an extraordinary 30-year career that saw him climb to the top of one of the Illawarra's oldest businesses.

The IMB is now 127 years old and despite national expansion in the last decade, it is still an Illawarra-based business.

Maintaining that local presence and feel was something Mr Morris always sought to achieve despite the number of branches growing to 39 in NSW, Victoria and the ACT.

That loyalty is not surprising when you note Mr Morris' family's history traces back as far as IMB's.

His grandmother was born in Lysaght St, Wollongong, in 1886.

Mr Morris was the youngest of three children who grew up in Corrimal. He took on many family responsibilities after his father Alan died when Wayne was seven.

In 2005 he described those events as very character building.

"When I look back most of the things I remember, I didn't have a father," he said.

Mr Morris recalled peeling potatoes for his mother Grace who had to work full-time because there was no government support.

The former Bellambi Public, Wollongong Primary and Corrimal High School student is regarded as somewhat of an oddity in banking circles because he spent his whole career in Wollongong.

He was offered lucrative opportunities elsewhere but did not want to leave town.

That sense of community loyalty has underpinned what he has tried to do at IMB. Mr Morris has always insisted the head office of IMB remain in the city despite the national expansion.

Mr Morris was not always going to work in the finance industry.

He originally wanted to become a mathematics teacher so he could indulge his other passion of coaching a junior cricket team.

But he stumbled into accounting and still managed to coach junior cricket at the Western Suburbs Cricket Club for nine years.

In 1977 he received job offers on the same day from IMB and Illawarra County Council, now Integral Energy.

He chose IMB and worked his way up through the ranks after starting as a teller.

He was later accepted into Harvard Business School for an intensive study program.

Mr Morris never forgot the hard slog of combining work and study and always supported staff in a similar situation.

That is one of the reasons he developed such a good working relationship with many of his 500 employees.

He has tried to personally deliver a gift to every one of them at Christmas and hand writes birthday and Christmas cards for all staff.

His passion for sport, particularly the Wollongong IMB Hawks and motor racing is well known.

Mr Morris is a familiar face at sporting events and frequent networker but you will never see him drink alcohol.

"Christian principles have underpinned everything I have done," he said this week.

He was baptised at Corrimal Baptist Church at 18 and became a deacon at 22.

As teenagers he and his wife Narelle regularly crossed paths at school, church and piano lessons.

They married when he was 21 and are the parents of four children - Bethany, Greg, Brenton and Jared.

Mr Morris had a long involvement on the board of Illawarra Christian School and clearly remembers its first demountable building at Woonona.

When the school moved to Cordeaux Heights the Morris family moved to Farmborough Heights and started attending Figtree Anglican Church before helping to plant West Dapto Neighbourhood Church.

When it closed he started attending Woonona Presbyterian and is now a regular at Wollongong Church of Christ's southern chapter at Tongarra. Mr Morris is very open about his Christianity.

"I let people know if there are things I perceive as somewhat shady," he once said.

"I will walk away from that straight away. I would rather lose an opportunity, or lose a deal if there are any concerns in regarding the shades of grey in the whole thing."

In 2004 Mr Morris released a values statement influenced by his Christianity.

As a member based organisation serving more than 200,000 people he thought it made good business sense for all employees to consider how they dealt with and treated other people.

"IMB is a mutual organisation and ... we are committed to ideals that include individual, friendly and personal service to all our members. Those ideals also need to carry through to the workplace."

In 2005 Mr Morris said his principle for working with people was to be genuine.

"Whether I am in a public forum, whether it is here at work or whether it is at home, I am me," he said.

Mr Morris described his time at the IMB as an amazing journey that coincided with a period of exponential growth

But it is the IMB family he will miss the most.

"The personal side of my job is what I enjoy most."

Morris' IMB

IMB achievements with Wayne Morris as CEO include:

? Assets grew from $1.5 billion to $4.6 billion from 1999-2007

? Net profit up from $6 million to $20 million from 1999-2007

? First non-bank financial institution in Australia to get Standard & Poors investment-grade rating

? Morris named 2004 Illawarra Business Person of the Year

? Australian Money Magazine Building Society of Year - 2005, 2006

? Australian Banking & Finance Magazine Best Building Society - 2007

? Successful expansion of full branch network into ACT from 2000

? Branch expansion into Sydney from 2003

? First branch in Melbourne, 2006

? IMB Community Foundation invested back into the community from 2000

© 2007 Illawarra Mercury

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