Jennifer Westacott
Chief Executive Officer, Business Council of Australia
Ceremony: 3 May 2018, 2:00pm - UTS Business School
Well, thank you. I’d like to also begin by acknowledging the traditional owners of the land we are meeting on today, the Gadigal people of the Eora nation, and pay my respect to their Elders past and present. I’d like to acknowledge the Deputy Chancellor, the Vice Chancellor and President, the Director, Associate Dean of the UTS Business School, Chair of the Academic Board, staff, family, friends, and most importantly, you, the graduates. I’d also like to recognise my friend and colleague, your Chancellor, Catherine Livingstone. No other Australian has done more to bring the reality of digital disruption and the opportunities of innovation to the forefront of our policy and business agenda.
Many of you are likely to join the business community, a community that is the foundation of prosperity. Business is overwhelmingly a force for good. It is the engine room of growth in the Australian economy and across Australian communities. Whether it’s the local store, the large mining company creating a massive ecosystem across regional Australia, or the technology company driving the new jobs in a more diversified economy, business is the 10 million of the 12 million working Australians. It’s the almost 6 million Australians who own shares in an Australian company. It’s where their superannuation is invested, and their retirement depends on those businesses continuing to grow. More than 380 billion dollars in everyday Australian superannuation investments are held in Australian-listed companies. It is the ecosystem of small, medium and large businesses that together generate 550 billion dollars of economic activity each year.
Business contributes more than 70 billion dollars a year in company taxes to help fund the eservices we all want and need. They also give back to the community – the most recent Giving Australia report shows that business gave 17.5 billion dollars in 2015/16, made up of community partnerships, donations and non-commercial sponsorships. Businesses, big and small, deliver extraordinary outcomes every day. They create jobs, they innovate, they export, they support thriving communities. Businesses make things possible and they help create the opportunities that can enable all Australians to reach their full potential. But you are joining a business community at a time of enormous upheaval. Businesses face the challenge of technology, the challenges of the empowered consumer, the challenge of unprecedented connectivity and digitisation, where business models are undergoing disruption, change, even destruction every day.
Companies who fail to adapt to that change or have cultures that resist transformation will be short lived. And of course, we are also under pressure from the consequences of our own conduct. This has led to serious reputational damage, a crisis of community confidence and real damage to people in the community. Those who have always been against private enterprise but rarely have a substitute for it, are emboldened. They simply don’t and never have accept the legitimacy of business or the vital role we play in society. Tragically, they will potentially unleash a wave of destructive, self-defeating policies that will harm the poorest people in the community, not the richest.
That’s why as you leave today, you must be the people who drive the types of organisations that will be more resilient, more enduring, and build trust and respect across the community. So, what does reclaiming that social license to operate look like? Firstly, companies – indeed, all organisations – need a true sense of purpose. That is a guiding sense of direction, a defining of our intentions, driving why we are in business, producing the goods and services that enrich a community, deliver a fairer society and allow all Australians to thrive and prosper. That is a purpose. Companies with true purposes, not slogans, succeed.
A purpose is not a return on equity. A purpose is not a financial target. Companies that endure are transparent about the use of their data and the application of their technology. They focus on the needs of their customers; they build trust with their customers and the community; they see shared value as something more than corporate social responsibility; they value their employees as assets, not numbers; they value their suppliers as partners, not contracts. Whether you are in a team, or ultimately in a leadership role, you must be the person that strives to ensue your organisation stands for these principles. But to do that, you must think about the person you want to be.
The best advice I can give you today is that you lead a life of purpose in your work and in your life. People who focus only on position without a clear sense of purpose and achievement often fail. Ask yourself: what am I doing, why am I doing it, and who will benefit? Never be the person whose ambition is position. Never be the person whose only focus in an organisational chart and where you are on it. I can assure you, you will falter. Be the person who wants to use a position of authority and influence to make positive change and get things done. Think about what you want to influence and the change you want to bring about. Consider not only what you want to achieve, but how you will achieve it. The most valuable member of a board, a team, a government, even a family, is the person who stops and says, ‘What is the right thing to do?’ Don’t dwell on job titles or job specifics. Consider how best to nurture your skills, your capabilities, your values, your relationships, through a life that is most likely to involve many jobs, some of them unimaginable today.
Another piece of advice from my own experience is to think about what your qualification and capabilities allow you to give back to the community. Apply what you have acquired at this university to the world of work and to society. Purpose is more than just turning up to work each day. Many organisations now have community activities as part of their performance management system, and that’s a good thing. But it has to be genuine, it has to be sincere and it has to be serious. So, use the skills you have in the business community, use the skills that you’ve acquired here for a greater purpose, whether it’s being part of community activities, whether it’s a sporting club, whether it’s being treasurer of a local charity – don’t isolate yourself. One of the biggest criticisms that business often faces is that it’s out of touch with communities. I reject that criticism, but I do believe that we have a responsibility not to sit in glass towers in CBDs and to get out and see the impact we’re having on the ground, and more importantly, to get in touch with the circumstances that many Australians find themselves in.
I chair Mental Health Australia – I chair that because I have a personal interest in this issue. I chair it because it’s one of the big issues confronting our society. And I want to bring my skills and my knowledge to help that sector come to terms with the challenges that they face. I encourage you to examine roles in both the public and non-government sectors. As much as you weight up the value of private-sector positions, for me, it has been the public-sector roles that I’ve had that have often been amongst the most challenging and, indeed, the most rewarding. As former US President John F Kennedy told graduates 45 years ago, you have responsibilities in short to use your talents for the benefit for society, which helped develop these talents. He also said of the many special obligations incumbent upon an educated citizen, I would cite three as outstanding: your obligation to the pursuit of learning, your obligation to serve the public, your obligation to uphold the law. But you can’t make any of those contributions without a strong set of values.
It is paramount that your decisions and all you do should be consistent with your values – values matter. Ethics, integrity, honesty, courage, compassion and commitment. Embrace them. One of the people I admire the most is the Queen. She has held fast to a set of values that have guided her long reign. Instead of locking her into a rigid way of thinking, she’s been able to adapt and change but within a core set of values and principles. Cultivate the gift of curiosity. The enquiring and questioning mind is the most powerful tool any organisation or any team can have, and it is the greatest single force behind discovery. Nourish the art of collaboration.
When Catherine Livingstone and I worked together for three years at the Business Council, we knew that the organisation and its purpose was bigger than us, and we knew that shared success was the best success, and together, we achieved so much more. Nurture the colleagues and friends you’ve made at this university, not as a contact list but as a network of people who you work with, who support you, and who you will support. Trust me – you will find yourself reaching out to these people for expertise, for guidance, for friendship, more often than you can imagine. And never forget, never forget, that supportive, caring, family relationships will be the most important force for good in your life. But most importantly, complement all these things with what I believe are the most important attributes to have in life – the things that protect you when something goes wrong, and things do go wrong. The qualities of humility, of courtesy and of integrity.
I want to congratulate you today on all you’ve achieved and all you will achieve. I was the first person in my extended a family to go to university. I remember this day so clearly when I graduated, and somehow my family managed to evade the restrictive ticketing systems of the university. I had absolutely no idea what to expect when I turned up to university, but it changed my life. It gave me a quest for knowledge. It gave me an enquiring mind. It gave me the capacity for critical thinking and analysis. It gave me a global perspective, which for a young kid from a housing commission estate who had never travelled was nothing sort of profound. But the most important thing I gained from my time at university was confidence and self-belief. You too have a world of opportunities before you. You are the luckiest generation that has ever lived, as is mine, and you are graduating at a time, the most incredible time in human history.
You are here today to celebrate what a truly great society does: it gives back through education and through empowerment, but we should never take that for granted. It is because of that we are prosperous – because we can afford it, because a private-enterprise-driven community enables us to share those opportunities with all Australians. If as a society we let go of that fundamental mantle, then that prosperity, that way of life, that freedom will be under threat. So leave today with pride in your achievements. Leave today with gratitude for the support of the people around you. And leave today as ambassadors for freedom, as ambassadors for enterprise, and as ambassadors for the power of aspirations. Congratulations and thank you.
Speech
Well, thank you. I’d like to also begin by acknowledging the traditional owners of the land we are meeting on today, the Gadigal people of the Eora nation, and pay my respect to their Elders past and present. I’d like to acknowledge the Deputy Chancellor, the Vice Chancellor and President, the Director, Associate Dean of the UTS Business School, Chair of the Academic Board, staff, family, friends, and most importantly, you, the graduates. I’d also like to recognise my friend and colleague, your Chancellor, Catherine Livingstone. No other Australian has done more to bring the reality of digital disruption and the opportunities of innovation to the forefront of our policy and business agenda.
Many of you are likely to join the business community, a community that is the foundation of prosperity. Business is overwhelmingly a force for good. It is the engine room of growth in the Australian economy and across Australian communities. Whether it’s the local store, the large mining company creating a massive ecosystem across regional Australia, or the technology company driving the new jobs in a more diversified economy, business is the 10 million of the 12 million working Australians. It’s the almost 6 million Australians who own shares in an Australian company. It’s where their superannuation is invested, and their retirement depends on those businesses continuing to grow. More than 380 billion dollars in everyday Australian superannuation investments are held in Australian-listed companies. It is the ecosystem of small, medium and large businesses that together generate 550 billion dollars of economic activity each year.
Business contributes more than 70 billion dollars a year in company taxes to help fund the eservices we all want and need. They also give back to the community – the most recent Giving Australia report shows that business gave 17.5 billion dollars in 2015/16, made up of community partnerships, donations and non-commercial sponsorships. Businesses, big and small, deliver extraordinary outcomes every day. They create jobs, they innovate, they export, they support thriving communities. Businesses make things possible and they help create the opportunities that can enable all Australians to reach their full potential. But you are joining a business community at a time of enormous upheaval. Businesses face the challenge of technology, the challenges of the empowered consumer, the challenge of unprecedented connectivity and digitisation, where business models are undergoing disruption, change, even destruction every day.
Companies who fail to adapt to that change or have cultures that resist transformation will be short lived. And of course, we are also under pressure from the consequences of our own conduct. This has led to serious reputational damage, a crisis of community confidence and real damage to people in the community. Those who have always been against private enterprise but rarely have a substitute for it, are emboldened. They simply don’t and never have accept the legitimacy of business or the vital role we play in society. Tragically, they will potentially unleash a wave of destructive, self-defeating policies that will harm the poorest people in the community, not the richest.
That’s why as you leave today, you must be the people who drive the types of organisations that will be more resilient, more enduring, and build trust and respect across the community. So, what does reclaiming that social license to operate look like? Firstly, companies – indeed, all organisations – need a true sense of purpose. That is a guiding sense of direction, a defining of our intentions, driving why we are in business, producing the goods and services that enrich a community, deliver a fairer society and allow all Australians to thrive and prosper. That is a purpose. Companies with true purposes, not slogans, succeed.
A purpose is not a return on equity. A purpose is not a financial target. Companies that endure are transparent about the use of their data and the application of their technology. They focus on the needs of their customers; they build trust with their customers and the community; they see shared value as something more than corporate social responsibility; they value their employees as assets, not numbers; they value their suppliers as partners, not contracts. Whether you are in a team, or ultimately in a leadership role, you must be the person that strives to ensue your organisation stands for these principles. But to do that, you must think about the person you want to be.
The best advice I can give you today is that you lead a life of purpose in your work and in your life. People who focus only on position without a clear sense of purpose and achievement often fail. Ask yourself: what am I doing, why am I doing it, and who will benefit? Never be the person whose ambition is position. Never be the person whose only focus in an organisational chart and where you are on it. I can assure you, you will falter. Be the person who wants to use a position of authority and influence to make positive change and get things done. Think about what you want to influence and the change you want to bring about. Consider not only what you want to achieve, but how you will achieve it. The most valuable member of a board, a team, a government, even a family, is the person who stops and says, ‘What is the right thing to do?’ Don’t dwell on job titles or job specifics. Consider how best to nurture your skills, your capabilities, your values, your relationships, through a life that is most likely to involve many jobs, some of them unimaginable today.
Another piece of advice from my own experience is to think about what your qualification and capabilities allow you to give back to the community. Apply what you have acquired at this university to the world of work and to society. Purpose is more than just turning up to work each day. Many organisations now have community activities as part of their performance management system, and that’s a good thing. But it has to be genuine, it has to be sincere and it has to be serious. So, use the skills you have in the business community, use the skills that you’ve acquired here for a greater purpose, whether it’s being part of community activities, whether it’s a sporting club, whether it’s being treasurer of a local charity – don’t isolate yourself. One of the biggest criticisms that business often faces is that it’s out of touch with communities. I reject that criticism, but I do believe that we have a responsibility not to sit in glass towers in CBDs and to get out and see the impact we’re having on the ground, and more importantly, to get in touch with the circumstances that many Australians find themselves in.
I chair Mental Health Australia – I chair that because I have a personal interest in this issue. I chair it because it’s one of the big issues confronting our society. And I want to bring my skills and my knowledge to help that sector come to terms with the challenges that they face. I encourage you to examine roles in both the public and non-government sectors. As much as you weight up the value of private-sector positions, for me, it has been the public-sector roles that I’ve had that have often been amongst the most challenging and, indeed, the most rewarding. As former US President John F Kennedy told graduates 45 years ago, you have responsibilities in short to use your talents for the benefit for society, which helped develop these talents. He also said of the many special obligations incumbent upon an educated citizen, I would cite three as outstanding: your obligation to the pursuit of learning, your obligation to serve the public, your obligation to uphold the law. But you can’t make any of those contributions without a strong set of values.
It is paramount that your decisions and all you do should be consistent with your values – values matter. Ethics, integrity, honesty, courage, compassion and commitment. Embrace them. One of the people I admire the most is the Queen. She has held fast to a set of values that have guided her long reign. Instead of locking her into a rigid way of thinking, she’s been able to adapt and change but within a core set of values and principles. Cultivate the gift of curiosity. The enquiring and questioning mind is the most powerful tool any organisation or any team can have, and it is the greatest single force behind discovery. Nourish the art of collaboration.
When Catherine Livingstone and I worked together for three years at the Business Council, we knew that the organisation and its purpose was bigger than us, and we knew that shared success was the best success, and together, we achieved so much more. Nurture the colleagues and friends you’ve made at this university, not as a contact list but as a network of people who you work with, who support you, and who you will support. Trust me – you will find yourself reaching out to these people for expertise, for guidance, for friendship, more often than you can imagine. And never forget, never forget, that supportive, caring, family relationships will be the most important force for good in your life. But most importantly, complement all these things with what I believe are the most important attributes to have in life – the things that protect you when something goes wrong, and things do go wrong. The qualities of humility, of courtesy and of integrity.
I want to congratulate you today on all you’ve achieved and all you will achieve. I was the first person in my extended a family to go to university. I remember this day so clearly when I graduated, and somehow my family managed to evade the restrictive ticketing systems of the university. I had absolutely no idea what to expect when I turned up to university, but it changed my life. It gave me a quest for knowledge. It gave me an enquiring mind. It gave me the capacity for critical thinking and analysis. It gave me a global perspective, which for a young kid from a housing commission estate who had never travelled was nothing sort of profound. But the most important thing I gained from my time at university was confidence and self-belief. You too have a world of opportunities before you. You are the luckiest generation that has ever lived, as is mine, and you are graduating at a time, the most incredible time in human history.
You are here today to celebrate what a truly great society does: it gives back through education and through empowerment, but we should never take that for granted. It is because of that we are prosperous – because we can afford it, because a private-enterprise-driven community enables us to share those opportunities with all Australians. If as a society we let go of that fundamental mantle, then that prosperity, that way of life, that freedom will be under threat. So leave today with pride in your achievements. Leave today with gratitude for the support of the people around you. And leave today as ambassadors for freedom, as ambassadors for enterprise, and as ambassadors for the power of aspirations. Congratulations and thank you.
About the Speaker
Jennifer is the Chief Executive of the Business Council of Australia, a position she has held since 2011. She facilitates the contribution of the Business Council of Australia’s CEO members across a policy agenda that includes innovation, skills and education, engagement with Indigenous Australians, and global engagement.
Jennifer has extensive policy experience in both the public and private sectors. She has held positions such as Director of Housing and the Secretary of Education in Victoria, and more recently, Director-General of the New South Wales Department of Infrastructure, Planning and Natural Resources. Jennifer was also a senior partner and board director at KPMG, where she advised some of Australia’s major corporations on climate change and sustainability matters, and provided advice to governments around Australia on major reform priorities.
Jennifer is a Fellow of the Institute of Public Administration Australia and the Australian Institute of Company Directors. She is also on the board of Wesfarmers Limited and is Chair of the Mental Health Council of Australia.
Jennifer graduated from the University of New South Wales with a Bachelor of Arts (Honours), and in 2017 she was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of literature by the University. She is an Adjunct Professor at the City Research Futures Centre and a Chevening Scholar at the London School of Economics.
