Board culture and character - it's time for change

Panel Discussion

no longer available

Date: 5:30pm — 7:30pm, 5 September 2022
Venue: Crowne Plaza Christchurch
Location: 764 Colombo Street, Christchurch Central City, Christchurch 8011
Price members: $40.00 incl GST
Price non-members: $60.00 incl GST

Overview

Boards play a critical role in driving the economic success and wellbeing of New Zealand. Strong and effective governance doesn’t come easily and needs constant attention to enable continuous improvement and to support trust and confidence in business and our institutions. Unsurprisingly, board character was identified as one of the top five issues for directors in 2022.

If our communities, societies, charities and organisations are to improve, we must make better judgements on the big decisions. To make better decisions we must encourage a culture in the boardroom that will encourage discussions which are truly creative and value adding and held in a thoughtful and productive atmosphere. Sadly this is not always the case at the moment.

So how do we develop a strong character and culture at all levels of our organisations? Our panel of experienced directors, Catherine Brown, Sinéad Horgan and David Meates, join us to provide some insights on creating board culture - drawing on their experiences, learnings and proposing some new approaches.

Panellists

Catherine Brown

A leader with over 20 years of experience in transformation and organisational change, Catherine has advised some of the world’s top organizations at C-suite and Board level. Catherine is passionate about organisation, governance & risk management effectiveness. She is currently based in Sydney and leads Oliver Wyman’s work in this space across Asia Pacific.

Catherine is a partner board member of the Financial Market Standards Board which advises on setting new standards for market behavior. Prior to Australia, Catherine was based in London for 15 years where she led Oliver Wyman’s Global Conduct platform. Between 2015 and 2021 she was chair of the UK Conduct Forum which brings together Risk and Compliance professionals from across 50+ financial institutions.

Catherine started her career in investment banking and capital markets at Salomon Smith Barney (Citi) in New York and Lehman Brothers in London. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Mathematics, Master of Science in Operational Research, and an MBA Finance.

Sinéad Horgan

Sinéad has built a 20 year career in accounting, private equity and commercial banking, holding senior roles in PwC, Accenture, ANZ and BNZ across Europe, the US, Caribbean, Asia, Australia and New Zealand. Since 2013, Sinéad has been based in Christchurch. Sinéad has extensive experience in financial optimisation, strategy development, risk management and the purchase and sale of businesses.

Sinéad also holds various board director positions. She is a director and Audit and Risk Committees of Farmers Mutual Group, Bank of China (NZ) and the waste and recycling company Eco Central. She is also an independent non-executive director of global high technology company Raxon, a trustee and Chair of the Audit and Risk Committee of the healthcare charity Maia Health Foundation, and a co-owner and director of business consultancy Morrison Horgan.

She is a Chartered Member of the New Zealand Institute of Directors and a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants Ireland. Sinéad holds a Masters of Accounting from Smurfit Business School in Ireland and a Bachelor of Commerce from the University of Dublin.

David Meates

David was previously the Chief Executive of the Canterbury and West Coast District Health Boards – responsible for the health services for over 600,000 New Zealanders, and the leadership of over 11,000 direct employees and thousands more NGO health sector workers contracted by the DHB.

He is a big picture thinker and has particular skills in system thinking and design, leading, enabling and delivering large scale system transformation including workflow design, digital, platforms and human centred designed facilities. People are at the heart of any system and David has inspired, motivated and mobilised people to be part of the transformation.

David has overseen the creation of what has been internationally recognised as one of the most integrated health systems. David has led the Canterbury Health system response to NZ’s largest disasters including earthquakes, fires and terror attacks. The success of the response to these disasters has been underpinned by the fully integrated Canterbury health system.

In 2011 David was awarded the highest standing award by the NZ Medical Association for exemplary leadership for the devastating earthquakes in Canterbury. In 2014 David was made a member of the NZ Order of Merit for services to health.

David has spent the past 9 months working as a specialist advisor for Lightfoot Solutions in the UK and has recently returned to Christchurch to contest the Mayoralty.

Originally from Canterbury, David has worked in both the private and public sectors, in NZ and the UK. He brings a wealth of experience as to the requirements of leadership and governance that are essential to support sustainable system transformation.

Facilitator

Rex Williams

Rex has had a 30 year career in the cement, quarrying and concrete industries, most of that time was spent in New Zealand but he also had experience in Asia and the Pacific. He retired from full-time employment in 2007 allowing him to have governance responsibilities in a range of sectors including Tertiary Education, Health and Local Government.

Rex is currently Chair of Styx Living Laboratory Trust (a local volunteer river care group) and an independent Chair for Te Tai Poutini Planning Committee (dealing with West Coast Councils and Rununga district plan revisions). He stepped down as Chairman of HWR Group last year – a role he had held for 12 years.

Rex is a Distinguished Fellow of the Institute of Directors.

Additional information

Covid-19 precautions

By registering for this event you are confirming that you agree to adhere to our Covid-19 health and safety measures. If you are unwell or have any Covid-19 symptoms please do not attend this event.