NEWS FLASH!
The Governor-General Quentin Bryce AC has agreed to officially open our conference. This is a great honour for us – and a wonderful opportunity for conference delegates to see Australia’s first woman Governor-General at close quarters. Bryce was sworn in as Governor-General on 5 September so we are very privileged that we will be able to hear her speak so early in her term. Bryce was formerly Governor of Queensland and also been Principal of Women’s College at the University of Sydney, head of the National Child Care Accreditation Committee and the federal Sex Discrimination Commissioner.

The 2008 SWB program contains a number of new features:

• Our first-ever female Foundation Partner CEO, Sue Morphet from Pacific Brands
• Briefing on key outcomes from the 2020 Summit
• Increased diversity of speakers, panellists and attendees
• A new focus on diversity among women
• A record number of Indigenous speakers, including our Domestic Keynote Speaker:

Domestic Keynote Speaker
Dawn Casey, the Director of Sydney’s Powerhouse Museum, has a unique understanding of the conference theme, “Unique Connections”.
Dawn’s childhood ambitions to pursue education and, especially, to learn French were thwarted by the authorities in North Queensland who took the view that Indigenous girls should only be trained for menial work.
Despite this unpromising environment, and encouraged by her parents, Dawn studied hard and gained a basic education. She was a teenage mother but did not let that prevent her from pursuing her goal of getting a good job. She joined the Commonwealth Public Service at an entry-level position and, studying at night, worked her way up through various levels until she got into senior management.
From there, she was able to make the leap to a really big job, the inaugural director of the Museum of Australia in Canberra, whose design and building she had supervised (and which came in “on time and on budget”). During her journey from humble beginnings to becoming one of Australia’s leading museum directors, Dawn has understood the need to make connections, between her dreams and the opportunities she has seized along the way, between the jobs she has taken on and the people who help her succeed.

Dawn is a real people person. She loves management. She will tell her amazing and inspiring story at this year’s conference.

A step-by-step guide to this year’s Conference program

TUESDAY, 28 OCTOBER

We will start with a Welcome to Country, the Governor-General’s official welcome, Anne Summers’ Setting the Scene and Dawn Casey’s Keynote Address and then move onto the panel discussions:

Session 3 2020 & Beyond
Snapshot briefings on key outcomes by participants from the 2020 Summit held in Canberra in April - followed by a Panel Discussion 

• Arts - Dr Julianne Schultz, Professor at the Centre for Public Culture and Ideas at Griffith University; editor Griffith Review
• Governance - Megan Davis, Director, Indigenous Law Centre, University of New South Wales
• Population/Climate – Robyn McLeod, Director, Sustainability Advisory Services, Risk Advisory Services, KPMG
• Health - Anne Trimmer, CEO, Medical Technology Association of Australia

Session 4 Political Alliances
Alliances that sustain our MPs both in and out of politics

• Catherine King, Federal Member for Ballarat, ALP
• Senator Christine Milne, The Greens
• The Hon Judi Moylan, Federal Member for Pearce, Liberal

Session 5 Diversity within the Female Environment
The differences that distinguish women from one another.

• Barbara Livesey, CEO, Reconciliation Australia
• Dr Helen Szoke, CEO, VIC Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission
• Shelley Reys, Managing Director, Arrilla
• Detective Senior Sergeant Joy Murphy, Victorian Police

Session 6 View from the Top
Women who run things (big things!)

• Thuy Dam, Country CEO for Vietnam, ANZ.
• Lesley Alway, Managing Director, Sotheby’s
• Rebecca Davies, Senior Partner, Freehills
• Major-General Elizabeth Cosson, CSC, Head National Operations, Defence Support Group

GALA DINNER

Our Gala Dinner with special guest mc Julia Zemiro. Don’t miss it.
People are still talking about last year’s!

WEDNESDAY, 29 OCTOBER

International Keynote Address

• Zarine Aziz, CEO & President First Women Bank Ltd, Pakistan. This is the bank founded by the late Benazir Bhutto when she was Prime Minister to empower the women of Pakistan. Hear the remarkable success story of a bank that only lends to women, or to companies owned or managed by women. And it makes a profit!

Session 9 Power & Influence
For better or for worse: how women exercise – and experience - power

• The Hon Carmen Lawrence, former Premier of Western Australia, and former federal Minister for Health
• Avril Henry, Managing Director, AH Revelations
• Anne Hatton, MD Hattoneale Recruitment, former CEO Hudson (formerly Morgan and Banks)
• Additional Panelist to be announced

Session 10 Unique Connections
Modern Connectors (business, media, social & community networking to raise awareness, raise money or run the show)

• Angela Clark, CEO, Macquarie Radio
• Anna Rose, Climate Campaigner, GetUp
• Katherine Keating, Political Consultant and fund-raising advisor
• Amanda Johnston, Executive Director of Brands and Marketing Communications, Telstra

Networking Pre Luncheon Drinks & Entrée Canapé’s
Sit Down Luncheon:

Session 11 The CEO Connection
(Note: none of these CEOs have been at SWB before and, for the first time, we have a woman CEO on this panel.)

• Sue Morphet, CEO Pacific Brands
• Geoff Wilson, CEO KPMG
• Gavin Bell, CEO Freehills
• Alan Cransberg, CEO Alcoa

Close Anne Summers, 2008 SWB Facilitator
Thank You Megan Dalla-Camina, 2008 SWB Chairperson

2008 Workshops - Monday 27 October

• Wellbeing - Sherry Strong, Chef, Nutritionist, Food Coach
• Financial Mastery - Jacqueline Phillips & Katrina Pullbrook, ANZ Financial Planning
• Personal Mastery - Hewitt Leadership Team
• Designing A Life - Work-shop will focus on Positive Psychology

Top Women Watch - Reporting on women in top jobs both in Australia and overseas

o Gail Kelly get global lift off
o Carly Fiorina’s new role
o Megan Clark to head CSIRO
o Quentin Bryce sworn in
o Fewer women MPs in the NT
o Sarah Palin, the Republican candidate 
   for US Vice-President


Right up there
Westpac CEO Gail Kelly has been ranked No. 11 in the Forbes magazine list of the world’s most powerful 100 women. Kelly, one of just two Australians on the list (the other was Gina Rinehart who came in at No. 98) ranked ahead of Hillary Clinton, Oprah Winfrey and the Queen. It is the first time an Australian has achieved such a high ranking on this list.

From computers to campaigning
The former chairman and CEO of Hewlett-Packard, Carly Fiorina, one of America’s most senior businesswomen, has been appointed to a leading role in John McCain’s campaign to be President of the US. Fiorina is charged with reassuring business that McCain would be safe bet in charge of the economy. Lately, she has also taken on the job of shepherding Sarah Palin through the rough waters of the Vice-Presidential campaign. http://www.slate.com/id/2191308/

From BHP to CSIRO
The federal government has appointed a senior executive from BHP Billiton to head up its premier scientific organisation, the CSIRO. Dr Megan Clark, a former mine geologist, has been BHP Billiton’s vice-president of technology and has also been on the board of the investment bank Rothschild. She takes up her CEO position in January.

A woman at Yarralumla
Quentin Bryce AC was sworn in as Australia’s first woman Governor General on 5 September.

Fewer women MPs in the Northern Territory
Following the Territory election on August 9, there are now only eight women in the NT Parliament, two fewer than previously. NT has now gone from having one of the highest proportions of women in Parliament to ranking fourth, behind South Australian, ACT and Queensland.

First female VP candidate since 1984
Sarah Palin, the first woman to become a candidate for Vice-President of the United States since Geraldine Ferraro in 1984, is John McCain’s running mate in what promises to be an exciting and neck-in-neck US Presidential election

SNV News Update

Women on boards bring more women to top management jobs.
The more women on a company's board of directors, the more women are likely to be among that company's senior management, according to a study by Catalyst, a non-profit organization in New York that researches and helps promote women in business.
Firms with 30% of women board directors in 2001 on average had 45% more women corporate officers by 2006, compared with ones with no female board members, it said. Companies with the lowest percentages of women board directors in 2001 on average had 26% fewer female corporate officers than those with the highest number five years later, the study said. Those with two or more women board members in 2001 had 25% more female corporate officers by 2006 than those with just one woman board member.
"What this shows is that the number of women, or more women, more directors today, predicts pretty reliably more women in leadership five years from now," said Ilene Lang, president of Catalyst.

Equal Pay Day proclaimed
August 27 was declared Equal Pay Day, the day on which women caught up with what men had earned by June 30. The Day was proclaimed by the Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Agency (EOWA) in order to highlight the 15.6 per cent gap between men’s and women’s earnings.

Big Barney at Smith Barney
More than 1200 women have benefited from a gender class action alleging discrimination in pay, promotion and client distribution by the US broker Smith Barney. A federal court ruled in August the women had been discriminated against and ordered a financial settlement of $US33 million.

WHERE WE WORK

New feature on the offices of prominent Australian women.

Sotheby's Managing Director, Lesley Alway, sits before Michael Johnson's oil on canvas “Yellow Ochre” (1995) that sold in a recent auction for $43,200.

Lesley will be participating in the View from the Top panel at this year's SWB.

Still Learning?

SWB's resident Health and Wellbeing expert Sherry Strong. 

Have you ever held a belief that seemed to be so solid that it was an unshakeable truth, or shared by the majority, questioned by few - only to find out years later that what you believed was not true? It can be a foundation-shaking experience or a transformational one, or both. It has been happening for millennia. In fact Galileo was held under house arrest and charged with heresy for challenging the popular belief that the world was flat. This belief at the time was accepted as an unshakeable truth. Imagine if Galileo had had Google Earth! On second thoughts, he probably would have been charged with sorcery as well. 

Guest Column:

The Garma experience: Achieving the ‘heart connection’
By Wilma Stevens, Manager, People and Culture, Human Resources, KPMG

Garma is a Yolngu word meaning a ‘two-way learning process’ — sharing knowledge, ideas and values. From 8 to 12 August, I was part of a group of businesswomen invited by Reconciliation Australia to attend the annual Garma Festival of Traditional Culture in the Northern Territory. The festival is organised by the Yothu Yindi Foundation, a not-for-profit Aboriginal organisation, and is a celebration of the cultural inheritance of the Yolngu people. 

AFGHANI PEACE SCHOLARS COMMITED TO EMPOWERING WOMEN

UNIFEM Australia is very excited to welcome three new Peace Scholars from Afghanistan who are studying their Masters of Law in Sydney.

The UNIFEM Australia Peace Scholarship Programme gives women from the Pacific, East and South-East Asia and Afghanistan the opportunity to study in Australia, continuing their commitment to peace building and promoting women’s empowerment upon their return home. Previous Peace Scholars have been from Fiji, PNG and Afghanistan, all whom have returned to their home country and continued to empower women within their communities.

News and updates from FPs

Freehills' Update
Freehills is proud to announce the recognition it has recently received for its partnership with Company B (the Belvoir Street Theatre). At the Museum of Sydney, Annette Bain Pro Bono Counsel and Executive Director of our Freehills Foundation were presented with the Australian Business Arts Foundation (AbaF) NSW Toyota Community Award, as well as the National Australian Council Arts Award for Young People.

Gender equity issues persist according to Hewitt Best Employers study
Results of the 2008 Hewitt Best Employers in Australia and New Zealand study were released on September 12. The study found that in the majority of Australian and New Zealand organisations women are slightly more engaged than men. This is a consistent trend over time, despite continuing equity issues.

SNV Useful Links