Due to the Easter  and the ANZAC Day holidays, there will be NO CPA Women in Business Discussion Group in April.

Please join us for our next session on 29 May 2019.

Happy Easter!

Women in Business Discussion Group Tuesday 26 March 2019| 5.30pm – 8pm | CPA Centre Level 3, 111 Harrington St Sydney

For our March session we are delighted to welcome back Dr. Rosina McAlpine, CEO and co-founder of Win Win Parenting to explain how to more confidently manage the work-family interface.

Are you struggling to manage the many challenges of work and family effectively?

It’s not easy to meet all of the demands of work and family. If you're like most people, when things are not going well at home, it affects your concentration at work.

Dr. Rosina McAlpine will help you to reflect on your work-life areas that are going well and ones that may need improving. With her practical activity you'll learn how to evaluate your current circumstances and the steps you’d like to take to improve your work and family wellbeing. We’ll also take a look at that tricky guilt that comes from taking time out for self-care.

In this session you'll explore:

• Where you are right now in terms of achieving the work-family life you'd like to have
• Models for understanding and improving life success and satisfaction
• How you can take small steps towards a happier, healthier more rewarding life.
• Ways to eliminate the guilt that comes with self-care
• The ongoing support to help you achieve your goals from the session

There’ll be a worksheet to take away with additional resources, opportunities to share with your peers and question time as well.  This is a great opportunity to get practical support on managing the work- family interface more effectively so you can succeed at home and at work.

Here's what working parents have to say about Dr Rosina's Win Win Parenting programs:

• "Fantastic! Words can’t express how good Dr Rosina McAlpine is. So true in every situation... Truly remarkable!" (Toyota Financial Services)

• Nice to have a program that is aimed at home life not just work skills to enable a better life balance. (DLA Piper)  

• Fantastic! Life skills not only for raising our children, but skills we can use with dealing with co-workers/stake-holders/clients. (Lendlease)

• Specific examples and a simple process. I can implement the ideas now. (UBS)

• Great program, really beneficial as it enhances and grows work-life balance. I wish all parents had the opportunity to learn this. (Deakin University)

Reis at cpawibfb@gmail.com or via Facebook by 5pm Friday 22 March 2019. 

Cybersecurity for the Finance Professional - Women in Business Discussion Group Tuesday 26 February 2019

For our first event of 2019, we are excited to welcome Richard Watson, Lead Partner APAC Cyber Advisory at Ernst & Young to present Cybersecurity for the Finance Professional.

At a time when cyber risk is becoming one of the most talked about topics in boardrooms and executive teams, it is important as a finance professional to be across the latest developments in cybersecurity and have an awareness of what organisations across Australia are doing to address this risk.  Richard will talk us through some of the most pressing cyber threats out there, give an overview of what Australia’s largest organisations are doing to tackle the problem, and highlight some of the pointers for assessing a cyber uplift investment case.

Richard is the lead Partner in EY’s APAC Cyber practice.  He has spent the majority of his 25 year career in the professional services and IT sectors focused on Cyber Risk and Cyber Security.

Richard specialises in helping clients understand and protect themselves from the risk of cyber incidents.  His areas of expertise include cyber risk assessment, technologies for monitoring and protecting against cyber attack, privacy regulations and managing cyber incident response.

Richard has worked in a number of industries, focusing on those that have significant intellectual property to protect, a significant risk of brand damage from a cyber incident or whose core operations see them dependent on the digital ecosystem.

Originally from the UK, Richard is based in Sydney but operates throughout the Asia Pacific region.

RSVP to Reis at cpawibfb@gmail.com or via Facebook by 5pm Friday 22 February 2019.

Memberships for 2019 are now due, please forward your payment as per details below:

$30 for CPAs or $50 for Non-CPA Australia members in 2018 (no pro-rata, non-refundable)

Payment in advance via EFT

Bank: NAB

Account Name: Women in Business Discussion Group

BSB: 082088

Account Number: 186893555

Reference: your full name and CPA membership number.

Please email Felicity for a receipt at cpawibfb@gmail.com

Please update your own CPD Diary if you attend this meeting as CPA Australia no longer do this.

For more details about CPD hours see our blogpost http://cpawomen.blogspot.com/p/cpd.html.

Kind regards,

Ellie Smith

Convenor

How to position yourself for a board role

Women in Business Discussion Group Tuesday 27 November 2018 | 5.30pm – 8pm | CPA Centre Level 3, 111 Harrington St Sydney

For our last event of 2018, we are delighted to welcome Ruth Medd to present ‘How to position yourself for a board role.’

Ruth will be sharing with us:

1)     Intro to Women on Boards (WOB) and how we assist our members

a)     Pathways, networks, access top board vacancies

2)     WOB is an advocate for diversity

a)     Advocacy through quality research

b)     Which includes out Boardroom Diversity Index and an interest in emerging sectors that need quality female directors

3)     Case study: NCIS sector overview from WOBs perspective

a)     Undergoing rapid change

b)     Needs quality directors

c)     Proxy for the challenges is the experience of the Affordable Housing sector and the Medicare Local / Primary healthcare Network sector

4)     What is affecting NCIS organisations

a)     Recruitment practices for directors

b)     Need for qualified people

5)     Q&A

Ruth Medd is the Chair WOB Pty Ltd (Women on Boards) and the Australian Chocolate Company (Charley’s Chocolates) and a director of the National Foundation for Australian Women and WOB UK Limited. She is the former chair of Australian Ethical Superannuation Ltd and a former director of The Infants Home Ashfield and the NSW Casino Control Authority. She is an enthusiastic shareholder in a number of early stage companies; most recently Charley's Chocolate Factory at Mission Beach.  She is a member of angel investing group Scale Investors.

Her NED experiences have enabled her to contribute her finance and business management expertise as well as her in depth understanding of the public policy, regulatory and business interface.

Prior executive roles include the Executive Director of the Australian Association of National Advertisers and senior positions with Telstra, the Australian Broadcasting Tribunal and the Federal government.

As per Women in Business discussion group tradition, for our last event, we will be providing canapes and lucky door prizes.

Don’t miss out, please RSVP to Reis at cpawibfb@gmail.com or via Facebook by 5pm Friday 23 November 2018.

Memberships for 2018 are now due, please forward your payment as per details below:

$30 for CPAs or $50 for Non-CPA Australia members in 2018 (no pro-rata, non-refundable)

Payment in advance via EFT

Bank: NAB

Account Name: Women in Business Discussion Group

BSB: 082088

Account Number: 186893555

Reference: your full name and CPA membership number.

Please email Felicity for a receipt at cpawibfb@gmail.com

Please update your own CPD Diary if you attend this meeting as CPA Australia no longer do this.

For more details about CPD hours see our blogpost http://cpawomen.blogspot.com/p/cpd.html.

Kind regards,

Ellie Smith

Convenor

Blockchain and distributed crypto- based economy: implications for financial professionals

Women in Business Discussion Group Tuesday 30 October 2018 | 5.30pm – 8pm | CPA Centre Level 3, 111 Harrington St Sydney

Do you want to know more about the Blockchain and Cryptocurrencies? If so, then this month’s discussion group is for you.

We are excited to welcome Joseph Pham to present the blockchain and distributed crypto- based economy: implications for financial professionals

Joseph Pham is a blockchain technologist with over a decade in both private & public sector experience with enterprise IT systems and project teams across Finance, Utilities and Government sectors.   He is the founder of Crypto Asset Technologies, a blockchain consulting business, and has spent the last couple of years doing deep dive research on blockchain system capabilities and limitations. He is often sought after by investors and project teams to provide technical due diligence on Blockchain projects at the forefront of the industry.

To attend, please RSVP to Reis at cpawibfb@gmail.com or via Facebook by 5pm Friday 26 October 2018.

Memberships for 2018 are now due, please forward your payment as per details below:

$30 for CPAs or $50 for Non-CPA Australia members in 2018 (no pro-rata, non-refundable)

Payment in advance via EFT

Bank: NAB

Account Name: Women in Business Discussion Group

BSB: 082088

Account Number: 186893555

Reference: your full name and CPA membership number.

Please email Felicity for a receipt at cpawibfb@gmail.com

Please update your own CPD Diary if you attend this meeting as CPA Australia no longer do this.

For more details about CPD hours see our blogpost http://cpawomen.blogspot.com/p/cpd.html.

Kind regards,

Ellie Smith

Convenor

Single Touch Payroll (STP) - Women in Business Discussion Group Tuesday 25 September 2018 | 5.30pm – 8pm | CPA Centre Level 3, 111 Harrington St

For our September session we are delighted to welcome Fadi Beydoun and Michele Percival from ADP Australia to present Single Touch Payroll (STP).

Single Touch Payroll (STP) will lead to transparency in payroll reporting and level the playing field to ensure that all employers are meeting their employer taxation obligations more efficiently.

Unfortunately, many businesses out there are still not prepared for STP and will risk facing penalties if not compliant by the 2019 deadlines.

The STP presentation will explain what Single Touch Payroll is, cover some of the digital transformation agenda, and most importantly what businesses need to do to ensure they are STP compliant.

Fadi has a Graduate Degree in Marketing with a Sub-Major in Law.  He started his professional working career as Sales & Marketing Co-ordinator for a large Telecommunications company.  Has held several sales & marketing roles since, working in various industries including IT&T, Print & Energy.  Fadi commenced a role with ADP as District Manager in 2017. His role focuses on assisting small to medium businesses with their Payroll, HRIS & Time and Attendance requirements.  Fadi enjoys spending time with his family and is a lover of all sports. 

Michele started her career in corporate travel, moving to leadership 10 years ago, most recently at American Express.  Michele Joined ADP to manage the Small Business Team 14 months ago.  Michele is a passionate Sales Manager with a history of leading high performance teams to achieve exceptional results she enjoys being hands-on and possess strong attention to detail with excellent organisation skills that ensure optimal productivity. Michele is performance driven and committed to a culture of continuous improvement she values hard work and takes personal ownership of achieving excellence in all endeavours.  In her spare time Michele enjoys riding her horse and swimming on the many beaches the Northern Beaches has to offer.     

To attend, please RSVP to Reis at cpawibfb@gmail.com or via Facebook by 5pm Friday 21 September 2018.

Excel - An Introduction to Power Query - Women in Business Discussion Group Tuesday 28 August 2018 | 5.30pm – 8pm | CPA Centre Level 3, 111 Harrington St Sydney

At our last session members identified Excel as one of the most desirable topic and for our August session we are very excited to welcome Neale Blackwood, Principal A4 Accounting.

An Excel expert, Neale will present an Introduction to Power Query.

Power Query allows you to automatically perform data cleansing routines on your data sources – no manual intervention required. Simply refresh and your data is ready to use. You can use csv files; txt files; databases and existing Excel tables as your data sources. Learn the basics, plus an advanced technique to automate data cleansing routines on your data sources.

This session covers

·        fixing dates so that Excel can recognise them

·        formatting columns as text – retaining leading zeroes in CSV files

·        deleting unwanted rows and columns from your data

·        removing leading and trailing spaces

·        populating blank values with zeroes

·        populating blanks with entries from above

·        correcting trailing minus signs

·        unpivot a report – how to convert a report layout into a data table layout

·        converting a MYOB report into a data table

For convenience Neale included pdf manual to Power Query in the attached file, the printed version will be distributed at the session.

You are welcome to bring your laptop to the session and follow the presentation using Power Query. For that you’ll need:

1.     For Excel 2010 and 2013 - to download and install a free Microsoft add-in https://www.microsoft.com/en-au/download/details.aspx?id=39379 or for Excel 2016 find ‘Get & Transform’ it in the Data ribbon tab;

2.     Save attached file on the desktop

As Neale is based in Perth, he will be presenting via video link. 

Neale Blackwood has written over 170 Excel Yourself articles for the CPA monthly magazine since 2002. He has also contributed 8 feature articles during that time. He has been freely answering Excel related questions from CPAs from all over the world for over 15 years.

His first book, Advanced Excel Reporting for Management Accountants, was published by Wiley in 2014.

His Excel articles and companion videos appear on the ITBDigital website. He has also recently appeared on the CPA Australia podcast.

Neale has been a CPA for over two decades and has accounting experience in numerous industries. He has achieved the Microsoft recognized Excel Expert Certification so this makes him doubly qualified to provide relevant Excel assistance for accounting and finance staff. 

He currently run his own business, A4 Accounting, supplying Excel training, webinars and consulting services to organisations around Australia.

To attend, please RSVP to Reis at cpawibfb@gmail.com or via Facebook by 5pm Friday 24 August 2018.