Presenter Biographies

Please find below a list, in order of appearance, of presenters for the 2008 National Finance and Procurement Conference. Biographical details for each presenter will also be listed as received.

Mr Wayne Myers, Deakin University, Conference Master of Ceremonies

Dr Brian Spencer, Higher Ed Services, Board Chair

Dr Spencer has over 42 years of experience in university administration in Australia. He is a graduate of the University of New South Wales in Commerce and of Macquarie University in Education.

Until his retirement in July 2007, he was Registrar and Vice-Principal of Macquarie University for 21 years. As a member of the University's Senior Executive, he was responsible to the Vice-Chancellor for supporting the academic administration of the University, for the management of student services and for corporate governance.

Brian was a member of the original CASMAC Steering Committee which established standards for the development of information-technology based enterprise systems in Australian Universities, particularly student systems. He continued as a member of the Boards of Union Pty Ltd and its successor Higher Ed Systems Pty Ltd.

Over the years, Brian has been involved in a large number of projects for the Australian Vice-Chancellors' Committee ranging from Administrative Staff Training Courses in Australia to Shadow and Leadership programs in Japan, Indonesia, Malaysia, China, Austria and Hong Kong.

Brian is currently:

• Chairman of the Board of Higher Ed Services Pty Ltd, the professional services company owned by Universities Australia
• Director of Dunmore Lang College Ltd at Macquarie University
• Director of the nation-wide Universities Co-Op Bookshop Ltd
• Chairman of the Board of the travel company Odyssey Edventures Ltd
• Vice-President of the Board of U@MQ Ltd, which now manages student services on the Macquarie University campus.
• Member of the National Board of Advisors of AIESEC Australia.

From 2000-2005, Brian was Vice-President of the International Leadership Council of the Golden Key International Honour Society. In 2005, he received the President's Award for service to the Golden Key International Honour Society in Los Angeles and was admitted to the AIESEC Alumni Hall of Fame in Agra, India. He is a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Company Directors and a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Management.

Brian's interests include sailing, bushwalking and rugby union.

Mr Daivd Pitt, Vice-President (Finance) & Chief Financial Officer, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia

David Pitt was appointed as Vice President (Finance) and CFO of Monash University in August 2005. He oversees the financial management, funding and capital works programs of Monash world-wide. David previously held several senior positions at Telstra, most recently as Director of Strategic Projects where he was responsible for strategic analysis, mergers and acquisitions, business restructuring and evaluating major investment proposals. During his time at Telstra, he developed and implemented the company's new superannuation scheme and developed the strategy for implementing the early rollout of Telstra's Pay TV cable network. His experience as a company director includes the boards of various high technology and communications organisations, international start-ups and joint ventures.

David is a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Company Directors and a member of the Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia and has a First Class Honours Science Degree majoring in pure mathematics and statistics, a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Melbourne and an MBA from RMIT.

Mr Paul Leadbeter, Norman Waterhouse Lawyers

Paul has 25 years' experience in private practice and academia in the areas of Environmental Law, Land Use Planning Law and General Public Law. Commencing practice in 1982 at Stratford & Co he moved from there to become legal officer for the City of Tea Tree Gully joining Norman Waterhouse in 1985 where he remained as a partner until 1995. He then spent four and a half years as Director of the Australian Centre for Environmental Law and Senior Lecturer at the University of Adelaide Law School. He returned to Norman Waterhouse as a partner in 2001.

His focus is on providing advice and representation to the firm's significant local government client base, private industry and a range of training and development programmes in the Environmental Law area. >> More

Mick Houlahan, Director IT, University of Western Sydney

Michael (Mick) Houlahan is currently the Director of Information Technology at UWS. He was appointed to this role in 2000 at a time when the university was amalgamating its management model from a distributed campus-based one to a single structure. As a consequence, Mick was responsible for establishing the central Information Technology unit for the "new" UWS and consolidating and rationalising IT services in order to provide a consistent and robust range of technology services across all UWS campuses.

Under Mick's leadership, major ERP systems have been implemented at UWS since 2000 including the Callista SMS, Alesco HR/Payroll and WebCT. In addition standard email/collaboration systems have been established that are campus agnostic, and substantial IT infrastructure projects have been completed. UWS now boasts a single technology and support infrastructure operating across all campuses.

Mick has been at UWS since 1991 where he managed IT services at the Penrith/Parramatta campuses before taking on his current role. Before joining UWS, he held senior management positions in the NSW public sector as Director Information Systems at NSW TAFE and Manager, Computer Services at the NSW Department of Agriculture & Fisheries. He has worked in IT for over 30 years in a variety of managerial and technical roles. Mick serves on the Executive of CAUDIT as Treasurer and was from 2005-2007, a director of HES.

Bill Sandford, Procure to Pay Manager, Asciano Limited

Bill Sandford is the Procure to Pay Manager for Asciano Limited, the holding company for both the Patrick Group and Pacific National. Bill has extensive experience in change management and productivity improvement with more than 25 years Australian and international experience in commercial and general management and business consulting in the public and private sectors.

Grahame Scriven, Agility Consulting

Grahame Scriven is the CEO of Agility Consulting in Sydney (www.agility.com.au). Agility specialises in the Business Intelligence arena and has deployed many business solutions. In particular they have addressed:

Specific University Experience- Faculty and School contribution reporting systems - Course and Program contribution - Benchmarking of services areas - Business case for a new law school - Planning and Budgeting review - Finance function review - Business Intelligence (BI) roadmap - BI Prioritisation Review

Profitability Reporting Planning, Budgeting and Forecasting Scorecards and KPI ReportingBusiness Intelligence Systems- Business requirements - Design - Logical and Physical data models - Development, Testing & Documentation

Agility's clients include banks (CBA, Westpac and Macquarie Bank), Telco's (Vodafone and Optus), commercial clients (Brambles, AGL) universities (University of Technology Sydney, Curtin University, Wellington Institute of Technology, National University of Singapore, University of New England, University of Southern Queensland and Griffith University) and government agencies (Queensland Health and Queensland Department of Child Safety).

Grahame enjoys theatre and red wine!

Mr Vincent John, University of Greenwich, UK

Vincent John is a dedicated Procurement professional with diverse corporate management experience gained in a range of public service organisations in the Local Government and Higher Education (HE) sectors. Vincent has deployed his Procurement skills at London Boroughs of Newham, Bexley and Greenwich and set up Procurement organisations at the London Boroughs of Hammersmith & Fulham as its first Corporate Purchasing Manager and Camden as first Chief Purchasing Advisor/Corporate Purchasing Manager before moving to the University of Greenwich.

As Director of Procurement & Business Services at the University Vincent has provided procurement support for a variety of projects. These include the refurbishment of Grade I and II Listed buildings on the World Heritage Site at Greenwich Campus, the Drill Hall refurbishment at Medway Campus and more recently construction of the David Fussey and Mary Secole Buildings at Avery Hill Campus. These construction related projects and many of the large Supplies and Services contracts introduced into the University were procured using the European Union Procurement Directive procedures. He also manages the University's Print & Reprographics support function with the emphasis on customer service and cost-effectiveness.

As Chairman of the Association of University Procurement Officers (AUPO) between 2000 and 2006 of which he was made a Fellow in 2007, Vincent represented University Procurement practitioners of England, Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales and Eire (as well as members in overseas countries as far afield as South Africa and the Caribbean) and made presentations to peers as far afield as the USA and South Africa. He represented AUPO on the national Joint Procurement Policy and Strategy Group (JPPSG) chaired by Sir Graham Davies, its Management Group and the Steering Group that managed the review and publication of the 2002 report on future organisation of procurement in the HE sector. In 2002 (to 2005, and Board Member to 2006) Vincent was elected the first Chairman of Proc-HE, the national Procurement Strategy Implementation Group set up by the UK Higher Education Funding Councils and sector representative bodies, namely the Standing Conference of Principals (now GuildHE) and Universities UK.

Educated in the "Nature Island" of Dominica in the Caribbean, London and Sheffield in the UK, he gained a BA (Honours) in Business Studies (Law), an MA in International Business Law, MBA in General Management and a professional Diploma in Purchasing & Supply Management. A member of the Chartered Institute of Purchasing & Supply (CIPS), Vincent has represented the wider education sector on CIPS Council, the CIPS Procurement Advisory Panel and the Public Sector Group. Vincent is a Senior Personal Development Plan Assessor for CIPS involving the assessment of senior managers for admission as members of the CIPS and a member of the Editorial Board of "Supply Management", the principal fortnightly magazine for procurement professionals; he is also a member of the Chartered Management Institute.

Vincent's aim is to implement good procurement management practice backed by sound policies and strategies in order to achieve desired change in support service provision; this commitment is also displayed in voluntary community organisations. He chairs a number of voluntary organisations including: the Dominica UK Association, the N A C Resource Centre in East London, Waltham Forest Twinning Association, and until recently the London Athletic Raiders Soccer Academy which facilitates youth opportunities through education and sports; one "product" of the scheme is Lomana Tresor Lualua who played for Premiership teams Newcastle and Portsmouth FC and now with Greek Champions Olympiacos. Vincent is Vice Chair of the Newham Community & Police Forum and is the lead representative on the Crime & Disorder Reduction Partnership, UK & Europe Director of the Dominica Academy of Arts and Sciences, a member of the British Caribbean Association and West Indian Standing Conference and Public Relations Officer of the Greater London International Mas Association which represents 30 Carnival Bands at the London Notting Hill Carnival.

Adam Hodgson, CEO Unimarket Australia

Adam is an internationally recognised leader in technology-enabled strategic change. Adam's ability to deliver business results through implementation of technology has been developed through "hands-on" experience managing and overseeing many Strategy, Organisational Change, ERP, CRM and Procurement projects in Australia, New Zealand and the USA over the past eighteen years.
Prior to joining Unimarket, Adam spent more than 10 years in CEO positions in entrepreneurial early-stage companies predominantly in the Information Technology arena. Prior to these roles Adam held leadership positions with leading service providers including Andersen Consulting and PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Adam holds a Masters of Entrepreneurship and Innovation from Swinburne University of Technology and Bachelor of Economic from Monash University.

Virginia Duncan, University of Waikato, NZ

Virginia is currently the Manager of Procurement at the University of Waikato. Virginia previousl worked for Fonterra for five years. At Fonterra she managed the Procurement of HR 3rd party services (Trans Tasman) and Professional Services (i.e. consultants and contractors).

Monish Paul, Edith Cowan University

Monish is a Partner in Deloitte's Perth Consulting practice with over 19 years experience in Australia and overseas. He has a strong background in business strategy advisory and development, business process and systems design/implementation and integration, business case development, benchmarking and related financial analysis, implementation planning, change management, organisational design, training and development, and human resource management.

Monish leads Deloitte's Higher Education practice in Western Australia and has directed various business transformation and improvement projects at Universities including Murdoch University, Edith Cowan University, Curtin University, and Batchelor Institute for Indigenous Tertiary Education (BIITE).

His work with these clients includes comprehensive "whole of University" reform programs touching on Governance; core Teaching and Learning and Research functions; and all administration functions, including ICT, Procurement, Finance, Human Resources, Student Services, Properties/Asset Management, Management Reporting and Business Development/Innovation. Monish has presented at various Higher Education events nationally and internationally.

Brad Francis, Edith Cowan University

Mr Bradley Francis was appointed to the position of Director, Finance and Business Services at Edith Cowan University in May 2006. Edith Cowan University (ECU) is one of Australia's largest multi-campus Universities which is based in Perth, Western Australia. In this role he provides strategic and operational leadership for the University in the areas of:

• Financial Accounting
• Management Accounting
• Financial Systems
• Strategic and Business Performance Reporting
• Strategic Procurement and Contracts

Mr Francis initial focus has been to review the University's finance functions in order to improve processes, ensure compliance with relevant legislation and maximise value from University funds.

Mr Francis holds a Bachelor of Business degree and is a member of CPA Australia and is a fellow of the Institute of Certified Management Accountants.

John Sullivan, ANU Green, Australian National University

John Sullivan has been a leading environmental manager of energy, water and waste at The ANU since 2000. He is a founding member, and now the manager of the multi-award-winning ANUgreen team. His work has included:

• Planning, designing, installing and operating co-mingled recycling systems across the ANU campus,
• Developing programs that have reduced the use of energy and water across campus,
• Implementing the full range of environmental change processes, from green design and minor works, to major refurbishments and associated shifts in campus culture,
• Instilling humour and innovation into green programs ranging from posters, poetry, personal communications and public presentations.

John currently manages the ANUgreen office, which is the largest of its kind in the Southern Hemisphere. The program involves students and staff at all levels across all of The ANU, and continues to extend environmental excellence into new realms.

Trevor Adams, Head, Procurement and Payments - University of Cape Town

Trevor has been employed for a number of years in various capacities at the University of Cape Town.

He currently heads the department responsible for the procure to pay process namely Procurement and Payments. Included in this area is strategic procurement which includes the Broad Based Black Economic Empowerment portfolio and many other major spend commodities and services.

A member, of the Finance Advisory Group, responsible for determining policy and providing strategic direction to the finance community within the University, Trevor also provides consultative services to the community in respect of major goods and services acquisitions.

Trevor is a member of the Institute of Purchasing and Supply South Africa as well as the Association of University Purchasing Officers (AUPO) UK. He chairs the local purchasing consortium of Universities in the Western Cape region of South Africa.

William Aukett, Adelaide University

Bill Aukett is the Manager, Strategic Procurement for the University of Adelaide, a position he has held for some years. He has previously worked in professional development and organisational development for the University of Adelaide. Prior to this he worked for many years in the public education system in South Australia as a secondary teacher, school manager and internal consultant.

Bill is the current Chair of the Australian Universities Procurement Network (AUPN) and the current National Steering Group Chair for the Chartered Institute of Purchasing & Supply (CIPS) (ANZ)

Shane McGregor, Adelaide University

Shane has held the position of Chief Financial Officer for the University of Adelaide for the past 6 years.

Prior to this Shane was a Director for Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu and has over 15 years management experience in various banking/finance roles and during this period was involved in several large corporate restructures and major capital projects.

Darren Cook, Corporate Payments Manager, Australia, Custom House.

Darren joined Custom House in 2002 after many years developing business in financial markets. He has a wealth of experience in selling a variety of foreign exchange products available in today's market. His knowledge of the Custom House online system is second to none and attributes the success of this product in the market.

Custom House is fast becoming a market leader as a provider of international payment services. As the Corporate Payments Manager for Australia, Darren's primary responsibility at Custom House is leading a national team dedicated to developing, designing and implementing fully integrated on-line payment solutions to larger organisations.

Over the past 4 years Darren has worked closely with educational institutions around the country and has successfully implemented a number of integrated payment solutions for the National Gallery of Australia (Finance 1), the University of Ballarat, (Finance 1) and RMIT University (SAP). More recently, Darren introduced a new product suite for managing international student fee payments. Monash University in partnership with Custom House implemented a customised Student Pay solution which includes an automated integration with SAP & Callista. A number of implementations are underway at other institutes including the University of Tasmania, University of Canberra and the University of Wollongong.

Darren is an ASIC PS146 accredited representative of Custom House.

Heather Bradbury, Manager, Corporate Business Systems, Monash University.

Heather Bradbury is the Manager of Corporate Business Systems, within the Office of the VP Finance and CFO at Monash University. In this role since 1994, she manages Finance systems implementations and manages the team which maintains the systems. Heather worked on the project team which selected and implemented the SAP system in June 1999, and then upgraded in 2002 and 2007. Over the 14 years at Monash University, Heather has managed the implementation of OneStop, Citibank Worldlink, Westpac Corporate online, xcom, Qvalent P&P net/phone, eCommerce Gateway with eCarts, around 300 customised SAP programs including many interfaces to/from SAP and the Custom House inward TT system.

Heather has completed a Bachelor of Applied Science (IT) at Monash University, a Graduate Diploma in Business Administration at Swinburne, and has completed half of an MBA at Monash University.
Before Monash University, Heather worked for 11 years in the consulting area of Price Waterhouse. As a Senior Consultant, Heather mainly worked with Government Departments, managing the team which supported their Finance System called FMS.

Phil Manser, RMIT University

Phil Manser is the Director of Strategic Sourcing & Procurement at RMIT University and convenes the Vupf (Victorian Universities Procurement Forum). Phil has extensive experience across the procurement function, knowledge of Higher Education and retains an interest in change management.

Barry Fletcher, Director, American Express International Payments

Barry currently manages a national sales / acquisition team for American Express International Payments which is part of the Global Foreign Exchange Services (GFES) business within American Express. In this role Barry and his team are responsible for engaging new customers for GFES through a true consultative approach, which involves not only an intimate understanding of the GFES value proposition, but also the unique foreign exchange requirements of all potential customers.
Prior to this role, Barry was managing the Travellers Cheque business for American Express, covering the Australian, New Zealand and South Pacific markets.

Kate Pritchett, Strategic Sourcing, Office of Strategic Procurement, University of Sydney

Kate Pritchett has led the management and implementation of the University of Sydney's reengineering programs in relation to card and travel. Kate has extensive experience in procurement, project and change management including strategic sourcing, e-procurement and card programs, revenue systems, and business information system design and implementation, in addition to a strong background in financial and managerial accounting.

Nat McGregor, Director, Risk & Commercial Services, The University of Newcastle, Australia

Nat McGregor is the Director, Risk & Commercial Services at the University of Newcastle, where he oversees both the University's Risk Management Unit (responsible for the functions of risk management, internal audit, statutory compliance, fraud & corruption prevention and control, business continuity and critical incident management and insurance) and the University's Commercial Services Unit (responsible for the functions of strategic sourcing and contract management and commercial operations such as fleet, leasing, commercial systems, tendering, and travel, credit card and expense management).

Nat is a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Insurance & Finance, a Certified Practising Accountant and holds an MBA from Deakin University, a B.Com from the University of Newcastle and Diplomas in Risk Management and Business & Strategic Planning.

Loren Miller, Director Business Strategy, Monash University

Loren Miller is the Director of Business Strategy within the Office of the VP Finance and CFO at Monash University. In this role, she overseas a number of the university's major change projects and operational reviews including the launch of the Spendwise procurement program (redesigning the procurement organisation and approach at Monash), the development of an ICT shared services model, subsidiary performance reviews and the establishment of a joint venture research academy in India.

Loren is currently undertaking a doctoral thesis at the University of Melbourne investigating the use of business case methodology in strategic decision making at Australian universities. She holds an MBA and Graduate Certificate in Public Policy from Melbourne Business School, a Graduate Diploma of Education from Melbourne University and a Bachelor of Science from Monash University.

Loren's career history includes CEO of Hawthorn English Language Centres, a commercial subsidiary of the University of Melbourne, management consulting with The Boston Consulting Group providing high level strategic advice for large corporate and government organisations and five years in the Victorian Public Sector working on policy and reform projects within Business Victoria and Sport and Recreation Victoria. Prior to these desk jobs, Loren spent a number of years in the bush - leading personal development outdoor education programs with Outward Bound, Integro and The Outdoor Education Group

Justin Thurley, Manager Financial Business Systems, University of Tasmania

Justin has more than fifteen years experience working in senior IT management roles working on a range business projects involving the innovative use and management of information technology.

In his current role Justin is responsible for the ongoing planning and management of the University's core financial systems. Justin has recently been involved in the development of a business systems improvement program which includes the development of a blueprint for financial business intelligence.

Justin also has a masters degree in information systems and is a research associate with the Australian Innovation Research Centre where he is currently undertaking a doctoral thesis looking at the characteristics of software investment which lead to innovative outcomes within organisations.

Bojan Pajic, Managing Director, Purchasing Index Pty Ltd

Bojan Pajic has been Managing Director of Purchasing Index Pty Ltd (PI) since 2003.

PI is the Australian member company of the PI Group that has offices in the UK, Ireland, South Africa as well as Australia. PI has been in operation for twenty five years and specializes in procurement and business process benchmarking and improvement. PI clients include organizations from the private and public sectors in industry segments such as financial services, mining, manufacturing, utilities, government administration, higher education and healthcare.

Bojan spent several years in the Australian Government Trade Commissioner Service introducing and promoting Australian goods and services to overseas purchasing networks in Europe and the Middle East. He also served as a Director in the Australian Government Department of Primary Industries responsible for dairy and other intensive industries and as a Marketing Manager in the Australian Wheat Board responsible for the Australian market including the cash purchase of grain.

Bojan was a Divisional General Manager of Goodman Fielder Mills Ltd and Bunge Defiance Ltd, where he was responsible for his divisions' food ingredients business including sales, operations, procurement, quality control and maintenance. Before joining PI, Bojan was General Manager of corporate development for the Bakers Delight chain of some 700 bakeries, responsible for procurement contracts with suppliers, building and refurbishing bakeries, evaluating acquisitions and asset managing 700 properties in all Australian States and New Zealand.

Bojan is a graduate of the University of Adelaide, Fellow of the Australian Institute of Company Directors and has been a deputy Government Member of the Australian Dairy Corporation, director of the Australian Flour Millers Council, Chairman of the Victorian Flour Millers Council and director of Yarra Valley Salmon, a producer of caviar and salmon products.

Cynthia Hansen, CEO, Higher Ed Services

Cynthia is the CEO of Higher Ed Services, a position she assumed in September 2003. Cynthia has held a number of positions in higher education including Director of Administration at Trinity College Melbourne, General Manager of the Faculty of Economics and Commerce at the University of Melbourne and she was the Secretary for the Victorian University General Staff Association and a member on the Council of the State Public Services Federation. She has extensive experience in business development, contracts, corporate strategic planning, human resources and, international export education and academic administration.

James Enoch, Academic Program Manager, SAS

B Commerce (Marketing and Human Resource Management) from the University of New South Wales

James is Academic Program Manager for SAS Australia and New Zealand. He has experience working for businesses operating within the tertiary education sector, background matches SAS™ unique focus on education and the support provided to academic institutions in realising their teaching, learning and research goals.
www.sas.com/australia

Robert Coorey, Account Manager, Fuji Xerox

Robert Coorey has been a Fuji Xerox Account Manager in the Education Industry for the past 2.5 years. He specifically focuses on the University and Higher Education sector. Fuji Xerox has a long standing relationship with the University sector, which Robert will elaborate on. Fuji Xerox is the largest supplier of Office Equipment to the Government and Education sectors nationally.