QLD Current and Future Leaders 2022

Ben Campbell has extensive experience in providing corporate advisory, restructuring and turnaround consulting services both in Australia and overseas.

Ben’s experience has been focused on advising companies, Boards, management and financial stakeholders of businesses which are facing operational and/or financial challenges, as well as leading large and complex formal restructuring assignments.

With broad industry experience, Ben has advised a number of companies within the resources and energy, infrastructure, real estate and construction, and leisure and hospitality sectors. He has also been involved in most of the corporate restructurings in the coal and energy sectors in Queensland during recent years.

Prior to joining FTI Consulting, Ben was a Partner in the restructuring practice at PwC Australia, and had roles with market leading restructuring firms in Australia and overseas. Ben was also Interim CFO of the Brazilian subsidiary of a global commodities trader headquartered in Canada where he was responsible for developing and executing a successful turnaround strategy.

Racheal Kellaway was appointed the Group Chief Financial Officer in July 2022, having been a part of the Executive team for the prior three years as Deputy CFO. In her role as Deputy CFO Racheal was instrumental in BOQ delivering sustainable, profitable growth from 2019 onwards.

Racheal joined BOQ after over a decade at the Commonwealth Bank of Australia during which time she held leadership roles in Finance across Group and both within the Business and Private Banking and the Retail Banking divisions.

Racheal is a seasoned banking executive with over 20 years in the industry and has a track record of driving strong business performance and value creation within Australia, New Zealand and UK. 

 Ms Kellaway holds a Bachelor of Commerce, is a CPA and is a member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors. Racheal is also a seasoned Company Director and currently holds the positions of Non-Executive Director at Barnados and as a Member of the Finance and Risk Committee at the Australian Banking Association. 

Rachel is an experienced business development and relationship manager with a career spanning over 30 years. She has held roles across finance as well as wealth management compliance, practice management and within funds management business development. Rachel’s skills and experience lay in equities, strategic products, investment and tax strategies, small business practice management, coaching, investment platforms, compliance audits, retail banking, residential lending, and risk and general insurance.

As well as being a past President of Women in Finance (QLD), Rachel is a current member of the FINSIA Queensland regional council. She holds a Diploma of Financial Services (Financial Planning) and Diploma of Mortgage Lending, both attained through FINSIA (Securities Institute).

Karyn Ferguson was appointed Chief Financial Officer at Morgans Financial Limited in August 2022. Karyn is a Chartered Accountant, Financial Adviser and has worked in the accounting and finance industry for over 15 years, both in Australia and the UK with leading investment banks. Prior to being appointed CFO, Karyn worked in various accounting and finance roles at Morgans, most recently in the debt capital markets team assisting corporate and financial services organisations to raise ASX-listed debt and hybrid capital. In London, Karyn worked as a taxation expert in executive compensation and led an offshore expat tax team in Manila.

Since 2019, Karyn has also been the ESG specialist at Morgans assisting advisers and clients with ESG reporting, analysis and screening within investment portfolios. 

Karyn holds a Bachelor of Business (majoring in accounting), is a qualified Financial Adviser, Chartered Accountant and a member of the Responsible Investment Association Australasia (RIAA). 

Chris King is a Director at Pilot Partners and has over 25 years of experience in audit and assurance services, corporate advisory, risk management, commercial and Board roles. Chris builds strong working relationships with his clients through a ‘sleeves up’ approach to help them achieve their business objectives. He also helps clients break down complex issues and identify simple and practical solutions for their problems. He has experience within a range of industries including education, childcare, not-for-profit, financial services, building & construction, agriculture, manufacturing and more. Chris is an experienced presenter, speaking at many accounting, finance and other industry events.

With over 25 years in senior executive roles within strategic finance, Paulene is a strategically and commercially-minded CFO. She is adept at developing and delivering capital management strategies, including equity raising, issue of listed debt instruments and restructuring of banking facilities. Her extensive corporate financial experience includes spending almost 10 years as the CFO and Company Secretary for the ASX 300 residential property company Villa World.

Paulene is passionate about optimising financial performance and driving continuous improvement. Her strong track record in business turnaround is testament to her ability to assess risks and financial impacts while driving impressive results in dynamic sectors. 

Darren is the Executive for Culture, Leadership and Learning Delivery at National Australia Bank, having been appointed to the role in 2021. Darren has extensive Transformation and Learning & Development experience having led large programs of work over the last decade across both the public sector and in banking during his time as a Director, Management Consulting at KPMG. Prior to moving to Australia, Darren worked across several HR roles over 6 years for SABMiller, including in support of global transformations across Africa, Europe and the US.

Darren is passionate about building capable and engaged teams to deliver exceptional results for colleagues and customers, using technology and data to cut through complexity. This is critical now more so than ever in the financial services sector as we seek to increase professionalisation and customer trust across the industry.  

Yasser was appointed FINSIA Chief Executive & Managing Director in April 2022.

Previously, he was Chief Executive of Australian Investment Council from November 2013 to April 2022 where he was responsible for leading the strategic direction of the organisation’s work in representing the private capital investment industry in Australia.

Prior to joining Australian Investment Council, Yasser was the General Manager of Policy and Advocacy for Chartered Accountants Australia & New Zealand.

He has more than 20 years’ experience as a business adviser and public policy expert, through his previous roles with PwC, Rio Tinto, Frasers Property Australia, as well as the Department of Treasury in Canberra.

Yasser is a Chartered Accountant and holds a Bachelor of Commerce from the Australian National University and a Master of Taxation Law from University of New South Wales.

In April 2016, Yasser was appointed by the Federal Government to the Medical Research Future Fund Advisory Board where he advises on the strategy and priorities for medical health research funding from the $20B fund.