JUDGES

Alisdair Barr is the Founder and CEO of Striver which is the evolution of Grad Mentor who’s sole purpose is to raise awareness of Financial Planning in small to medium firms as an exciting and rewarding career path to ensure the future of the profession. Striver only works with new entrants to the profession and in the process interviews hundreds of university graduates a year. Most of the graduates end up working in small to medium Financial Planning and Accounting businesses so through this process and experience many lessons have been learnt.

This has all ended up in the development of a digital platform called Striver which will support Australian business even further with the attraction, engagement and retention of graduate talent

Christine Bau is the founder of People Focused, a HR consulting firm that specialises in providing holistic HR services to accounting and financial planning practices.

A seasoned HR practitioner and qualified coach, Christine is known for partnering with firms to help create a great place to work and ensure that they meet their HR compliance obligations.

Christine is particularly passionate about ensuring clients have a solid HR foundation in place, and secure the right talent for their business.

Prior to establishing People Focused Christine worked as a senior HR leader with various mid-tier accounting firms and boutique financial planning practices.

Dr Vincent Bicudo de Castro started his academic career in his native Brazil, earning two bachelor degrees and a master's before gaining his PhD in accounting at Monash University in 2014 with his thesis, ‘The relationship between subjectivity in performance evaluation and managerial performance’. While studying, he also held accounting positions with KPMG, PwC and Gávea Investimentos, and lecturing appointments at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Monash and Deakin University. Further, he has authored and co-authored a number of research papers.

In 2009, Vincent relocated to Melbourne to start his PhD at Monash. While here, he was the recipient of the Monash Graduate Research and Faculty of Business and Economics scholarships. After his move to Deakin to become lecturer, Vincent was recognised with the Vice-Chancellor's Award for Outstanding Contribution to Partnerships and the Faculty Staff Award for Effectiveness, Excellence and Exemplar Practice in Research in 2015. In 2016, Vincent was a finalist for the Victorian International Alumnus of the Year.

Drew is an award-winning writer, speaker, financial adviser, and scholar mentor for The Pinnacle Foundation.

Working with small business owners, entrepreneurs and their families to help them better manage their risks, he’s known as the straight-talking financial adviser who believes life is not about money.

His purpose aligned company, Sapience Financial & Investment is committed to using business solutions to address broader social problems in the community, certified as a B Corp in 2015 and in 2017 received the Westpac Businesses of Tomorrow Award for using technology to better serve the community.

He's a regular writer for successful small business owners and entrepreneurs.

Jeremy Danon has undertaken compliance work in a variety of businesses and industries – futures and securities broking, market regulatory, market making, foreign exchange, accounting, banking, insurance, managed investment schemes, Registered Schemes and remittance dealing. Jeremy Danon has gained an extensive insight in providing compliance expertise to a wide cross section of clients in the financial services industry, by virtue of his experience with boards, committees and management.
With formal qualifications in business, accounting and corporate governance, Jeremy Danon has maintained his competencies with memberships of the following industry bodies:

• Fellow of the Governance Institute of Australia.
• Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Secretaries and Administrators.
• Member of Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand.
• Master Member of the Stockbrokers and Financial Advisers Association.

Professor Sarath Delpachitra currently serves and the Chairman of the Association of Independently Owned Financial Professionals (AIOFP). He has previously served as the Director of the UTS Business School in Shanghai and the Deputy Dean of the Flinders Business School in Australia. He specialises in banking, economics and finance issues in Australasian region and has previously served in World Bank, Asian Development Bank, ILO and DEFAT as an International consultant. He has published extensively in refereed journals and professional publications and he was the recipient of Australian Government (Australia Future Unlimited) by granting him the Australian Alumni Excellence for Research & Innovation Award in 2013. He has also served as a senior executive in the General Treasury in Sri Lanka.

He has interacted with policy makers as a resource person in several Asian countries such as India, Vietnam, People’s Republic of China, Singapore, Malaysia and Sri Lanka. He is also serving as the Managing Editor of the Australian Economic Papers; an internationally ranked journal in the field of economic and finance. He teaches applied finance and economics and economic reasoning for public policy and guided over 25 doctoral candidates for completion. His professional memberships include, a Fellow (Finance and Securities Institute of Australia –FinSia and a Fellow – CPA (Australia).

Tony Dormer is a senior adviser of a multi-discipline professional services firm that he established over 40 years ago and that merged in September 2017 to form Tricor Services (Australia) Pty Ltd www.tricorglobal.com The firm provides in-bound and out-bound business advisory, management consulting, tax and compliance, outsourced payroll and CFO services, bookkeeping, corporate secretarial services and financial investment services.

Tony’s personal specialist skills and extensive experience are around taxation services, mergers and acquisitions, business valuations, corporate restructuring, as well as business planning and business development issues generally. His entrepreneurial style and ability to 'think outside the square', has enabled Tricor to provide clients with a level and style of service that is unique among business advisory and accountancy practices.

From 2007 to 2019 he was a Board Member and/or Councilor with the NSW Business Chamber. He was elected President in February 2014 and held the position of Deputy President as well as Chairman of the Audit and Compliance Committee, Chair of the Business Environment and Economics Committee within the NSW Business Chamber. He now serves as a Past President.

He was also the former Chairman of Kreston Australia and New Zealand and was previously one of eight Directors on the international board of Kreston International, a position he held for seven years. Kreston is one of the largest networks of independent accounting business advisory firms in the world.

He also serves as a non-executive director on Profit and Not for Profit Boards.

Tony is a Fellow with Chartered Accountants (FCA), Member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors (MAICD) and Chartered Tax Adviser (CTA) with the Taxation Institute of Australia.

Prior to developing his practice, he had extensive experience at General Manager level with several leading private organizations. This commercial experience is a major ingredient in his philosophy and the range of services offered by him.

He also co-authored a book on leadership titled “Born to Lead?” with Charisse Grey

Tony is available for selective Director appointments.

With over 25 years in the financial planning and investment industry, Michael now blends this with two of his other passions- Building Design and Sustainability.
He established reimagined Habitat to provide design and construction advice to clients wishing to create sustainable, energy efficient houses. Using his financial planning background, the service not only takes into account the design and needs of clients, but also investigates the investment return on both the asset and the running costs through sustainable design, building techniques and technology and also looks at flexibility of usage over time. reimagined Habitat helps advisers’ work with clients to make more informed investment decisions related to the family home or their investment properties.

David Ho is the Sales Manager – Trade Execution within ASX’ Trading Services division. He is currently leading ASX’ cash equity trade platform in the APAC region working with investment banks, portfolio managers and dealing desks.

Previously he managed ASX Investment products business building out the supply of new investment products and developing an intermediary distribution channel including AFS License holders (Dealergroups), financial planners, accountants, retail brokers and retail investors.

David is also a Non-Executive Director and Board member of Burman Investment Management and a guest lecturer for UNSW School of Banking and Finance.

Peter Lynch is a leader in Professional Indemnity Insurance in the real estate, valuation and management right industry sectors.
 
He boasts over 30 years’ experience with Aon Risk Solutions and as the Client Manager is responsible for developing new business within the real estate sector including the identification of business opportunities with franchise groups and other stakeholders.
 
He took a significant role in providing advice and support to introduce a Real Estate specific indemnity insurance scheme and is responsible for the highly successful REIQ/REINT schemes which he coordinated with the assistance of industry, lawyers, underwriters and claims staff.
 
Peter has a strong interest in promoting safe and quality business practices in real estate and has been a regular contributor to course materials, presentations and editorial submissions. He has been called upon to be a guest speaker at training forums for the REIQ, REIA, REINT, REIWA and various franchise groups.
 
Peter also provides individual Risk Management training to a number of his Franchise Group clients.

Diane is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Accounting at UNSW Sydney. Her research interests focuses on understanding the judgment and decision making processes of preparers, users and auditors of financial reports and she teaches corporate financial reporting across both undergraduate and postgraduate coursework programs as well as work integrated courses. She is the Postgraduate Program Coordinator for the Master of Professional Accounting programs and is the Accounting and Business Management Coop Coordinator for the BCom(Coop) program. Prior to joining UNSW, Diane worked in industry and the profession.

Sascha Moore is a marketing specialist, who focuses on providing highly strategic, creative solutions – predominantly to the financial services and legal industries. Sascha has extensive experience in Australia and the United States with developing effective integrated marketing programs, and directing their implementation. She is now the Director of Create Design & Marketing, a boutique marketing communications agency that fuses solid strategy and powerful designs that directly resonates with a clients’ end markets. This approach creates a true connection: and connection drives results, deepens brand equity and furthers relationships. In addition to her professional obligations, Sascha is actively committed to educating brokers on how to enhance their business through incorporating smart marketing practices.

Dr Rahat Munir is a Professor, Head of Department of Accounting and Corporate Governance, Macquarie University. With extensive experience in all forms of academic endeavours - research, teaching and engagement, Professor Munir offer an unbeatable track-record of excellence in curriculum development, research leadership, change management, building teams, effective human resource and financial management. He has published in leading international journals as well as presented at international conferences and seminars in many parts of the world. He is affiliated with several professional bodies. Professor Rahat Munir is actively involved in learning &
teaching and research activities and brings a host of administrative and service experience across a wide range of contexts. Professor Munir has earned numerous national and international level research and teaching awards during his career.

Dr Maryam Safari is a lecturer in Accounting in the School of Accounting at RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia. Maryam's PhD research focused on the Australian corporate governance, and financial reporting quality. Maryam’s current research focuses on corporate social responsibility, diversity and inclusion, and social and human capital. She has a particular interest in these issues in corporate governance contexts. Maryam's teaching experience spans a range of subjects in financial accounting at undergraduate and postgraduate levels.   

Liz trained as a Chartered Accountant in the UK which has led to a varied and exciting career spanning three continents and a range of specialisms. From London and roles in audit and corporate recovery, she worked in New York with PwC as Director of Assurance Risk & Quality, and Australia which led in 2018 to the position of General Manager for Australian Regions at Chartered Accountants ANZ. Liz is also an independent non-executive director and Audit Committee Chair.

With over 30 years’ experience in senior management roles, Liz is known for her warm and welcoming personality with a passion for member experience, building team culture and diversity in the workplace.

I work in leadership positions across a number of areas, with experience in strategic and operational business, and people management.

I am a registered psychologist with a Masters Degree in Industrial and Organisational Psychology. My areas of interest and passion include education and awareness-raising of gender diversity barriers in the business world and the wider community.

With more than 10 years of industry experience, some of my key work includes facilitating fair and unbiased recruitment, promotion and development practices for many ASX listed companies (eg. National Australia Bank, Coles, Crown Resorts, DuluxGroup), as well as federal and local government (eg. Department of Finance, NSW Health, Taxation Office).

Dr Maria Balatbat is a Senior Lecturer and Joint Director (Business) for the Centre for Energy and Environmental Markets at UNSW Sydney. She teaches postgraduate students integrated reporting and corporate reporting for climate change and sustainability. Prior to her academic career, she worked as an auditor in Big 4 firms in the US and Asia. Maria is also a Fellow at CPA Australia and an elected Member of CPA Australia's NSW Divisional Council.