VIC Current and Future Leaders 2022

Johanna Platt is Chief Financial Officer for Vanguard Australia and a member of the Australian Executive Team.

In this role, Johanna is focused on Vanguard's financial operations at both a management and statutory level. She also leads the operational teams responsible for providing fund accounting, administration and transfer agency services for Vanguard's managed funds, exchange traded funds, and separately managed products.

Prior to joining Vanguard in July 2017, Johanna gained more than 20 years of experience across the consumer goods, logistics and retail sectors, and in her most recent role was Iron Mountain's Chief Financial Officer for Australia and New Zealand. Johanna is a Certified Practicing Accountant, a Graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors, and holds a Bachelor of Chemical Engineering from the University of Sydney and a Masters of Business Administration from the Melbourne Business School. 

Tiffiny is senior executive with a 30+ year career spanning diverse sectors in Australia & abroad including consumer goods, manufacturing, professional services and finance. Her journey into finance was unconventional, joining Westpac as part of the Westpac’s inaugural Equilibrium program in 2015.   

Previously she was the Executive General Manager of Professional Hygiene & Healthcare at SCA, General Manager of Biscuits, Candy & Marketing at Mondelez (Kraft/Cadbury) and the Director & Co-Founder of a family-owned Strategy Consulting firm Fenway Group, assisting Australian corporates $50-$500m drive performance turnaround, transformation and manage risk.     

She currently leads Customer Excellence at Westpac Group, having held prior roles at Westpac as State General Manager for Premium Banking (Vic/Tas) and Head of the Customer Advocate Office. Tiffiny is currently a Non-Executive Director for Trajan Group Holdings, an ASX listed Life Sciences firm. 

Tiffiny holds a Bachelors degree in Fine Arts and is a Graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors. She embraces lifelong learning having completed study at the Wharton Business School, Darden Business School & University of Lausanne through the global micro-credentialling platform Coursera.  

Prior to joining Deloitte, Nick worked for 15 years in some of the world’s leading Banks and Investment firms. Nick’s career includes roles in Equities (Broking & Funds management), Treasury (FX and Liquidity management), Fixed Income Middle Office, and Risk and Regulatory Assurance. Additionally, Nick has led the successful delivery of complex, large projects encompassing Conduct remediation, and Risk & Control transformation.  

Bianca Hayes is passionate about helping organisations understand the importance of leadership in optimising workplaces and workforces to create positive experiences, growth, and outcomes. As a Director at TMS Consulting, Bianca is a skilled facilitator, consultant, and coach who partners with businesses and leaders to enhance how they work. 

Prior to working with TMS, Bianca has worked extensively in marketing, business development and client service with professional service firms across a range of industries including law, property, accounting, and engineering. Bianca is currently completing a Graduate Certificate in Leadership with Deakin University and also holds a Master of Business with Queensland University of Technology.  

Ariane Barker is currently a Non-Executive Independent Director and Chair of the Audit and Risk Committee at IDP Education Limited (ASX:IEL). Ariane is also currently a Non-Executive Director and Chair of the Board Governance and member of the Risk Committee at Commonwealth Superannuation Corporation (CSC), a Non-Executive Director of Atlas Arteria (ASX:ALX) and a member of the Investment Committee at the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute (MCRI). Prior to joining Atlas Arteria, she was CEO of Scale Investors Ltd, a role she held from 2017. 

Jeff has over 20 years’ experience in financial services. He currently heads Westpac’s sustainability (ESG) risk management activities, helping Westpac to assess and manage the risks associated with climate change, environmental and social impacts, and reputation. Prior to this he held a variety of risk-related roles in Westpac covering credit and operational risk. Prior to Westpac he worked at Lloyds Banking Group starting out in institutional property finance. Originally from Sydney, he made the move to Melbourne 10 years ago and hasn’t looked back. 

Caroline Wilson is a Walkley award-winning columnist and former chief football writer for The Age. Wilson was the first woman to cover Australian Rules football full-time and became a role model for female journalists around the country. She also appears on 3AW's pre-match AFL discussion, is a panellist on Nine Network's Footy Classified, and an occasional panellist on the ABC program Offsiders.  

Kristy Baldwin has been leading home lending product operations for the past 2 years and has been with National Australia Bank (NAB) for 11 years working across Deposits, Merchant Servicing, Payments, Asset Servicing and Business Lending. Kristy is an experienced product management and delivery practitioner, leading business operations, technology transformation and organisational change within financial services, human resource and technology sectors. Before joining NAB, Kristy worked at PageUp for 5 years, leading talent management platform customer implementations and working in the software development and account management. Kristy has a Multimedia Business Marketing degree.

Rita is an Executive in Risk Advisory at Deloitte Australia. As the Chief Strategy Officer and Chief Transformation Officer within Risk, Rita focuses on the way that Data, Products, Delivery Methods, Alliance Partners and Innovation can help Australian companies improve their identification and management of current, new and emerging risks such as those related to Cyber, Climate, Privacy, Regulatory, Financial Risk. Rita also leads programs of work for Deloitte in the Risk and Data domain with a predominant focus on financial services. Prior to Deloitte, Rita held various roles in industry in Financial Services, Technology and Energy companies. She is passionate about increasing diversity in senior roles across Deloitte and in Financial Services and also wants to see significant improvements to the way that technology and data is used to manage Risk across all industries in Australia.

Phil Dolan has a background in mathematics, IT and finance and has held senior positions in industry and academia. He completed his PhD in Finance at Stanford University and is a Senior Fellow of FINSIA and a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Company Directors. Within industry he worked for over a decade in the Investment Management arm of Macquarie Bank. Within academia he has delivered courses on Portfolio Management, Creative Problem Solving and Finance. Between 2011 and 2017 he was Dean of the UWA Business School. He presently holds an Adjunct Professor appointment at La Trobe University Business School. He is also an active angel investor with a particular focus on female founded startups.

Freshta Mayar has a passion for Fintechs and digital disruptors; as a result she was Head of Wholesale and Institutional Investors for a consumer finance marketplace. Freshta has also facilitated programs on Unconscious Bias, Gender Diversity, Empowerment and Mindful Leadership Coaching; the opportunities for public speaking has been done in addition to her day job which has been in banking for the last 17 years.

Freshta has worked in investment banking, acquisition finance, capital markets, transactional banking and is now leading originations/business development opportunities across Western Australia, Queensland, South Australia and Victoria for Westpac Institutional Bank. Freshta has worked across three major cities in her career, speaks four languages and is an avid traveller.

Rohan Claffey is Executive, Execution at National Australia Bank. Rohan’s role is to ensure NAB’s senior leaders use one agreed and transparent dataset to track delivery of the strategy. This approach to execution is a ’signature move’ at NAB that drives ownership and is consistently applied to achieve the focus required to be successful.

Rohan has more than 15 years of experience in Financial Services leading and delivering high value outcomes across strategy, performance, consulting, portfolio management and risk. Prior to this Rohan, had several years building statistical models as a consultant, researching, teaching and coaching.

Rohan is a passionate and curious life-long learner. The array of books and projects spread around his life at any given time cover topics such as behavioural science, sport science, economics, history, political science, philosophy, mathematics (and the odd novel). Rohan is also a keen runner and cyclist.

Andrew McNeil is a 20-year FINSIA member and has over 30 years of diversified financial services experience and 20 years of investment management experience throughout Australia and the United States.

He is founder of the Yarmouth group of companies and provides corporate advice to middle market financial markets participants including AFSL holders and ASX-listed companies. His clients include investment managers, fintech and proptech companies.

He holds a Graduate Diploma of Applied Finance from the Securities Institute of Australia and is a former lecturer for the FINSIA Master of Applied Finance degree across real estate, investment management, strategic management and structuring financial products.

He is a foundation corporate partner of the GWS Giants and in his spare time Andrew is a rowing coach and volunteer surf lifesaver and coached rowing internationally on the US, Norwegian and Swiss national teams.

Kellie is responsible for providing financial planning, investment advisory, investment management and portfolio administration services to private clients, family groups, personal superannuation funds and not-for-profit organisations.

She considers the crux of her work to be trust-building. Given that she deals with sensitive information regarding people’s finances on a daily basis, she feels privileged to be entrusted with their affairs. She juggles multiple roles to holistically serve her clients’ needs, from banker and financial planner, to estate planner and personal advisor.

Kellie has always been passionate about economics and investments. From the moment she began playing the share market as a teenager, she was hooked and set a career as a stockbroker in her sights. While studying, she discovered investing was just skimming the surface of the finance world, and she broadened her expertise into a financial planning qualification. Today, her love of investing is infectious, and clients appreciate her genuine interest in helping them protect and grow their wealth.

As a partner, Kellie has had the opportunity to evolve her skill set and navigate her team and clients through a new generation of investment priorities. As awareness of impact investing increases, she enjoys helping clients who want to balance social, environmental and financial goals. She also leads family group and individual clients through conversations about the legacy they wish to leave behind.

Kellie joined Pitcher Partners Melbourne in 2001, after gaining financial planning experience with superannuation consultancy firm Towers Perrin. She became a Partner in 2016, and sits on the Investment Committee and Pitcher Partners Charitable Committee, which guides the firm’s CSR activities and decision-making around pro bono work.

Adam has extensive experience in accounting, tax, superannuation, financial planning and investments. He is the partner in charge of the Investment Advisory practice of Pitcher Partners Melbourne, which advises on over $4 billion of funds under management.

Adam works with a broad cross section of clients, including large family groups and institutional clients. His professional success has been publicly recognised in The Australian and Barron’s Top 100 Financial Advisers list, where he achieved 3rd ranking in 2019 Australia-wide, and made the top 20 in 2020.

With a high level of trust demanded of his role, Adam develops strong relationships with the business directors, individuals and family groups he works with. It has been his privilege to hold onto relationships that span more than 20 years – from his early days as an associate advisor, to the point where he took over as lead advisor as his professional expertise grew.

Adam’s interest in investments was sparked at a young age when his grandfather gave him his first shares as a child. Watching them grow over time was incredibly rewarding, and he enjoyed the benefits of compounding returns. Today, he applies the same thinking to his work. He considers what might happen in the future and supports decision-making that can set clients up for long-term financial prosperity and secure retirement.

Commencing his career with Pitcher Partners in audit and accounting in 1997, Adam moved to Investment Advisory in 2001. He was admitted to the partnership in 2008.

Adam is a member of the Investment Committee of Pitcher Partners Melbourne and Director of the Harold Mitchell Foundation.

Vivienne Tannock is General Manager, Operational Risk, Institutional Banking & Markets and Treasury, CBA. In this role, Vivienne leads a global team responsible for providing advice on operational risk management frameworks, policies and ensuring operational risks are being managed in line with risk appetite.

Virginia has 25+ experience in the financial services sector leading large scale, multi-disciplinary Teams to create commercial value through designing and delivering customer centric transformations. Virginia started her career in actuarial consulting and is currently the Executive, Chief Transformation Officer C&IB at NAB. Virginia has a passion for continuous learning and seeks to explore the potential in life’s experiences to learn, improve and innovate.