Hello members!

Welcome back to another year of the Women in Business Discussion Group.  We have plenty on the agenda for 2015.  Our first session is on Thursday 26 February.  Joanna Maxwell, from Work in Colour will be providing tips on Creative Thinking Your Career.  More details will follow soon.

Even though our first meeting is on Thursday, the rest of the year's events will be on Tuesdays.  For the full schedule for 2015, please visit http://cpawomen.blogspot.com.au/p/schedule.html.

The committee and I look forward to seeing you soon.

Kind regards,
Ellie Smith

Women in Business Discussion Group Tuesday 25 November 2014 | 5.45pm – 8pm | CPA Centre Level 3, 111 Harrington St

For our final meeting of the year, we are excited to welcome Suzi Petrozzi.  Suzi will be explaining 5 WAYS TO GAIN UNSTOPPABLE MOMENTUM IN YOUR PERSONAL AND PROFESSIONAL LIFE.  In this talk Suzi will teach 5 essential steps supported by scientific evidence and practical tools to help make your life less complicated and difficult, more relaxed and at ease.  Sometimes, it can be overwhelming to know where or how to start making changes in life because we are too often caught up listening to all the “should’s” and the “must’s” inside and outside our heads.  But it doesn’t have to be hard or complicated.

Suzi Petrozzi is a clinical and coaching psychologist and a director at Petrozzi Wellness Centre, Leichhardt. Working in mental health for over 8 years inspired Suzi to develop her own practice with a focus on wellness and possibilities rather than mere improvements in people’s lives.  Furthermore, her own dedication to personal development, yoga and meditation is a testament to her own willingness to keep growing and living a more purposeful and fulfilling life.

Her real passion is empowering women to become all of who they are and live a life of purpose and fulfilment. Whether it’s stress, anxiety, grief, trauma, or need for life direction, Suzi has a wonderful ability to connect with women, regardless of their situation, and mentor them to move forward with clarity, confidence and momentum. Women are then empowered to finally start living the life that is right for them.

Suzi works alongside her husband John Petrozzi who is a chiropractor and principal at Petrozzi Wellness Centre in Leichhardt. Their centre provides holistic services including chiropractic, psychology, life coaching, remedial massage and integrative medicine to local community and beyond.

They have two girls who are very spirited, curious and funny and keep them on their toes – day and nights!

Come along for a fun night with canapés and lucky door prizes.

To attend, please RSVP to Reis at cpawibfb@gmail.com or via Facebook by 5pm Friday 21 November.

Women in Business Discussion Group Wednesday 29 October 2014 | 5.45pm – 8pm | CPA Centre Level 3, 111 Harrington St

We are delighted to welcome back one of our most popular speakers, André Croteau, as our guest for our October discussion.  André will be providing valuable Excel tips and tricks for you to immediately apply in the workplace. 

André has devised an Excel quiz (please see attached) that will provide the background for Wednesday’s presentation.  I suggest you have a go at the quiz and test your Excel skills!  If you have any particular subjects or questions, please let me know before the weekend, I will pass on to André.

For the past few years, André has been contracting as an Excel Specialist. His most recent contracts have been with Chandler MacLeod and various mining companies where André has been introducing work procedures with the use of Microsoft Excel to simplify the work load. His passion is to make work more efficient through the help of Excel, by automating repetitive procedures, or speeding up the work flow he has created hundreds of applications and has save countless hours of work, particularly at month end.

To attend, please RSVP to Reis at cpawibfb@gmail.com or via Facebook by 5pm Friday 24 October 2014.

Hi everyone,

Our October Women in Business discussion group is next Wednesday 29 October 2014.  This is a one-off due to venue availability, other sessions will continue to be held on Tuesdays

Our guest speaker is the very popular André Croteau.  André is visting us again to show us more excel tips.

More details to follow shortly.

Women in Business Discussion Group Tuesday 30 September 2014 | 5.45pm – 8pm | CPA Centre Level 3, 111 Harrington St

We are excited to announce John Raymond as our guest speaker for our September discussion to talk about "Are your conversations working hard for you?"

Being adaptable is a key capability for success in today’s organisations, whether it be in government or corporate. The role of leaders therefore, need to embrace adaptability to deliver what is expected, yet this is easier said than done. Many leaders underestimate, or ignore completely, the power of a great conversation to transform a situation, though there wouldn’t be anyone who hasn’t experienced this phenomenon. An adaptive leader uses every day conversations to support his or her people to navigate a complex world we work in.  This presentation draws on the dialogue principles of coaching and mentoring conversations and applies them to every day conversations. John will expand on a number of key coaching and mentoring principles and offer way they can be applied in your day to day conversation to get a better result. This session will be informative, interactive and experiential so you will walk away knowing both what to do and how to do it.

John Raymond is Principal at the Institute of Executive Coaching.  John’s experience is firmly grounded in leadership having led business units, teams and organisations. From 1996, he has been an executive coach and facilitator helping people manage themselves and lead people. John has coached and trained managers at all levels in private, public and education sectors in Australia and abroad. In corporate, he has worked with organizations like Reader’s Digest, Accor Hospitality, Credit Suisse, BayCorp, McGrath, Clayton Utz, Facebook and Ericsson. In the Public Sector John has worked with various departments, including Immigration, Austrade, APSC, ATO,DEEWR and Defence. Education clients include University of Western Sydney, Bastow Institute of Educational Leadership, Alfred Deakin High School and University of New South Wales.  John has been involved in coaching since it started to take hold in the Australasian region in the mid 1990s and he is passionate about the professionalisation of the industry. To this end, John has held leadership positions and contributed to various committees over many years. His most recent contributions have been through his role as President for the International Coach Federation – Australasia and as a member of the Standards Australia working party that has written the guideline for Coaching in Organisations - a global first.

WiB Committee member and Divisional Councillor, Lisa Gray will be hosting this exciting discussion.  We will be providing hot canapés and one lucky member will win a fantastic prize on the night – so make sure you have paid your membership fee!

To attend, please RSVP to Reis at cpawibfb@gmail.com or via Facebook by 5pm Friday 26 September 2014.

Women in Business Discussion Group Tuesday 30 September 2014 | 5.45pm – 8pm | CPA Centre Level 3, 111 Harrington St

Watch this space for details of our exciting event next week 30 September!  Details coming soon!

Women in Business Discussion Group Tuesday 26 August 2014 | 5.45pm – 8pm | CPA Centre Level 3, 111 Harrington St

We are delighted to announce Melissa Houghton as our our guest speaker for our August discussion to talk about "Sustainability and the Business Bottom Line"

As Sustainability issues and financial performance begin to intertwine real business benefits are being  realised.  But in many organisations, its value is not fully realised. Robust sustainability performance management, driven by finance professionals, can be a key enabler to unlocking this value.  In this discussion we will explore the underlying principles of business sustainability and what’s driving CEO’s and CFO’s to consider the triple bottom line,  the business benefits to this approach and ways that you can start to drive sustainability throughout your organisation.

Melissa Houghton is an experienced strategic communicator with a passion for sustainability.  In her 15 plus years, Melissa has held senior executive positions at News Digital Media (NDM), Telstra, Green Building Council of Australia (GBCA) and is currently director and co-owner of Sustainability at Work.

Sustainability at Work was born in 2010 out of the desire to bring ‘people’ back into the centre of the sustainability and ‘green’ building movements.  Since then Melissa has led and influenced strategic discussions around the economic, social and environmental impacts of those business, with C-level executives and established and implemented strategies to drive positive sustainability behaviours, culture and outcomes for their people, their customers and their partners. 

Melissa has co-authored two pieces of research including “Insights into the attitudes and behaviours of Australian Workers towards sustainability at work and at home” and “The Australian Sustainability Manager- the role, the challenges and the Future”. 

Melissa is seen as an industry expert on workplace sustainability, business strategy, behaviour change, stakeholder engagement and marketing sustainability. She has been part of industry task forces including the UWS Bringing Sustainability to Life roundtables providing research information, advice and guidance and is often requested to speak a industry conferences.  Melissa is also on the Board of Directors for Oxfam Australia.

To attend, please RSVP to Reis at cpawibfb@gmail.com or via Facebook by 5pm Friday 22 August 2014.