Appointments Council

The Independent Review Panel recommended the establishment of The Appointments Council in its Final report of November 2017. This along with other governance changes were passed by members at the May 2018 AGM to implement a more robust process for appointing individual directors to the CPA Australia Board.

The Appointments Council works with the Board and the Nomination Committee to determine the mix of skills required on the Board and identify candidates of suitable professional standing. In doing so they consider the mix of complementary skillsets and experience of the existing Board members and assess any specialist skills or knowledge possessed by departing directors.

Appointment process

The Nomination Committee engages an external executive recruitment firm.
A call for nominations is made via CPA Australia channels, CPA Update and INTHEBLACK, as well as national and international media outlets in Australia, New Zealand and Asia.
Applications are assessed and interviews are conducted by the executive recruitment firm and the Nomination Committee, who present the Appointments Council with a recommended short-list of candidates.

The Appointments Council are consulted at each stage of the process. They can provide input on candidates to be shortlisted for second round interviews and have the right to consider any candidate who meets the mandatory requirements.

The procedures, deliberations and meetings of the Appointments Council are strictly confidential.

The Chair of the Appointments Council is the President and Chair of the Board of CPA Australia Ltd. The President does not have the right to vote.

* For 2023 a Deputy President of the organisation, not in the final year of their term as a Director, will act as the Chair of the Appointments Council as the current President is in the final year of their term (Article 58 of the Constitution).

In the Chair’s absence the Deputy Chair of the Appointments Council acts as the Chair. The Deputy Chair has the casting vote in the event of an equality of votes. The Appointor has the casting vote in the absence of the Deputy Chair.

Further information about CPA Australia Appointments Councils

Appointments Council Charter

PDF · 189.7 KB

Director Nomination Process

PDF · 29.3 KB

The role of the CPA Appointments Council

Mark Narustrang FCPA explains the CPA Australia Appointments Council.

Hello, I'm Mark Narustrang. I'm a fellow of CPA Australia and I'm a member of the WA Divisional Council. As a member of the WA Divisional Council I've been elected to the Appointments Council and it's that which I'm talking about today.

So the Appointments Council is a little unusual. Not all organisations, well definitely not all organisations, will have an Appointments Council and you may never have heard of one before. But it is critical for CPA Australia because we're a member based organisation. And so as part of that rather than having shareholders elect our directors to the our board, we have our member based representatives do that. And that is the Appointments Council. So basically each divisional council, of which we have 13, provide one member to the Appointments Council.

So we have eight Divisional Councils in Australia and we have five overseas. Those Appointment Councillors vote independently. They are given the information from which to make a good decision but they will vote independently and anonymously for those directors. So the process is fairly long and for those that volunteer to be part of this role you need to be cognisant of that. But it starts early in the year, the calendar year, with assessing what the competency requirements are for the Board and creating appointment criteria which are then used for advertising for candidates. The Nomination Committee, which is a subset of the board comprising two independent members, two representatives of the Appointment Council and two Board directors undertakes a lot of the heavy lifting of the process. They meet with the Appointments Council.

We have a number of joint sessions in which we make decisions with respect to the process but they're the ones that undertake the interviews and provide a short list of recommendations to the Appointments Council. They're also supported by the Executive Recruitment consultants and that firm is available also to the Appointments Council and will meet over a number of sessions which will provide additional information. Any questions the Appointment Council has are able to be raised. The process culminates with the Appointments Council meeting with the support of the Nominations Committee including a short listed report where the Appointments Council members will independently confidentially anonymously vote on who they believe will be the appropriate directors to take the organisation forward.

The Appointments Council role is critical. We elect the directors to the board and the board is responsible for making the decisions and setting the strategy for the organisation going forward.

CPA Australia has over 170,000 members and so that's a lot of responsibility on the 13 Appointment Councillors but it is one that we have to take. So thank you, and if you are interested in the Appointments Council going forward please speak to your Divisional Council General Manager.

Members

These are the current members of the CPA Australia Appointments Council.

Councillors

Dale Pinto FCPA – Deputy President and Chair *
Karen Williams FCPA (Australian Capital Territory) - Deputy Chair
Jodi Wright CPA (South Australia) – Appointor
Lay Chew Chng FCPA (Singapore)
Mark Hucklesby FCPA (Europe)
Simon Kaleski FCPA (New South Wales)
Shawgat Kutubi CPA (Northern Territory)
Anthony Lau FCPA (Greater China)
Jyotee Patel FCPA (Victoria)
Donna Powell CPA (Tasmania)
Tim Roach FCPA (Western Australia)
Mark Saunders FCPA (New Zealand)
Tim Timchur FCPA (Queensland)
Kit Weng Yip FCPA (Malaysia)

* For 2023 a Deputy President of the organisation, not in the final year of their term as a Director, will act as the Chair of the Appointments Council as the current President is in the final year of their term (Article 58 of the Constitution).

Contact

Contact [email protected]

Appointment process

Further information about CPA Australia Appointments Councils

The role of the CPA Appointments Council

Transcript

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