As promised, 2018 is off to a fantastic start.
Steven Burrell, Meegan George and I have just finished a series of meetings with members right around the country. The focus of these meetings was around hearing about the challenges you face in your roles and learning how Governance Institute can better serve you.
Governance Institute is continuously working to efficiently provide quality, relevant services to all of our members. To that end, Governance Institute has recently made a number of appointments.
Three new state managers have taken their reins, Leanne Ryan in Queensland, Maria Humphreys in NSW and Louise McIntyre in Victoria. Susan Bradbrook continues to skilfully manage our SA and Northern Territory office as well as taking on responsibility for Tasmania. Leanne is also National Manager of Service Delivery and will manage state managers across the country.
Catherine Maxwell has joined as Director, Policy & Advocacy — she was most recently company secretary for Cancer Council NSW and the Corporate Governance Course Director for our postgraduate program. Catherine brings that real-world experience to her new role giving a voice to governance professionals in the halls of parliament and amongst policy makers around the country.
Mark Wilbourn, as National Director of Education, is revitalising and modernising our educational offerings. Mark has over 20 years’ experience in higher education and he’s committed to offering the best governance and risk management training across the country.
Helping deliver these new and improved events are Nicole Santer, Event Manager and Anji Kurian, National Conference Content Producer.
The first national event for 2018 is the restructured Governance and Risk Management Forums, which will begin rolling out across the country in May. They promise to be fascinating and highly practical.
Opening the session in Sydney is Andrew Charlton. A Rhodes Scholar, he served as economic adviser to the Australian Prime Minister during the GFC before going on to a stellar career as an economist. Andrew famously co-authored Fair Trade for All in 2005 (at the age of 25) with Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz. He is currently Director of AlphaBeta. His inclusion is indicative of the calibre of speakers we are lining up for these forums. We have an interview with Andrew in Governance Directions this month.
In most states, the sessions will run across two days. They will look at best practice in governance, risk management and leadership, whilst unpacking strategies to implement good culture, benchmark performance and drive transparency and accountability — and that’s just on day one.
I hope you will be able to make it to the forum nearest you — in Sydney, Perth, Adelaide, Melbourne, or Brisbane. We look forward to seeing you there.