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Selection Committee

2021 Selection Committee Members

  • Steven Spurr, Director, Shared Value Project (Selection Committee Chair)
  • Liza Maimone, Chief Operating Officer & ESG Executive, PwC Australia
  • Patricia Lau, Director of Alumni Affairs and Development, The Education University of Hong Kong (EdUHK)
  • Ramana James, Executive General Manager, Safer Communities, IAG
  • Karen Seymour, Chief Purpose Officer, Human at Work
  • Heather Saunders, Head of Financial Inclusion Action Plan (FIAP) Program, Good Shepherd Australia New Zealand
  • Peter Yates AM, Chair, Shared Value Project

Steven Spurr, Director, Shared Value Project (Chair, 2021 Shared Value Awards Selection Committee)

Steve is a strategy and reputation expert, and is the Executive Director of Spurcoe, a strategy consultancy. He counsels leaders to identify untapped potential, improve organisational outcomes and operate with a reputation-enhancing mindset.

Steve has advised leaders on refining and changing strategic direction to better meet business objectives, helped his clients increase their effectiveness through change management, and created thought leadership and intellectual property to reinforce differentiation and improve brand positioning.

Steve was previously the CEO of Edelman in Australia, leading an award-winning team and advocating for improving trust between stakeholders, shareholders and citizens to improve overall business and government outcomes. Steve spearheaded Edelman’s Trust Barometer work in Australia, working with organisations to understand their reputation dynamics and greater purpose in society.

Prior to this, Steve lived in the UK where he was COO of Edelman UK & Ireland, leading the day-to-day operations of more than 600 staff across three offices. He counselled a wide variety of clients, led multiple strategy, reputation and change management initiatives and worked with clients on reshaping organisational structures to meet strategic needs.

Steve is a passionate speaker, accomplished facilitator and experienced event host. He has delivered nearly 200 keynote speeches on trust, shared value and reputation management in the last 10 years.

Steve studied economics at the London School of Economics, and enjoys combining this passion with anthropology, research and social impact.

Liza Maimone, Chief Operating Officer & ESG Executive, PwC Australia

Liza is the Chief Operating Officer (COO) for PwC Australia and a member of PwC Australia’s Executive Board. Liza leads the firms’ core business enabling functions, including teams across people and culture, social impact, finance, business services, partnership operations, technology, sales and marketing and transformation.

Liza has held a number of key leadership roles in the firm, most recently as Managing Partner of PwC Australia’s Consulting business, and as a member of PwC’s Consulting Australia South East Asia and New Zealand leadership team. Prior to that Liza was Managing Partner for PwC Canberra office. She has also been a director of PwC’s Indigenous Consulting business for the past three years.

Liza has over 25 years’ professional expertise in risk, governance and sustainability advice and assurance across a broad range of industries. Liza is highly sought after as an advisor and assurance provider to senior management and Boards on sustainability matters.

Liza is a chemical engineer with postgraduate qualifications in energy and resources law, she is a Fellow of the Institution of Engineers Australia (a Chartered Professional Engineer) and is a senior fellow of the Melbourne School of Engineering. Liza also holds a range of governance positions on external boards and professional bodies.

Patricia Lau, Director of Alumni Affairs and Development, The Education University of Hong Kong (EdUHK)

Patricia’s major role is to enhance fundraising strategies, alumni development and advancement of the University. She is also the Secretary-General of The EdUHK Foundation.

Patricia has 30 years of senior management and management consultant experience. Before joining EdUHK, she was the Deputy Commissioner for Efficiency of the Efficiency Office in the HKSAR Government. She was responsible for leading initiatives regarding social innovation, citizen-centric services and shared services. In particular, Patricia led the Secretariat in support of the newly established Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship Development Fund (SIE Fund) Task Force under the Commission on Poverty. Together with the Task Force, Patricia reached out to many non-government organisations, family or corporate foundations and business executives who shared similar aspirations in tackling poverty related issues in Hong Kong. She advocated multi-disciplinary and cross sector collaborations in solving social issues and creating shared value in the business sector.

Prior to joining the Government, Patricia had 20 years of IT and Management Consulting experience with firms such as IBM, PwC, PA Consulting Group.

Ramana James, Executive General Manager, Safer Communities, IAG

Ramana has a long career in sustainability and shared value. He established the Corporate Responsibility function at Vodafone Australia in 2003 and led environmental practice across 26 countries for Vodafone Group during two secondments as the Group Environment Manager, based in the UK.

Ramana then transitioned across to the property industry where he worked with Stockland for more than 5 years. He led a team responsible for an integrated sustainability strategy and the introduction of shared value across commercial property, residential development and retirement living.

He joined IAG in mid 2014 as the Head of Group Shared Value and now leads a team within Group Strategy that is responsible for developing and executing IAG’s organisational wide shared value activity.

Karen Seymour, Chief Purpose Officer, Human at Work

As Hong Kong’s first Chief Purpose Officer, Karen works with leaders and teams to define, activate and strategically align their organisation’s unique and powerful purpose to fuel high performance, enable their people to do meaningful work, and contribute to organisations that thrive.
Before joining human at work, Karen was SVP and Executive Director with the Li & Fung Foundation, leading global campaigns and spearheading the launch of purpose, mobilising the Group’s global workforce and stakeholders as a force for good.

Karen connects people and big ideas that make a big impact. She has 25 years experience as an agile leader at large companies and start-ups, in industries including financial markets, supply chain, media, philanthropy and wellness. She has held leadership roles at Datastream (now Thomson Reuters), Morgan Stanley Capital International and State Street Global Advisors. She is a regular speaker on purpose and impact and has spent decades serving in communities and sparking awareness and action.

Heather Saunders, Head of Financial Inclusion Action Plan (FIAP) Program, Good Shepherd Australia New Zealand

Heather Saunders leads the Financial Inclusion Action Plan (FIAP) Program, a national and place-based network of over 50 organisations, who have made public commitments to take strategic and practical actions that will improve the financial wellbeing of their customers, employees, business, and community partners.

Before joining Good Shepherd, Heather was working in the United States as the Chief Development Officer at Juma Ventures, a social enterprise focused on breaking the cycle of poverty for youth across America. Having begun her career in the financial services industry, Heather is passionate about issues of financial inclusion and economic security. She has a Masters in Applied Anthropology & Participatory Development and has held a variety of community capacity building roles across the Asia-Pacific and Australia.

Here in Australia, she has held senior management positions in the area of financial inclusion at the Brotherhood of St Laurence and First Nations Foundation helping to design, implement, and drive national financial capability initiatives such as MoneyMinded and My Moola.

Peter Yates AM, Chair, Shared Value Project

Peter Yates AM

FTSE FAICD BCom (Melb), Master of Science (MGT) (Stanford), Doctorate of the University (Murdoch)

Peter is Chairman of AIA Australia Limited, a Director of Linfox Australia Pty Ltd and Mutual Trust Pty Ltd. He is Chairman of the Royal Institution of Australia, the Australian Science Media Centre, the Faculty of Business and Economics at Melbourne University, the Royal Children’s Hospital Foundation, the Shared Value Project and the NHMRC Centre for Personalised Immunology at ANU and the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Quantum Computation and Communication Technology at UNSW.

From 2004-2007 Peter was Managing Director of Oceania Capital Partners and held the position of Chief Executive Officer of Publishing and Broadcasting Limited from 2001-2004. Until 2001, he worked in the Investment Banking industry including 15 years with Macquarie Bank. He holds a Doctorate of the University from Murdoch University, a Masters degree from Stanford University Graduate School of Business and a Commerce degree from University of Melbourne. He speaks Japanese, having studied at Keio University in Tokyo.

Until May 2021, Peter was Chairman of Colonial Mutual Life Assurance Society Limited. He has been Deputy Chairman of The Myer Family Investments Ltd, a Director of the Royal Children’s Hospital and the Australian Chamber Orchestra, Asialink, Publishing and Broadcasting, Crown Ltd, Foxtel Ltd, The Nine Network, Ninemsn, Ticketek, Veda Ltd, Oceania Capital Partners Ltd, the National Portrait Gallery, The Melbourne International Arts Festival, Centre for Independent Studies, MOKO.mobi and the Australia-Japan Foundation.

In the June 2011 Queen’s Birthday Honours, Peter was awarded a Member of the Order of Australia for service to education, to the financial services industry and to a range of arts, science and charitable organisations and in 2017 was made a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Technology and Engineering (ATSE). He has also recently been awarded the Australian Academy of Science Medal for 2019.