Once kindred spirits, now foes in MLC's very public stoush
Louise Adler and Rosa Storelli make formidable adversaries.
THE partnership between the principal and the publisher began happily over coffee at the top end of town.
Rosa Storelli recalls joking with Louise Adler while sitting at The European cafe on Spring Street, within sight of Melbourne's political powerhouses.
Louise Adler and Rosa Storelli are pitted against each other in a bitter dispute.
''We met each other to see whether we would make a good partnership, and I can remember she said our problem might be we are both too passionate,'' Ms Storelli says. ''We both laughed and said that won't be a problem.''
She recalls with some bitterness the memory of that first meeting on a summer's day in early 2010. No one's laughing now, almost a week since Ms Storelli was sacked as head of Melbourne's prestigious Methodist Ladies College.
At their last meeting on Monday night, this time in the sleek Southbank offices of PricewaterhouseCoopers, Ms Adler, chairwoman of the school board, handed Ms Storelli her termination papers. Up until then the pair would greet each other with a kiss. ''We are both very determined people and I wonder in hindsight if that did become a problem,'' the former principal wonders now.
They share a suburb (Fitzroy), a passion for MLC and similar character traits. A school parent, who declines to be named, describes the long-time principal as a ''huge presence'' on campus. ''She is a very charismatic leader. She casts a great shadow. She is a big figure who attracts people to the school.''
Ms Adler, publisher-in-chief of Melbourne University Publishing and a former MLC old girl, is a ''force of nature'', according to friends and foes. ''She calls a spade a bloody shovel and sometimes that can make her enemies,'' says former Age editor and MUP author Bruce Guthrie. ''Her drive is infectious. You can't but be affected by her enthusiasm.''
For her part, Ms Adler rejects the suggestion the board's dismissal of Ms Storelli was a personality clash. ''There is money in Rosa's bank account which is parents' money. It's not our money, it's not a private business,'' she says. ''I wish this matter would have been resolved privately … [But] we will definitely be recovering the money.''
Their very public stoush - in an elite world where dirty washing tends to be done in private, preferably by the hired help - was sparked by something as small as a 10¢ piece. Early this year a routine audit at MLC prompted a confession by a finance staffer who had been allegedly pocketing the coins he collected from vending machines on the Kew campus.
MLC's director of corporate services, Christian Gusner, then detected an alleged overpayment of $100,000 to Ms Storelli under a salary-sacrifice deal relating to her nanny. A subsequent review by Deloitte, ordered by the board in February or March, identified more than $700,000 in alleged overpayments to Ms Storelli relating to fringe benefit issues, such as house cleaners and phone bills.
Ms Storelli denies the money is owed and says she is the victim of a ''behind-the-scenes execution''. Certainly, when she discovered the non-executive members of the board were planning a special meeting to discuss the Deloitte report, she stormed into the board room screaming blue murder.
''She went berserk,'' says a source close to the board, recalling that August 8 meeting. ''She read a two-page blast that we were all disgusting, we had acted dishonestly and behind her back, we were conspiring against her and should all consider our positions because we were only there by her good grace.
''Louise was saying, 'Rosa please stop.' But she would not stop, she just barrelled on.''
Earlier that day, Ms Storelli had added recommended reading to the standard information packs given to members ahead of board meetings; an article titled ''The ABCs of sitting on a school board''. ''A change of principal is a stressful event for the board and the school as a whole,'' the piece read in part.
By August 17, in a meeting at Deloitte's CBD offices - attended by board members Ms Adler, Brendan Fleiter and Tony Peake, along with Ms Storelli, her lawyer and her accountant - the stress levels were turned up to 11. ''Her lawyer just told us we were basically idiots and we had no idea what we're talking about and the whole thing was wrong,'' the source says.
Ms Adler says repeated attempts were made to settle the dispute. ''I wished for her to be able to leave with her reputation, her dignity, her legacy, her enormous efforts and services for the school to be recognised and valued.''
Ms Storelli scoffs at that suggestion. ''The idea of them taking every opportunity to resolve the situation was under the threat of going quietly. And I kept saying, if I had done nothing wrong why would I go quietly?''
From that first meeting at The European until last month, her relations with Ms Adler had been ''only positive and supportive'', she says. Ms Storelli likes telling new year-7 students that when she looks out the window of her Fitzroy home and sees hot-air balloons in the sky she knows it will be a great day.
One wonders if the sky was empty on August 8, when Ms Adler and Mr Peake, the board treasurer, presented her with details of the Deloitte report. ''She told me to get a legal representative. She was very firm and I don't want to use the word aggressive but I'm struggling to find a word,'' she says.
''It was like I was dealing with another person. It was very confronting.''
The parties were no closer to a resolution by September 3, when a meeting of eight of the nine non-executive board members voted unanimously to terminate Ms Storelli's contract. At a second meeting last Monday night all nine members voted the same way.
Ms Adler and Mr Peake then left the room to hand Ms Storelli her termination papers. In industry parlance, the principal had been ''Adlerised'' by the publisher. ''It feels awful. I feel like I've been totally railroaded and that's part of the shock,'' she says.
''We used to kiss when we saw each other - not this time.''