Associate Professor Lisa Barnes attended a 2 day update workshop in Brisbane last week run by the Australian Institute of Company Directors. The course was attended by members who had previously completed the Australian Institute of Company Directors course, but had not been updated in the last few years. The course attendees were made up of actively serving board members from listed companies, the not-for-profit sector as well as the government and private sectors. The link to the AICD website is https://aicd.companydirectors.com.au/
The updated course covered recent topics such as the Royal Commission into the Banking Sector, the legal environment that company directors operate in, as well as fiduciary duties and responsibilities of company directors in both the civil and criminal legal environments.
Other topics included definitions of conflict of interest, board composition, board remuneration, board risk, the importance of strategy as well as understanding financial papers in light of the Centro case. All topics covered were discussed and case studies presented and discussed by participants.
The 2 days ended with 3 groups being allocated different roles (Board, Remuneration Committee, Risk Committee) and a case study given where participants had to role play different scenarios and present to a board for discussion in light of a crisis, being either a legal issues, a risk issue or a strategy issue.
Lisa Barnes attended the course in her role as Vice Chair of a not-for-profit organisation called “Coastlink” who provide disability respite care to youth on the Central Coast. She has recently been appointed to the Risk & Audit sub-committee of ACARA, the Australian Curriculum, Assessment & Reporting Authority which is an independent statutory authority that hopes to improve the learning of young Australians. They currently administer the NAPLAN program. ACARA was established under Section 5 of the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority Act (Cth) on 8 December 2008. Lisa will take up the new position in November 2018.