The Board of Directors oversees the business of Cancer Council SA, the business name of the Anti-Cancer Foundation of South Australia (the ‘Company’).
Key objectives
The Board’s key objectives are to:
- Set the strategic directions for Cancer Council SA and effective oversight of management.
- Optimise Cancer Council SA's performance and stakeholder value within a framework of appropriate risk assessment and management.
- Recognise Cancer Council SA's legal and other obligations to all legitimate stakeholders.
To achieve these objectives, the Board is committed to working towards best corporate governance practices.
Corporate governance is concerned with the way that the Directors ensure that the organisation’s systems and processes are properly controlled and functioning effectively and that management is complying with the Board's policies and directives.
To assist the Board to meet their statutory and fiduciary obligations, it is supported by four board committees. The role of each committee is outlined below.
Nomination Remuneration Committee
- Reviews and make recommendations to the Board on the structure of remuneration packages and policies applicable to the Chief Executive, senior executives and staff. The Board utilises a company-wide process for determining remuneration. The services of an external remuneration consultant are used to conduct benchmarking.
- Reviews remuneration policy and compliance with approved policy.
- Monitors succession planning and development, company culture and implementation of and compliance with the Organisation Development Policy.
- Monitors and reviews the composition of the Board, recommends nominations to the Board, and manages the Director and Board performance evaluation process.
Audit and Risk Committee
The primary responsibility of the Committee is to assist the Board of Directors in fulfilling its responsibilities in relation to the identification of areas of significant business risks and the monitoring of:
- Effective management of financial business risks
- Reliable management reporting
- Compliance with laws and regulations in respect to financial reporting
- Maintenance of an effective and efficient audit
- Related party transactions
- The protection of physical and financial assets.
Investment Committee
The role of the Investment Committee is to recommend investment policy, review the appointment and performance of fund managers, monitor compliance with investment policy and monitor risk control limits.
Management of Investments
Cancer Council SA maintains a diversified portfolio in accordance with its Investment policy. Available for sales assets are held with Macquarie Private Wealth, Warakirri Asset Management, Tyndall Investment Management Limited and Maple Brown Abbott Limited, Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Limited and Commonwealth Bank of Australia
Cancer Research Committee
The role of the Cancer Research Committee is to support the strategic research targets of Cancer Council SA by monitoring and assessing investments in cancer research and making recommendations to the Board on funding options.
Conflict of interest
There is an expectation in the community that the Boards of organisations like Cancer Council SA will operate in a transparent manner using best practice standards for corporate governance.
The Board recognises that proactive management of actual conflicts of interest will significantly reduce legal risks for individual Board members and the Board as a whole. Inadequate management of perceived conflicts of interest may damage the reputation and effectiveness of individual Board members, the Board and Cancer Council SA.
Therefore the Board has implemented a systematic and transparent process for dealing appropriately with each case. The Board recognises that it is not possible to eliminate every possible conflict of interest that may arise and have affect on Board and Board committee members.
Risk management
The Cancer Council SA’s Risk Management philosophy is as much about grasping opportunities and creating successes as it is about minimising losses. Risk is therefore as much about something good not happening as something bad happening. The goal is not to eliminate all risk but rather to ensure that risk is maintained at an acceptable level in a cost effective manner.
Risk Management requires:
- forward thinking and a pro-active approach to management
- achieving a balance between the costs of managing risk and the anticipated benefits and
- using a formal systematic approach of identifying, analysing, evaluating, treating, monitoring and communicating risks associated with any activity, function or process.
This will facilitate decision making, ensure good governance through the performance and accountability of all employees and will also assist to ensure resources are properly allocated to manage those risks.
Cancer Council SA is committed to the management of all types of risks within its operations to assist in the achievement of its goals, programs, targets and its vision as outlined in the Strategic Management Plan.
Cancer Council SA will maintain risk management practices that provide it with a consistent, systematic view of the risk it faces in the course of its activities. These practices will be consistent with the guidelines and principles of risk management as set out in the Australian Risk Management Standard AS/ NZS 4360:1999 and business best practice.
Cancer Council SA’s Risk Management Framework and Methodology supports this Policy and will provide a formal, systematic approach to risk management which is consistent with the guidelines and principles of the Risk Management Standard.
The high level risk matrix identifies the key risks in Cancer Council SA’s operating environment.
Please view our Board of Director profiles below.
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Ms Juliet Brown, LLB, FAICD
- Appointed
- 24 May 2002
- Role
- Chairman - appointed 24 March 2011
Committee memberships
Chairman, Nomination and Remuneration Committee
Member, Investment Committee
Member, Audit and Risk CommitteeMs Brown has more than 30 years experience in the law and business. She was for more than 10 years a partner of Finlaysons Lawyers and prior to concentrating on her directorships, was Chief Executive of Thomson Playford, Lawyers. Ms Brown is currently the Chairman of Local Super and is a past President of the RAA of SA Inc. Her current board roles include the Motor Accident Commission, South Australian Government Financing Authority, Bio Innovation SA and RAA Insurance Ltd.
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Professer Judith Dwyer BA, MBA, FAICD, FCHSM
- Appointed
- 10 November 2012
- Role
- Deputy Chairman - appointed 16 October 2012
Committee memberships
Chairman, Cancer Research Committee
Member, Audit and Risk Committee
Member, Nomination and Remuneration CommitteeProfessor Dwyer is a health care management academic at the Flinders University School of Medicine. She is a former CEO of Southern Health Care Network in Melbourne and of Flinders Medical Centre in Adelaide, having worked in the Australian health system for more than 20 years. Currently she is a Research Program Leader in the Cooperative Research Centre for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health. She conducts research focused on health system governance and design, does some consulting work on related topics and teaches in the Flinders’ Masters of Health Administration in Adelaide and in China.
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Mr Simon Abraham BEc, FCA
- Appointed
- 19 March 2010
- Role
- Director
Committee memberships
Chairman, Audit and Risk CommitteeMr Abraham is a Chartered Accountant and partner in the Adelaide office of BDO, an international network of chartered accounting firms. Specialising in providing taxation and business advice to family businesses and the small and meduim enterprise sector, Mr Abraham’s experience spans professional services, aged care, retail, and building and construction. Mr Abraham is currently on the Finance Committee of St Ignatius College and was previously a member of Cancer Council SA Finance Committee.
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Mr Jim Birch
- Appointed
- 30 November 2012
- Role
- Director
Committee memberships
Deputy Chairman, Cancer Research CommitteeJim is Ernst & Young’s Lead Partner in Health and Human Services. He has over thirty years experience in planning, leading and implementing change in complex organisations transcending such areas as Health Care, Justice and Human Services. Jim has been a Chief Executive of a Human Services and Health Department (South Australia), Deputy Chief Executive of Justice and Chief Executive of major health service delivery organisations.
At a national level he has been Chair of the Australian Health Ministers’ Advisory Council, a member of the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care and was a Board Member of the National E Health Transition Authority.
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Mr Rod Buchecker
- Appointed
- 8 December 2006
- Role
- Director
Committee memberships
Member, Investment CommitteeAfter 15 years as a Director of Clemenger BBDO Adelaide, and eight years with USP Needham and Young & Rubicam Melbourne and Adelaide prior to that, Rod is one of Australia’s most experienced and accomplished marketing communications professionals. With a proven track record of delivering sustainable, strategic and creative solutions to assignments on global brands both in Australia and internationally, he now runs his own Adelaide based consulting practice specialising in strategic brand management, consumer insight and thought leadership.
Rod is a graduate of Harvard Business School’s Strategic Marketing Management in Boston and the prestigious Y&R Ad Skills Programme in New York. He is also a fully accredited Thought Leaders Global Ambassador and regularly mentors senior executives on how to grow their businesses and further their careers.
Additionally he is Chairman of Legacy Kokoda Trekkers (he has trekked Kokoda twice) and a lecturer for Ad School, the training arm of the Communications Council of Australia.
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Mr Mark Hosking FCA FCPA FAICD FFIN B.Comm MBA
- Appointed
- 4 November 2010
- Role
- Director
Committee memberships
Deputy Chairman, Investment CommitteeMr Hosking has more than 20 years in the accounting and financial services industries and is currently the Chief Financial Officer of Elders Ltd. He has previously worked at NAB Ltd (10 years) where he was CFO of the Bank of New Zealand. Mr Hosking also worked at AWB Ltd where he was responsible for financial management globally and moved Australia’s largest agribusiness from a monopolistic wheat exporter to a commercially driven diversified global agribusiness.
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Professor Tim Hughes, Head, Dept of Haematology at IMVS (RAH site)
- Appointed
- 16 October 2012
- Role
- Director
Committee memberships
Member, Cancer Research CommitteeProfessor Hughes is also a Consultant Haematologist at the Royal Adelaide Hospital. His clinical interests include chronic leukaemias and myeloproliferative disorders. His current research interests are in molecular monitoring for leukaemias, clinical resistance to targeted therapies in leukaemia and the development of assays to predict response and resistance to targeted agents.
Professor Tim Hughes was promoted to Clinical Professor, University of Adelaide and was also awarded the 2006 Eric Susman Prize from the Royal Australasian College of Physicians for his original and groundbreaking research in chronic myeloid leukaemia (CML).
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Mr Nigel McBride
- Appointed
- 30 November 2012
- Role
- Director
Committee memberships
Deputy Chairman, Nomination and Remuneration CommitteeImmediate past Chief Executive and Managing Partner of Minter Ellison Lawyers. The firm grew under Nigel's leadership to be South Australia's largest, with a leading reputation and dominant market position. This has been reflected in a number of national awards including the BRW / St George Best Professional Services Firm in South Australia (two years running).
Nigel is also the immediate past Chairman of Advantage Adelaide (www.advantagesa) and an immediate past State Council member of the CEDA South Australia (www.ceda.com.au) (five years).
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Mr Con Michalakis BSc(Ma) MSc
- Appointed
- 24 March 2011
- Role
- Director
Committee memberships
Chairman, Investment CommitteeAlong with StatewideSuper's Investment Committee, Con is also responsible for managing its $4.2 billion in funds under management.
Prior to joining StatewideSuper, Con was Director of Marketing and Client services for Manhattan-based boutique investment firm, Pzena Investment Management, where he was responsible for marketing the firm's products and services in Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong and Singapore. He was previously the Director, Head of Institutional Business, for Merrill Lynch Investment Managers based in Sydney. Con has also worked in London with Alliance Capital Management and was the first Australian practice leader of investment consulting for Watson Wyatt.
Con has a Bachelor of Mathematical Science from the University of Adelaide, a Masters of Science from the University of London and is a Fellow at the Financial Services Institute of Australasia.
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Associate Professor Susan Neuhaus CSC MBBS PhD FRACS
- Appointed
- 27 October 2010
- Role
- Director
Committee memberships
Member, Audit and Risk CommitteeAssociate Professor Neuhaus is a General Surgeon and Fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons (RACS). In 2004 she was awarded the Lumley Exchange Scholarship and undertook a Fellowship in Surgical Oncology at the Royal Marsden Hospital in the United Kingdom. She has a Doctorate of Philosophy (PhD) in mechanisms of tumour spread during laparoscopy.
As Clinical Associate Professor of the Department of Surgery, The University of Adelaide, Susan works in private and public practice with special interests in melanoma and sarcoma. She is the past Chair of the Surgical Oncology Group of the Clinical Oncological Society of Australia (COSA), is a Director of the Australasian Sarcoma Study Group (ASSG), member of the Australian Melanoma Trials Group (ANTMTG) and is on the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons Court of Examiners in General Surgery. She in actively involved in teaching, research and clinical trials and has published extensively on a broad range of topics, served as a journal editor and reviewer and authored a textbook ‘Radiology in Surgical Practice’.
Associate Professor Neuhaus has also completed an Army career spanning more than 20 years. During this time she served in Cambodia, Bougainville and most recently in Afghanistan. In 2009 she was awarded the Conspicuous Service Cross in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List in recognition of her leadership in Army Health. She remains actively involved in Veterans health issues, and has published extensively on strategic defence health issues. She was appointed to the Veterans Health Advisory Council (SA), Chairs the Board of the Repat Foundation and is an Ambassador for Defence.