A wrap up of the day's presentations by each of the speakers at CPA Congress, Melbourne 2014. Day One: Monday October 13, 2014

1. DAY ONE: MONDAY 13
OCTOBER
Wrap up

2. Michael Blythe
Chief Economist and Managing Director of Economics, Commonwealth Bank of Australia
Economic insight: Risks and issues in the year ahead
Key points:
1. Australia needs to find new sources
of income and jobs.
2. Chinese growth sourced tipped to
grow by 7.4% in 2014.
3. More jobs in construction that have
been lost in mining.
4. China's middle class boom will help
Australia.
5. A modest righting cycle for early
2015 in interest rates.

3. Paul Broderick PSM
Chief Executive Officer and Commissioner, State Revenue Victoria
Change – it’s really not that hard!
Key points:
1.Make the case for change, ensure your people
understand the ‘Why’?
2. Don’t make too many changes at once.
3. The change must be supported by leaders.
4. Communication is not engagement, you need to
involve people in the change and bring them along with
you.
5. Culture is critical to success, your people need to have
trust and believe in the organisation.
6. Unleash the power of the informal leaders, identify the
people who can influence change in your organisation.
7. Speak to the individual and treat people with respect
and dignity.

4. Tom McLeod
Managing Consultant, McLeod Governance
Preventing corruption – lessons from the past 200 years
Key points:
1.Truth is the first casualty of corruption.
2. Every corruption investigation can not divorce
itself from politics.
3. External vigilance is the only answer to
corruption. There is no end point.
4. Corruption happens when people aren't held
accountable. Start the conversation early.
5. If you don't want people to be corrupt, talk to
them about the impact it will have on their
families.

5. Paul Looker CPA
Group Risk and Assurance Manager, SEEK
Risk management in a complex
commercial environment
Key points:
1. Change is constant and getting faster.
2. The pace of ‘big data’, technology, use of social
media and social consciousness won’t scale back -
so get on board!
3. Don’t talk to people about what might go wrong,
introduce risk management by asking “what must go
RIGHT?”
4. As finance professionals, we have many tools and
techniques at our disposal to manage risk.
5. We need to embrace new technologies but work
equally as hard on soft skills such as interpersonal
engagement, being aware of cultural issues, and so
on.

6. Lynette Nixon
Director, Deals Innovation, PwC
Practical guide to implementing an innovation program
Key points:
1. Change can be defined by the
acronym ‘VUCA’: Volatility. Uncertainty.
Complexity. Ambiguity.
2. How businesses adapt to the world
changing will determine their failure or
success.
3. We talk about people being our
biggest asset but don't use them to their
full potential.
4. Four steps to innovation using design
thinking: Discovery. Synthesis. Ideation
and Prototyping. Implementation.
5. Innovation is an outcome of great
choices in an organisation.

7. Nikole Gyles
Director - Technical Projects and Board Activities, Australian Accounting Standards Board
An accounting standard setting update: Forthcoming standards and major projects
Key points:
The Australian Accounting Standards Board is working on
several projects, including:
1.Leases.
2. Revenue from contracts with customers.
3. Financial Instruments.
4. Income from transactions of NFP entities.
5. Service performance reporting.
6. Service concession arrangements.
7. Addressing complexity in financial reporting.
The Australian Accounting Standards Board is working on
several projects, including:
1.Leases
2. Revenue from contracts with customers
3. Financial Instruments
4. Income from transactions of NFP entities
5. Service performance reporting
6. Service concession arrangements
7. Addressing complexity in Financial reporting

8. Gael McLennan CPA
Financial Planning and Analysis Lead, Microsoft Australia
Managing the shift to business partnering
Key points:
1. New business intelligence strategy:
‘Core finance’ means discipline at the core
and flexibility at the edge of the
organisation.
2. Success requires focus on three areas:
Integrated user interface. Reliable
information architecture. Powerful IT
infrastructure.
3. You need to have the resources
available to reach your goals.
4. Your people are the most important part
of the puzzle when it comes to succeeding.
5. Your organisation must continuously
evolve with the changing environment and
business needs.

9. Andrew Wilson CPA
Chief Financial Officer, Retail Zoo
Cash flow forecasting for effective decision making
Key points:
1. Daily cash flow reporting is essential, there are good cash flow forecasting and recording tools available
but human and manual input is also important
2. Build a cash flow psyche in the Finance team, have clearly defined roles, responsibilities and
accountabilities and regular meetings where you encourage the team to challenge, ask and discuss.
Visibility of your cash flow without looking at your bank account and a no surprises culture, when it comes
to reporting is essential.
3. Understand cash protection and identify any vulnerabilities. Work with your team to identify systems for
fraud detection and prevention.
4. Engage the broader business and be transparent with decision makers. Get buy in on your cash policies
and ensure internal controls are set. Have remuneration benefits tied to cash settlements not accounting
policies.
5. Good cash flow management gives you a competitive advantage and helps you to prosper in downtimes.
Don’t become a case study of poor cash flow management.

10. Christine Nixon APM
Deputy Chancellor, Monash University Chair, Monash College Pty Ltd and Chair, Good Shepherd Micro Finance
Leadership in focus
- To lead people you need to let them know you
believe they’re capable of success.
- Leaders are not born, they are made and developed
through experience. All of us can become leaders.
- You have to have resilience — sometimes you will
be knocked over and you need to pick yourself up.
- Bad systems can stop good people from
succeeding.
- Leadership is not about wealth, power or rank. It’s
about doing what is right.
- Leaders never have the right to believe they’re
better than others.
“If you’re a good leader and a good manager, you’ve got to
be focused on developing and encouraging people”

11. The changing face of the public sector CFO:
From provider to strategist
From provider to strategist
Key points:
1. Assess the effectiveness of the CFO
2. Transform from the top; support the re-engineering of business process
through demonstrated acceptance of change.
3. Adopt a client or citizen perspective when designing services to foster
greater collaborations across agencies.
Speakers: Shaun Condron FCPA, Chief Finance Officer, Department of Justice; Taryn Rulton, Chief Financial
Officer, Ambulance Victoria; Dennis Bastas, Assistant Director - Financial Operations, Department of
Transport, Planning and Local Infrastructure

12. Danny Davis
Principal Innovation Consultant, Vandis Advisory
Innovation aware governance and
the director’s role in innovation
Key points:
1. The complexity and velocity of change
in companies' competitive environments
are accelerating dramatically.
2. The most advanced organisations are
looking at striking a consistent rate of
innovation performance.
3. Today, 75-80% of companies' true risk
profile and value potential lies below the
surface and cannot be captured by
traditional financial analysis.

13. Sally Underwood
General Manager, Finance Shared Services, Telstra
Finance shared services – an exercise in resilience
Key points:
1. Change takes time. You need energy to sustain a long term change
2. Building Shares Services isn't always about cost cutting but business needs.
3. Shared services does not mean outsourcing
4. Shared services is about moving focus from value preservation to value creation.
5. Challenges to transformation: culture + capability + complexity

14. Richard Jamieson
Acting General Manager - Superannuation, Marketing and Direct, BT Financial Group
Humanity in big business – adopting a values based leadership approach
Key points:
Key points:
1. High turn over decreases retention of knowledge for
an organisation so it’s important to keep staff happy so
they want to stay.
2. You have to ‘care’ for your staff. Caring for others is
when helping someone does not provide you with
personal benefit.
3. If a staff member is really unhappy in an organisation
they have four options:
- Flight: Leave the organisation.
- Passive objector: Unhappy but put up with it
because they’re unwilling to object.
- Passionate objector: Object in a noisy way, but
not willing to quit or impact change.
- Passionate agent of change: Can’t control
culture but can influence it.

15. Tim Orton
Managing Director, NOUS Group
Tackling the big challenges facing the public sector
Key points:
1.The public sector is facing a range of
international, national, economic and
social challenges.
2. The public service needs to be more
focused on what it can deliver.
3. The public sector needs to collaborate
with NGOs and businesses.
4. Technology is a huge opportunity for
the public sector but it needs more
investment.
4. Government needs to think more long
term rather than having a short term
vision.

16. Chris Skelton
Partner, BDO
How to get the most out of your auditor
Key points:
1. Insist on getting the audit plan early so
the risks of material misstatement can be
confirmed with the committee or board.
2. Get an understanding of what the
auditor is likely to test and prepare the
documents.
3. Use the audit as a mutual learning
experience.
4. Have more meaningful communication
and seek communication outside of the
audit periods.

17. John Chandler
Chief Executive Officer, Toyota Finance Australia
What the CEO wants from the CFO and finance team
Key points:
Key points:
1. The finance department has to be fully
engaged with the company, rather than working
separately.
2. It's not always about continuous
improvement, but taking a leap.
3. Most of the answers to the problems are
already in team, we just need to ask.
4. CEOs and CFOs who fail to grow trust within
their teams, will ultimately fail in today's
aggressive business environment.
5. Every member of the team is connected to
the customer and there are tangible outcomes.

18. Murray Altham
Creator, Peak Performance Bubble
Discover the best of yourself:
Choose excellent health
Key points:
1.Picture yourself in 10 years’ time. What kind of shape do you
want to be in? What kind of life do you want to be living? Plan to
make this happen. Its only 120 months away.
2. We spend more time in front of a screen than we do sleeping.
Sitting is the new smoking. Every hour of TV from age 25 = 20
mins off your life expectancy.
3. If food can go bad it is not good for you. If food can go bad, it
is generally good for you. Stick as close to nature as you can
when choosing foods.
4. What to do now: Make a plan for your health. Plan meals and
snacks. Have a movement & strength strategy. Read or listen
about health every day. Look after number one.
5. Some good habits to make: Have a glass of water in the
morning. Pack healthy snacks for work. Before turning on the
TV, take a 20 minute walk.

19. Dr Andreas Weigend
Former Chief Scientist, Amazon and Founder, Social Data Lab (USA)
Big data for big decisions
Key points:
1. Every decision you make leaves
data.
2. The value of data equals the impact
of decisions.
3. What matters is not counting the data
but what you do with the data.
4. Start with a question not with the
data.
5. In 2000, the market was
conversation. In 2014, conversations
are the market.

20. Stay tuned for the
Day Two Wrap Up
tomorrow at
cpaaustralia.com.au