Taking a closer look at Diversity & Inclusion

From 12:30 pm

At Webinar

Earlier this year, the Diversity & Inclusion Working Group held its first session for members.  It was a panel session looking at the journeys of three CFOs, three of only a handful of women who have successfully navigated their way to become CFOs in listed Australian companies.

Building on this, on Friday 3 December, the Diversity & Inclusion Working Group will hold its next session for G100 members and their teams which aims to unravel why diversity is still an issue today, what is being done to rectify this and what more needs to be done.

This webinar will be a panel session featuring leading diversity advocate, Frances Feenstra, and diversity academic Dr Terrance Fitzsimmons of the University of Queensland.  The session will be moderated by Leah Weckert, G100 Board Director and CFO of Coles.

Frances Feenstra is a registered organisational psychologist with more than 18 years’ experience and core expertise in leadership assessment and development, talent management, team facilitation, and executive coaching.  She has designed and delivered a range of programs and services for leading Australian organisations both in the public and private sector and has worked with staff at all levels, from the most senior executives to frontline employees. Frances is well-known for her passion for objective assessment and leadership development and her desire to create more opportunities for women to take up senior leadership positions in Australia.

Prior to joining People Measures, Frances was a director at PricewaterhouseCoopers where she led the establishment of a talent assessment and development consulting team as part of the reinvigoration of the PwC Advisory Services Practice. Earlier she was employed by Right Management where she was in charge of a national team of psychologists and headed the individual assessment practice.  She was the inaugural Chair of The 100% Project, a not for profit organisation which aims to increase opportunities for women. She also chaired the Advisory Board for the Australian Centre for Research into Employment and Work (ACREW) at Monash University, and is a supervisor and examiner for postgraduate research students at Deakin University in Victoria.

Dr Terry Fitzsimmons is a Senior Lecturer in Leadership with the University of Queensland Business School. He is also a Chartered Accountant with over 30 years of practice. He is the director of the AIBE Centre for Gender Equality in the Workplace and Managing Director of the Australian Gender Equality Council (AGEC), a body whose members comprise of peak national bodies representing women across industry sectors in Australia.

His PhD in Leadership examined successful attributes of CEOs and differing pathways to CEO roles for men and women. In June 2015 Dr Fitzsimmons and Professor Callan released ‘Filling the Pool’ a major report into gender inequality in Western Australia and what government, organisations and individuals can do to address the issue. Dr Fitzsimmons makes extensive use of the work of Pierre Bourdieu and his framework for the examination of persistent intergenerational societal disparity. The concepts of field, capital, habitus and symbolic violence feature heavily in the studies into gender inequality conducted to date.

Dr Fitzsimmons has worked with many of Australia’s largest firms on their diversity programs and speaks regularly in Australia and overseas in the area of gender equality and inclusion. He has served as national and state presidents of not for profit bodies as well as a being a director on boards of Listed Public Companies in Australia and overseas.

We look forward to seeing you on Friday 3 December.