Votes in this year’s Council election were being counted as I started to draft this piece but I now know that Gerry Bacon, Matthew Hurn, Andy Longden and Tim Owen were successful – with the three unsuccessful candidates being equally strong and individuals whose contribution on Council we would certainly have valued. Vote counting has not yet become a Herculean task but the good news is that we have this year seen a further increase in the proportion of the membership that vote.
It must go without saying that the participation of members in these elections is vital to the health of a professional association like the ACT. Equally vital is that we have as good candidates for Council as we have had this year and a contested election if at all possible. With this year’s election we will see four new people on Council, replacing Philip Gillett, David Adams, Michael Bryant and Lance Moir. We will be sorry to lose their involvement – they have all been excellent contributors to the governance and development of the ACT – but we are of course enthused at the prospect of the new faces joining Council.
I have always been particularly keen to ensure that Council is strongly representative of the practitioner community that remains at the heart of what the ACT stands for. This means that as we look round the Council table we should see many of the seats occupied by members whose working lives are immersed in the profession of treasury, financial risk and corporate finance, which is what the ACT seeks to foster and develop.
The new Council from the beginning of May really does reflect this objective and sends a very positive message to members. If some of our most senior practitioners are willing to commit the time to support the governance of the ACT then that message reaches not just our members but also those studying for our qualifications, who expect to become members, and the institutions with which we work in various ways. That said I am equally keen that Council should also be representative of the other important groups of members embraced within the ACT, such as the very substantial numbers working in the financial sector and of course those involved in advisory and other professional services.
With this Council election we are I believe seeing the maturing of the substantial changes in the ACT’s governance that we initiated in 2002 and 2003. These ranged from tackling the size of Council and the structure required to ensure succession and cohesion in the officer group providing the overall leadership on Council, through to (most recently) the alignment of Council and officer positions to our financial year.
We do incidentally keep the ACT’s governance under more or less continuous review, with this now identified as a specific task for the incoming Vice President as he or she joins the officer group for the first of what should be a three-year period. However we remain a small enough organisation for every member’s views on governance to be audible and in that spirit I am always keen to hear ideas and opinions, however controversial or challenging these may be. Doing so is a key part of my job, so please get in touch if you wish – telephone, email or letter will do equally well.
