Driving organisational performance

Elizabeth Proust outlines the launch of the Australian Institute of Company Directors’ Advisory Business and its role in assisting boards to apply global best governance practices for optimal organisational performance.

As a key driver of organisational performance, good governance is critical to increasing the effectiveness of Australian organisations, as well as ensuring their economic and social sustainability.

Good governance balances compliance requirements with high-performance objectives. It should encourage transparency, accountability, long-term strategy, growth and a positive organisational culture.

The Australian Institute of Company Directors (AICD) is committed to excellence in governance. Boards and executive teams that practise good governance are keenly focused on the changing dynamics of their environment. These organisations effectively innovate, drive strategy and manage risk for optimal organisational performance.

As the largest institute of directors in the world, the AICD educates more than 14,000 people each year in the practice of good governance. More and more frequently, the AICD is working closely with boards and senior executives to give them the tools and advice on how to achieve these outcomes.

The AICD’s world-class programs are developed for a diverse cross-section of national and international organisations including listed entities, private businesses, not-for-profit organisations and the public sector.Our programs are designed by expert educators with the input of experienced directors and are flexible, relevant, practical and topical.

Our recently relaunched Advisory business is a trusted advisor and provider of choice for high quality board advisory services and in-house and bespoke governance education and development. The AICD’s Advisory unit is committed to assisting boards and senior management to improve organisational performance through the adoption and application of global best governance practices.

We have worked closely with major organisations to tailor solutions to meet the needs of board directors and senior executives. Meeting the needs of more than 1,000 clients, the AICD has a vast array of products and solutions to improve an organisation’s governance.

Our renowned Governance Analysis Tool™ helps to identify opportunities for improvement and support directors and executives in driving performance outcomes from the simple to the most complex. As Macquarie chairman Kevin McCann AM FAICD notes: “Macquarie executives had workshops with the AICD on board papers preparation, and I can say that following those sessions, the quality of papers has significantly improved.”

In this edition of Company Director, Oil Search director Dr Eileen Doyle FAICD details the organisation’s experience with AICD’s Advisory business unit, noting that the AICD’s training program assisted its independent committee members to build upon their existing skills. Dr Doyle says: “What that means is we get the contribution of those people and their perspective in committees and we’re growing them as well so that they have the potential to possibly become an Oil Search director or become a director of another company, a larger listed company. I think that we get a benefit and they benefit from it too.”

Oil Search’s chairman Rick Lee AM FAICD added: “They will get quite a lot of exposure to the detailed workings of the company and part of the approach is to make sure that while they are with us we give them the benefit of training which is where the AICD program plays an important part.”

Finally, this month will see 1,000 participants converge on Melbourne for the AICD’s second annual Australian Governance Summit. With keynote speeches from leading directors such as Elizabeth Bryan AM FAICD, chair of Virgin Australia and Simon McKeon AO FAICD, chancellor of Monash University, and more than 65 of the nation’s leading experts on governance sharing their knowledge and experience, the conference explores what it takes to govern and lead through complexity and change, where governance is agile and deals with real-world complexity.

I thank our hardworking staff for their continued efforts to ensure the success of the Australian Governance Summit and I look forward to your involvement at the largest director gathering in the southern hemisphere.