MBA Refresher 2007:
Speaker Biographies

Mr Richard Grellman, Director, AMP

Richard is a Director of AMP Limited and Atlas Group Holdings Limited, Chairman of Cryosite Limited, the Motor Accidents and Life Time Care Authorities of NSW and Trafalgar Corporate Group Limited. In addition, he is President and Chairman of Mission Australia and Chairman of The Association of Surfing Professionals (International) Limited. Richard has more than 40 years' experience in the corporate and finance arena and was a KPMG partner from 1982 to 2000.

Ms Deborah Cotton, Associate Lecturer, School of School of Finance Economics, UTS

Deborah Cotton has been teaching at UTS on and off since 1990, before that she worked for a stockbroking firm in the 1980's, she has also taught at Macquarie University in the Graduate Accounting Conversion program and at ACU in Hong Kong - currently she is full time at UTS teaching Financial Management and Financial Modeling and Forecasting to postgraduate students - Deborah has a Bachelor of Business with honours in finance from UTS and a Masters of Environmental and Business Management from The University of Newcastle, she is currently undertaking an MPhil Economics at Macquarie University with a thesis on Carbon Trading - her research is in Current Carbon Trading.

Dr Bruce Perrott, Senior Lecturer, School of Marketing, UTS

Bruce Perrott's interests lie in the area of strategic management. He is concerned with how business and marketing strategies are formulated, formalised and managed through the implementation process. His current focus relates to the impact on electronic marketspace developments on business and marketing strategy and marketing/business strategy in health care.

He has over twenty years experience as a senior consultant advising senior managers on business and marketing strategies for growth, working internationally with both private and public sector organisations such as American Express, Coca Cola, CISCO, AT&T, Westpac, Medibank Private, Citigroup, University of Technology Sydney, Australian Tourism Authority etc.

Michael O'Neill, Managing Director, Pacific Capital Corporation

Michael is a Director of several Australian and New Zealand public and private companies, including Affordable Healthcare Ltd and Isentropic Systems Limited. He is also Deputy Chairman of the Board of Centacare and Chairman of the Centacare Foundation Ltd.

His turnaround management and business restructuring experience in Australia, the UK and New Zealand covers aviation, horticulture, gold-mining, fertiliser manufacturing, food-manufacturing, radio and television, aquaculture, brewing, merchant banking, stockbroking and funds management.

He was appointed as an independent Director of Bell Resources Limited (with the approval of the National Companies and Securities Commission - now the Australian Securities and Investment Commission). In this role he carried out the contract renegotiations and supervised the examination of the Tooheys, Castlemaine and Swan Breweries, which were purchased by Bell Resources. Michael played the leading role in establishing the basis for the subsequent joint venture with Lion Nathan.

Dr Katherine Woodthorpe, Chief Executive, AVCAL

Dr Woodthorpe has an extensive background as a management adviser and professional director, including working with Australian technology companies seeking venture funding through to being a board member of listed companies. She has consulted to government groups on innovation and commercialisation.

With more than 25 years in the technology and commercialisation industry, Dr Woodthorpe has held a broad range of management and board positions. She is currently a Director of medical devices company pSivida Limited, Chair of the Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems Cooperative Research Centre and Council Member, University of Technology Sydney.

Mr Ian Johnson, Managing Director, Helmsman Funds Management Limited

Ian Johnson is a financial consultant primarily retained by Macquarie, to source and manage investments in distressed assets and the development of the Helmsman Capital Fund. He has a long history of exposure to turnaround and has been involved in the workouts and restructuring following some of the major corporate failures in Australia, including Bond Brewing, Pyramid Building Society, Qintex/Channel 7, Adelaide Steamship Group and the Linter Group.

Ian has extensive experience in corporate, project and structured finance and has held senior positions with major international and Australian banks. In a consultancy capacity he has provided risk management research and advice to major financial institutions.

Ian has worked in corporate and investment banking for over 25 years holding senior management roles with international and Australian trading banks.

Mr Bob Barraket, Solicitor, Australian Estate Planning Pty Ltd

Mr Barraket is a lawyer of 40 years standing and the founder of Australian Estate Planning Pty Ltd (AEP), a specialist Succession & Estate Planning Advisory Company.

Mr Barraket was the founding partner of Barraket Kemp & Strang (now Kemp Strang) and through AEP and its wholly owned legal firm, Legal Ease Lawyers Pty Ltd, provides innovative estate and succession planning strategies for high net worth individuals and SMEs.

Mr Barraket has represented a variety of Australian and overseas corporations, both public and private, over the past 40 years.

Mr Jay Hedley, Sales Director, COI Group

Jay Hedley is the Director of Sales for the COI Group; global leaders in facilitating organisational, team and individual effectiveness. In addition to a diverse corporate background Jay is a Master Practitioner of Neuro Semantics (NS) and Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP), and a highly experienced executive coach and trainer. Combined with his experience as an extended DISC practitioner, a Saville-Wave practitioner as well as an SDi (Spiral Dynamics) accredited practitioner, Jay has a strong background in cognitive behavioural and positive psychology. As a guest lecturer, Jay will be discussing some of the key issues and solutions in retaining productive and efficient employees and how this relates to attaining corporate goals.

Mr Antoine Hermens, MBA Director, UTS

Antoine Hermens MBA (Macq) Fellow of the Australian Institute of Management and Fellow of the Australian Marketing Institute, is the Executive MBA Director at the University of Technology Sydney. Antoine spent the first 16 years of his career as a manager and executive in a range of companies in the retail, car, and tyre industries. In this period he reached Chief Executive Officer of a joint venture company. Antoine is multi-lingual and draws on extensive commercial experience in his role as an academic and advises a number of national and international clients on Strategy and Alliance Management.

As a senior lecturer in Strategic management, Global Strategic management, Antoine is in great demand both locally and on UTS overseas programs in Singapore, Hong Kong, and Kuala Lumpur, and he receives regular invitations to teach in France, China and Canada.

Tony Camphin, Managing Director, Moira Feedlot

Tony is a Managing Director of Moira Feedlot as well as Japan Beef Systems since 1996. Tony has more then 10 years experience in International Business. Prior to that, he was a partner a chartered accountancy firm specialising in SMEs and family succession.

More recently Tony has been involved in commercializing executive databases under a licensee program.

Tony is also a part-time lecturer at UTS School of Management. His expertise areas are Innovation & Entrepreneurship, Strategic Management and Succession Planning.