You know your Board matters. If your Board is operating smoothly and effectively, your organisation’s likelihood of success increases exponentially. But surprisingly, many organisations simply don’t know how to harness the power and the passion that their Board members possess.
At Board Matters, our experienced team works collaboratively with Directors to enhance organisational performance, striking the perfect balance between performance and conformance.
Over the last 15 years, Board Matters has built its reputation for informed practical and professional governance solutions. Our approach is to work WITH you to help develop governance solutions together rather than FOR you dictating what you should do.
We offer:
Creating a clear strategic direction in the boardroom can be challenging in this disruptive and dynamic global environment. We equip boards with the tools, information, insights, mindsets and decision-making processes to survive and thrive in this complex business climate.
We can provide:
Our governance team all draw on extensive careers as practising legal professionals. The disciplined analytical thinking and technical understanding this brings enables us to offer a specialised suite of corporate governance legal services.
Such as:
For over 15 years, Board Matters has provided professional, timely, meaningful and discrete governance advice and services to a wide range of organisations. With a highly sought-after combination of practical legal and governance expertise, we offer tailored governance solutions to:
Metallica Minerals Ltd recently used Board Matters to complete a board evaluation to assist the Company as it progressed its project developments. We found the whole process beneficial and thorough.
With close to 75 years board experience between the Consultants at Board Matters, they know the best practices in creating leading edge corporate governance solutions.
Their professionalism, technical knowledge and assistance in implementing or monitoring key recommendations has been at a level that most organisations only aspire to.
In 2002, after almost 15 years as a corporate/commercial lawyer, including as a partner of national law firm Deacons (now Norton Rose Fulbright) and 10 years as a practising director, Elizabeth founded Board Matters and its associated governance legal practice, Board Matters Legal. Today, over 15 years later, she is its Managing Director and Principal Consultant, heading up a team of 7 specialist governance, legal and strategy consultants.
Drawing together the strands of her career, Elizabeth has provided corporate legal and governance assistance and advice, with a real-life ‘practising director’ perspective, to a large range of companies, organisations, and industries for well over 20 years. This has included listed, private, public sector and not-for-profit boards.
She also maintains an active portfolio of directorships, presently with RACQ and Queensland Police Service and Chairs the Boards of Brisbane Girls’ Grammar School and Queensland Theatre. Her past directorships have also included the boards of over 20 organisations, for-profit and not-for profit, including as chair of a private company board in the UK and chair of a leading Australian professional services firm.
For more information see Elizabeth’s Curriculum Vitae.
After more than ten years in private legal practice, Jennifer made the strategic career move to become a corporate governance consultant at Board Matters. Throughout her private practice career, Jennifer had been sitting on boards of many organisations, so she undertook business studies at QUT during which time Jennifer decided to make the leap into the world of corporate governance consulting.
Today, Jennifer is still a practicing lawyer, governance consultant and company director. Over the last 15 years, she has sat on or chaired a number of boards. Her board appointments include statutory bodies, public authorities, an APRA regulated superannuation fund, an ASIC regulated financial planning entity and many not-for-profit organisations.
Jennifer is currently Chair of the Defence Reserves Support Council Queensland and Deputy Chair of the Queensland Building and Construction Commission. Jennifer is the first non-pilot director on the board of Brisbane Marine Pilots in its 28 year history and she also chairs the Audit and Compliance Committee for Queensland Independent Schools Block Grant Authority.
For more information see Jennifer’s Curriculum Vitae.
Stephen is a qualified lawyer and governance professional who has also used his corporate governance expertise as Company Secretary with a large not-for-profit superannuation fund.
Working across all types of organisations, Stephen has assisted clients with a broad range of issues providing assistance such as governance reviews and restructures, constitution and policy documents development and revision, and company secretarial support.
Stephen is a Board Member of Museums & Galleries Qld, a Member of the Queensland Law Society Not-for-Profit sub-committee and a member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.
For more information see Stephen’s Curriculum Vitae.
Helen Darch has extensive strategic planning, research, corporate communication and management consulting experience gained in a wide range of industry sectors. Her interests lie in research to understand what people think and do, and why they do that, and the development of strategies that use research findings to shape or meet an organisation’s business goals.
She has authored papers on communication, internet strategy and service delivery issues for national and international conferences. Helen has been involved in several mentoring schemes for women, was a Judge in the Asia Pacific ICT Awards and a Judge for the Queensland Government’s ‘Smart Women, Smart State Awards’.
Helen is involved on several Boards. Her Board career commenced in 2006 when she was appointed to the Board of the Cerebral Palsy League. She has been Chair of the CPL Board since 2010 and is a Director on the Childrens’ Hospital Foundation (CHF) Board. Helen chairs the CHF Board’s Fundraising and Marketing Committee, is on the CHF Research Grants Committee, and the CHF Remuneration and Appointments Committee.
Christina has recently joined Board Matters after 25 years as a human capital executive specialising in organisational and leadership development, executive review and coaching, and workplace conflict. She has had a successful corporate career leading the human resource management functions of a number of global and national companies, as well as consulting to a range of private and public sector organisations. Christina has post graduate qualifications in HRM, law, and business coaching, and is currently researching leadership coaching for her doctorate at QUT. She has held a number of roles on the Boards of public, private and NFP organisations including Sportsgirl, UnitingCare, Australian Human Resources Institute, Footprints Inc, Logan TAFE, and Defence Reserves Support Council Queensland. Christina is a Past President and Fellow of the Australian Human Resources Institute, a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Management, a Graduate Member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors, and an Approved Qld Supreme Court Mediator.
After 20 years in legal practice in Australia and the UK, covering matters across the globe including Europe and the U.S., including 15 years working in financial, securities, banking and corporate regulation, Lesley now applies her extensive technical and strategic knowledge of corporate governance principles as a consultant at Board Matters.
Drawing on her experience as a barrister, solicitor, in-house counsel, compliance manager and senior manager/lawyer for government and other public and private sector bodies, and as a trusted advisor to various boards, commissions, ministers (and their respective departments) and senior executives, Lesley brings a broad but informed strategic perspective, combined with a practical and commercial approach, to her consulting role.
Today, Lesley continues to practise as a lawyer and maintains her technical expertise by providing advice and dispute resolution services in relation to corporate/financial regulatory issues.
Michael Goss is an innovator in the commercial strategy space, combining advisory board and governance skills with expert legal counsel to guide sound strategic outcomes for business owners and companies.
With clients in a range of industries including the agribusiness, aged care and banking sectors, he specialises in working with privately and family owned or closely held businesses facing complex challenges or dealing with growth or change.
Michael is passionate about preserving family and stakeholder relationships, while seeking to ensure the commercial sustainability of a business enterprise.
He has three decades of commercial legal experience, primarily in banking, finance and insolvency law, and has worked for top tier, mid tier and boutique firms.
As a lawyer, he has been featured in the key professional directories of leading practitioners, including Doyle’s Guide for Leading Agribusiness Lawyers for 2016 and 2017. His peers have included him in Best Lawyers Peer Review Australia for Banking and Finance Law since 2014. Michael has acted in Australia and internationally for the World’s preeminent agribusiness banking institution, Rabobank, continuously for nearly 30 years.
He is a Member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors, holds a Bachelor of Laws from QUT and is admitted as a Solicitor of the Supreme Court of Queensland.
Read our blog to stay updated on the latest opinions, trends and learning’s on Corporate Governance, The Government, and Board Strategies.
Poorly managed conflicts of interest in the boardroom can cast long shadows. They can inflict lasting damage on the dynamic and operation of the board. For as long as boards are made up of people they are likely to continue to be one of the most common sources of boardroom tension and yet are still amongst the least well understood.
Read More
When it comes to many such decisions confronting boards today, too often the board feels at sea. Too much technical information and too little familiarity around the board table with the concepts concerned can result in the board not only failing to add value but instead subtracting value.
Read More
You may be amongst the many company directors mired in dozens, hundreds (perhaps thousands depending on the size and complexity of the company) of pages associated with the – always festive – end of financial year sign‑off season.
Read More
‘Agency theory’ is an economic theory that drives a whole lot of thinking about corporations today.
Read More