‘Susan is in Cannes’: Anger at Tourism Australia after executive joined job cuts meeting from French Riviera

On June 20 last year, Tourism Australia staff tuned in to an all-hands Zoom meeting to learn more about impending job cuts impacting the agency’s marketing team. Chief marketing officer Susan Coghill and two of her team members used a generic background when they joined the video call. Then, according to sources with knowledge of the meeting, managing director Phillipa Harrison let slip that “Susan is in Cannes”.

“They tried to hide [that she was in France], and all the staff still complain about it — and finding out like that! To make it worse, she hid it from her team and they found out over Zoom,” one source said.