Some of Australia’s top business leaders discuss the relationship between good business and workplace safety.
Diane Smith-Gander, Dean Pritchard and Marcus Hooke discuss the investment benefits of work health and safety and its integration into organisational culture.
They discuss the importance of making WHS an integral part of business, and the benefits of working together with small business and others in the supply chain to improve health and safety.
Panel members provide practical examples of the benefit of first-hand board member involvement in the workplace, and how it can shift the focus of those in high-level management to make changes at the organisational culture level.
The panel is facilitated by renowned National Affairs columnist Jennifer Hewett.
Who is this seminar for?
- big business
- leaders
- directors
- CEOs
- CFOs
- executive and non-executive directors of large national and global corporations
- finance and business journalists.
About the presenters (at the time of the presentation)
Diane is Safe Work Australia's Chair. She is also Chair of the Asbestos and Eradication Council and holds non-executive director roles for AGL Energy and Wesfarmers Limited. A board member of Keystart Loans, Henry Davis York and the Committee for Economic Development of Australia, Diane is also President of Chief Executive Women. She holds an MBA from the University of Sydney and a BEc from the University of Western Australia, where she was also awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Economics and is an adjunct professor of corporate governance. Diane is a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Company Directors and the Governance Institute of Australia.
Dean is a non-executive director for Broadspectrum. Through executive mentoring he is heavily involved in the area of corporate social responsibility. Dean has occupied roles as chair and non-executive director across a range of industries and has had an extensive career in the building and construction industry as an engineer and chief executive officer. He brings personal experience and a unique perspective to workplace health and safety. With a passion and commitment for sound safety culture in companies, Dean firmly believes that excellent safety performance goes hand in hand with superior financial results.
Marcus is the Executive General Manager for Production and Logistics at News Corp. He began his career working in metallurgy in Australia and the United Kingdom, before moving into senior leadership roles in New Zealand and Australia with Colgate Palmolive and News Corp Australia. He has more than 20 years of experience in operational leadership and a wealth of knowledge on driving work health and safety for improving operational outcomes.
Jennifer is a highly respected columnist, more recently and most notably as the National Affairs Columnist for leading financial newspaper, the Australian Financial Review.
Jennifer’s journalistic career spans 36 years – from newspapers in Perth, to the Sydney Morning Herald as a member of the Canberra Press Gallery, and in key foreign correspondent roles in both New York and Washington. Her first role at the Australian Financial Review was as a political and business feature writer in the 1980s.
She completed her Masters in Journalism at New York’s Columbia University and is on the Board of Australian Cancer Research Foundation.