Glenn has worked within the government and education industry as a senior executive, internal consultant and change agent, including operating his own management advisory business. He uses his skills and knowledge pragmatically to improve businesses, positioning them for better performance. His experience includes a primary focus on strategy, public policy, change leadership, stakeholder relations, product development, service delivery, governance and people and culture.

DeakinCo. exists to equip workforces with the skills recognition required  to succeed both now and into the future. Partnering with DeakinCo. in the assessment of your workforce capabilities enables you to both recognise and retain great talent through the use of a suite of Professional Practice credentials that are powered by Deakin University.

Glenn gives mention to a DeakinCo & Deloitte Access Economics White Paper, developed from a new study of ‘Premium Skills’, which suggests that increasing human skills in Australian workplaces is key to lifting wages’.

Key findings:

By 2030 five core industries (government services, education, construction, health and professional services) will be adversely affected by human skills shortages  Australian businesses are underspending on training, allocating $4.5 billion annually on formal training, compared to $7 billion on recruitment.

By 2030 it’s expected that two thirds of jobs in Australia will be human skill intensive. Premium human skills in the workplace result in higher wages for individuals and improved outcomes for businesses.

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Sharing food has always been central to Mark Calabro’s life. Growing up in a large Italian family, Mark had a childhood of witnessing the bonding magic of food – where sharing was caring – and it gave the marketing, sales and client relationship head an appreciation for the role of good food in bringing people together. And although Mark never pursued a career in the kitchen, he has certainly entered many in the course of selling the hospitality technology he has developed over the past two decades.

Co-founder of hospitality platform HungryHungry and point-of-sale (POS) technology OrderMate, Mark started thinking about and developing food and beverage payment systems while completing a five-year Bachelor of Telecommunications Engineering and Applied Science, Multimedia double degree at Swinburne University of Technology.

In 2003, he and his co-founder, Shannon Hautot, outgrew the Melbourne garage they started in and launched OrderMate, a revolutionary POS system for an industry better acquainted with buying a cash register out of a box. After more than 15 years of demonstrating value to eateries, OrderMate has a database of 2,500 clients thanks to Mark’s hard work, perseverance and skills in building client relationships.

Together, Mark and Shannon have invested $2 million in seed funding for HungryHungry. With close to two decades servicing the hospitality industry, combined with their experience in building a technology business from the ground up, Mark and Shannon are in the right place to position HungryHungry as a technology platform that will support merchants and chefs while providing customers with a better dining experience.

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Kylie Porter is the Executive Director of the Global Compact Network Australia (GCNA). Kylie is a sustainability expert with over 15 years of experience in corporate affairs, sustainability and strategy roles across a broad range of industries. During her career, Kylie has provided advice on responsible business and corporate responsibility practices to senior management; managed reputation risk for environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues; developed and implemented sustainability and corporate responsibility strategies; and wrote and managed policies across thematic areas such as climate change, human rights, child rights and industries such as mining and metals, oil and gas and forestry.

The United Nations Global Compact is the world’s largest corporate sustainability initiative, with over 12,000 participating businesses and other organisations, and growing. It is both a practical framework for action and a platform for demonstrating corporate commitment and leadership. Global Compact Network Australia.

In Australia, the business-led Global Compact Network Australia (GCNA) brings together signatories to the UN Global Compact, including a number of Australia’s leading companies, non-profits and universities, to advance corporate sustainability and the private sector’s contribution to sustainable development. We do this through a platform for dialogue, learning, influence and action that is inclusive, practical and leading edge, supporting our companies’ practical implementation efforts and bringing the UN Global Compact to life in the Australian context and wherever Australian companies operate.

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Susan decided to turn her hand to creative writing after a long career in medical research, public health advocacy and the pharmaceutical industry. She holds Master’s degrees in pharmacy and biostatistics, a PhD in epidemiology and health economics, and was a National Health and Medical Research Council Neil Hamilton Fairley Fellow. She holds honorary professorships at Griffith University and the University of Melbourne.

Many of Susan’s research projects have influenced health policy. For example, her early work on the use of theophylline in acute asthma highlighted its toxicity and led to an appropriate decline in its use. The ecological analysis of the effectiveness of needle-exchanges that she published in The Lancet, was pivotal in securing government support for these programs.

Her major area of expertise is cost-effectiveness analysis and she has written numerous successful submissions, on behalf of not-for-profits and pharmaceutical companies, for government subsidy of medicines. Susan’s experience in the medical research and biotechnology words was invaluable in the writing of Eight Lives, her first novel. Susan is a keen traveller and aspiring sketcher. She lives in Melbourne with her husband and labradoodle:

She discusses:

• Her career & business background and able to touch on some of the research projects that have influenced health policy.
• Fiction that educates as well as informs. She likes to read fiction that’s ‘about something’ in addition to the characters and the story, fiction that takes me to a world I don’t know or relates to a subject I’m unfamiliar with. The seed of the idea for the book came from a UK drug trial.
• Ignorance about science is pervasive. In Australia, every second person believes that psychic powers are real, and one in five believes in magic. Although this could be viewed as harmless, or even amusing, the so-called ‘anti-vaxers’ provide a pertinent example of the human cost of such ignorance. Fiction like Eight Lives has the potential to educate people about science, and this learning, occurring while the reader’s emotions are heightened — when they are feeling empathy for the characters of a novel, say — has the potential to be sustained.

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Jason is a Partner at McGrathNicol Advisory & has more than two decades of experience working with clients to help improve operational and financial performance. He specialises in operational efficiency, independent business reviews, risk management, forecasting and modelling, cash and working capital management and corporate streamlining. He discusses the business & McGrathNicol Advisory's recently released 7th consecutive annual Working Capital Report for 2019.

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Anita joined LaSalle in October 2017 as a Client Executive within the Client Capital Group. She is responsible for managing and developing relationships with clients and prospective clients in Australia and New Zealand and is based in the Sydney Office. Anita brings six years of investment banking experience, most recently at Fort Street Advisors, where she provided strategic advice to some of Australia’s largest real estate firms. She also worked with clients in the retail, healthcare and general industrial sectors to execute mergers, acquisitions and capital raisings. Anita is passionate about making a positive social impact. Prior to joining LaSalle, she also founded a digital health care platform (Dokotela) to connect rural and regional patients to specialist doctors via video conference. A lawyer by training, Anita started her career at Mallesons Stephens Jaques, before moving into investment banking. She holds a Bachelor of Laws (Distinction) and a Bachelor of Commerce from the University of Western Australia.

She discusses:

• An overview of her role, background & LaSalle – real estate investment management
• Overview of LaSalle’s investment management.
• Interest of large institutional investors in property and particularly offshore property- motivations for seeking investments offshore.
• Geographic focus for offshore investments (US and Europe).
• Opportunities in offshore markets not available in Australia – multifamily, medical office, data centres etc.
• And Dokotela she founded that is an online video conferencing platform in 2017 connecting specialist doctors, mainly Psychiatrists, to rural and regional areas.

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The Lend platform is set to transform the SME finance market through automating the process of matching a lender with an SME, using a sophisticated combination of AI and analytics. In addition to this, Lend has also launched LendScore – an industry first tool exclusively available to brokers through the platform which provides brokers with a score on the likelihood of their client’s loan getting an approval from a lender.

Co-Founder and Australian entrepreneur Bill Baker, who has also founded various other successful finance companies including carloans.com.au and Fleet Choice. Bill believes the market is on the verge of a major shakeup both from a tech perspective and as SMEs increasingly turn to non-bank sources for loans, both prevalent themes in the business space.

About Lend.com.au: Founded in 2016 by a team of finance and lending experts, data scientists, machine learning engineers and technologists dedicated to creating a seamless, efficient and fast experience for Australian business finance brokers and their clients.

Lend works with brokers to provide short term unsecured business loans of $20,000 to $500,000 to SMEs in the Australian market. The vision of Lend was to completely re-architect the way finance brokers, borrowers and lenders interact. In 2019, Lend launched the fastest and most sophisticated platform specifically designed for Australian business finance brokers. The Lend.com.au platform automates the process of matching a lender to an SME, using a sophisticated combination of AI and analytics. It does all this without impacting the applicant’s credit score.

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Shroogle is a one-stop, fully connected personal finance hub in response to the findings of the Hayne Royal Commission into the financial services industry. The Melbourne-based fintech recently launched the first of a broad range of online financial services to provide increased access to comprehensive financial advice and related services.

Justin is an experienced financial services professional having spent 12 years providing advice and gathering knowledge and experience across the broader aspects of the entire wealth management chain in both large and smaller scale business practices. Qualifications include a Masters degree of Applied finance and Graduate diplomas in Applied Tax Law and Financial Planning. Chartered Tax Adviser, Specialist SMSF Adviser and Certified Financial Planner. Member of the Tax Institute’s National Superannuation Technical Committee.

He has 4 years experience in digital advice as Founder / Director of Shroogle, confirmed by some of the country's largest advice providing institutions as the leading strategic solution for the future of technology based personal financial services. He was responsible for the product vision and detailed technical and customer experience solutions and has been recognised by counterparties as one of Australia's leading advice technology experts.

Justin has now joined with Complii FinTech Solutions as Head of Product for Shroogle, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Complii. He is passionate about improving the Industry, bringing progressive, commercially sound change to the present advice paradigm and building a unification of compliant personal financial advice and management services. 

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Richard is a Chartered Accountant with over 20 years’ experience in retail and finance. He joined JB Hi-Fi as CFO in 2003 and took the business through the IPO process. Prior to this Richard was an Associate Director, in the Corporate Finance Group of Deloitte. Richard was appointed to the Board of JB Hi-Fi in June 2012 and became CEO on 1 July 2014.

He is currently Chairman of the Australian Charities Fund Employee Leadership Initiative, which aims to encourage Australian businesses to set up Workplace Giving Programs. To date JB Hi-Fi’s workplace giving program, Helping Hands, has 70% staff participation and has raised over $10m for its charity partners.

He discusses JB’s involvement in the ‘Workplace Giving Initiative’ and seeks to encourage other businesses to be a part of the movement. He gives an overview of the JB group business and the culture & retail strategy that are keys to the success that has seen JB Hi-Fi out-perform current trends in the retail sector. 

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Merrill J. Fernando was amongst the first group of Ceylonese to learn the art of tea tasting. Similarly laudable is the philosophy around which he formed his brand – making business a matter of human service. That philosophy is fulfilled in the work of his MJF Charitable Foundation which uses a minimum 10% of the pretax profits of Dilmah and its ancillary businesses, to provide nutrition, education, care and support to differently abled children, youth in marginalized communities, the elderly. Each of over 100 projects is designed around the principle of dignified empowerment, and touches the lives of over 10,000 families each year. 

The global tea company began its journey in 1988 right here in Melbourne, when Mr. Fernando convinced Coles to be the first stockist of his single-origin tea. Today, Dilmah turns over more than $US500 million a year and employs over 15,000 workers throughout the world. Merrill discusses the Dilmah story, his final farewell to his involvement in the business and to share more about the philanthropic work Dilmah is doing.

Dilhan C. Fernando is the CEO of Dilmah Tea and is the younger son of Dilmah Founder, Merrill J. Fernando. The names of Dilhan and his brother Malik form the 'Dilmah' brand, the first producer owned tea brand. 

Mirroring his father's devotion to tea, Dilhan's mission is the fulfilment of the pledges his father made in the 1950s, as a young Tea man with a big dream. His commitment is to resist the commoditization that devastated a tea industry that was previously characterized by small, and passionate family enterprises. He also shares his father's vision to bring quality and authenticity back to tea, and secondly, whilst doing so, to share the success of that business with the underprivileged. In addition to his responsibilities in tea, Dilhan also manages the humanitarian and environmental outcomes of Dilmah. 

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