MBAus conference — Day 3
This is Part 3 of a three part series. Check out MBAus Conference — Day 1 or MBAus Conference — Day 2 if that’s more relevant for you.
MBA Candidate Amanda Hazell from Melbourne Business School introduced Phil Silverstone (General Manager, Eventbrite APAC) for his opening keynote on ‘Innovation and entrepreneurship.’ Phil expressed how scale and success are the biggest enemies of innovation and entrepreneurialism.
Phil shared his career journey and some lessons he learned along the way; he mentioned that there’s a high degree of misconception of what a technology career is and how we can overcome it.
He spoke that focused platforms are the new model for business, instead of owning the entire value chain. If you are not ready to give the right level of autonomy, you’re not enabling your team to make things happen.
Griffith University MBA Candidate Prasanna Shanmuganathan introduced the panelists and moderator for the ‘Combating the unconscious bias’ session. Our diverse and distinguished panel included Sue Bussell AM (Partner, KPMG), Ashley Winnett (Executive Director, Holden), Elizabeth McLean (CEO, Butterfly), Mathew Paine (Director of Human Resources, ICC Sydney), and Arlene dela Cruz (Director Contract Management, Accenture) moderated by Michelle Sheppard (Founder, LGBTI Jobs).
The panel session began with an exploration of the panellists’ journey in the diversity and inclusion space. Although each panellist had a very different personal journey, the core reasons why they all wholeheartedly stand up and support diversity and inclusion were the same. While Ashley and Mathew passionately talked about the diversity initiatives they established in their respective organisations, Elizabeth shared her experiences in calling out people when they express any biases in her workplace.
As conversations around diversity in the workplace evolve, Sue shared her views on having appropriate inclusive language and how it will help people to put their attitudes behind in the workplace. Arlene spoke on how society has different ways to define what success is, but ultimately she encouraged everyone to define their own success.
Shikha Kanojia from Australian Graduate School of Management introduced our final speaker Michael O’Keeffe (CEO, Aesop) to deliver the keynote on ‘Globalising an Australian Business’. Dennis Paphitis founded Aesop in 1987, but the real man behind Aesop’s global growth is Michael who transformed the way how they do business.
Michael’s talk explored four different models of business development — local niche, local leader, global niche and global leader. He shared Aesop’s business journey and how globalisation became a natural choice for the organisation when they decided to move from local leader to global leader. One of the key takeaways from Michael’s talk is that having an outstanding offering will always help to go up against local brands in overseas markets.
The inaugural MBAus conference attracted 7 sponsors, 19 speakers and 115 attendees from 10 business schools across Australia and New Zealand. As Melbourne Business School Dean Zeger Degraeve said, “Melbourne Business School is home to Australia’s first MBA program, so it is fitting that we are hosting the first MBAus Conference to celebrate what our students developed at our School.”
We started MBAus to connect over some of the most important but often neglected topics at business schools. We wanted to be a bit provocative but still within that frame of what makes businesses successful. — Nathan Spence (Co-founder, MBAus conference)
The 2017 MBAus Conference marks the first of many more to come — and we are happy to say it all started at MBS. Many thanks to our sponsors — Acciona (Event partner), Nous Group & Aesop (Supporting partners), Melbourne Business School (Academic partner), Asahi (Beverage partner), Butterfly Digital (Digital partner) and Snap (Printing partner) for helping and supporting us to bring this idea to life.
Finally, a big shout out and love to our conference hosts Sunita Toraty & Tom Clark, MBS staff members especially Ricky Papara (Program Services Manager) and our amazing volunteers for their perseverance and support in getting MBAus off the ground.
Once again, many thanks to our amazing volunteers for their perseverance and support in getting MBAus off the ground.
