Education & training

General or tailored courses across the Asia Pacific region.

Nine years on the national faculty of the Australian Institute of Company Directors — teaching directors at a cadence of a course every two to three weeks at its peak — plus three decades of professional education for internal auditors, IT auditors, audit and risk committees, councillors and executive teams, delivered in twelve countries across the Asia Pacific. Most recently Auditing Procurement for the Institute of Internal Auditors in Canberra.

Courses are delivered in-house or as open programs, general or tailored to the organisation. What that means in practice: the case material, the sector language and the hard examples get rebuilt for the room, because directors of a council, a rural research corporation and a diocesan education commission do not share a risk appetite.

The same holds across borders, and more sharply. A two-week IT audit programme for a state utility in Manila, a directors programme in Port Moresby and a master class in Kuala Lumpur are not one course with the slides translated. What counts as a hard question — and who is willing to ask it in front of their chief executive — changes with the room. Reading that correctly is most of the job.

What I teach

  • Director, board and committee education
  • Training for Audit and Risk Committees
  • Courses for Internal and IT Auditors
  • Probity and procurement integrity for evaluation panels and their sponsors
  • Governance of technology and AI for non-technical boards
  • Delivered in-house or as open programs — general or tailored to the organisation

How it's built and delivered

Courses are written as well as taught. Where an organisation has a subject but no material, I develop the programme — content, case studies, exercises and assessment — and then deliver it. The Ariba training programme for Cisco Systems was built from nothing and rolled out across eight countries; the nine-part probity programme for NSW Government Procurement and the two-week IT audit programme for the National Power Corporation of the Philippines were the same: designed for the client, not adapted from a catalogue.

Length follows the need, not a standard product. The record runs from a one-hour webinar to a two-week residential programme, and everything between:

  • One hour — board briefings and webinars, including for the AICD and the IIA
  • Half day to one day — workshops such as Auditing Procurement for the IIA in Canberra
  • Two to three days — master classes and director development programmes, in Kuala Lumpur and Port Moresby
  • Multi-part programmes — a nine-part probity series for NSW Government Procurement, and graduate certificate modules for the IIA
  • Two weeks — the intensive IT audit programme in Quezon City and Singapore

In person and online both, and not treated as the same thing. Nine years of AICD faculty work ran from the capitals — Sydney, Melbourne, Perth, Adelaide, Hobart — out to Newcastle, Wagga Wagga and Uralla, alongside national delivery online. A full-day course that holds a room does not survive being pointed at a camera unchanged, so the online versions are rebuilt for the medium.

Who I've taught

Company directors and councillors; audit, risk and assurance professionals; state and local government; rural and agricultural industries; faith-based education; health; and state-owned utilities.

Across twelve countries — Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines, Hong Kong, China, South Korea, Japan, India and the United States — and across cohorts that share almost nothing except the need to govern something they did not build. A boardroom in Sydney, a utility's audit team in Manila and a councillor briefing in Lake Macquarie each need the same principles delivered a different way.

Named cohorts include AgriFutures Australia, Blacktown City Council, Lake Macquarie City Council, the Queensland Catholic Education Commission, NSW Family and Community Services, Local Land Services, the NSW Sports Federation, Corrective Services NSW, Westpac, Cisco Systems and the National Power Corporation of the Philippines.

Selected programmes

A curated selection, not the full record.

  • 2024 Auditing ProcurementWorkshop
    Public Sector Assurance Forum, Institute of Internal Auditors Australia — Hyatt Hotel Canberra.
  • 2012–2021 Australian Institute of Company DirectorsNational faculty
    Company Directors Course and Foundations of Directorship — modules on risk, strategy, financial literacy and driving financial performance. At its peak, more than forty faculty bookings in 2019 alone: a course roughly every two to three weeks, across the year. Delivered in Sydney, Melbourne, Perth, Adelaide, Hobart, Newcastle, Wagga Wagga and Uralla, and nationally online.
  • 2019–2020 In-house director and councillor education
    Applied Risk Governance and Risk: Issues for Councillors, delivered for AgriFutures Australia, Blacktown City Council, Lake Macquarie City Council and the Queensland Catholic Education Commission.
  • 2014 Foundations of Directorship — in-house cohorts
    Strategy and Risk for NSW Family and Community Services, Local Land Services and the NSW Sports Federation, through the AICD.
  • 2014 Probity presentation programme9 parts
    A nine-part programme delivered into NSW Government Procurement.
  • 2014 Directors Development Program — Governance, Technology & Risk
    Three-day programme for Olygen — Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea.
  • 2014 IT Audit and Control Master Class
    Zenith Bizness Excellence — Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Run twice, in February and May.
  • 2014 IT Governance for Non-IT Professionals
    Two-day course for the Institute of Internal Auditors — Sydney.
  • 2013–2015 Graduate Certificate in Internal Auditing
    Lecturing into the IIA Australia programme — IT Project Auditing, and IT General Controls (IT Audit, module OSP115).
  • 2012–2013 Ethical Leadership
    Executive Leadership Program, Corrective Services NSW — Brush Farm Corrective Services Academy.
  • 2010–2012 Procurement and Probity
    Delivered to visiting Iraqi finance delegations through the AusAID Iraq Partnership Facility.
  • 2004 Ariba training programmeDeveloped and delivered
    A procurement-platform training programme built and delivered for Cisco Systems across eight countries — Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, China, South Korea, Japan, Singapore and India — in the same years I was speaking on e-procurement to CPA Australia and the IFPMM Asia-Pacific conference.
  • 1990 IT Audit Training Program2 weeks
    Developed and delivered for the National Power Corporation of the Philippines — Quezon City and Singapore.

Also available for speaking and moderating — conference platforms rather than courses. Enquire about a course.