As in-house counsel you need to navigate an ever growing list of legal, governance and commercial risks. So join us for a day of invaluable insights into navigating these. Examine critical issues that are concerning many of your colleagues such as data privacy and cybersecurity, insolvency risks, greenwashing and managing the transfer of risk. 

Presenters

Mr. Andrew Gray, Partner, HWL Ebsworth
Andrew Gray is a Sydney-based lawyer with over 25 years’ practical experience in insurance, reinsurance and alternative risk transfer markets. Working across Australia, Asia and Globally, Andrew has held senior in-house roles with Aon and HIH Insurance. Andrew’s focus is on assisting Australian-based clients, including in-house colleagues, to generate innovative and practical solutions across the full range of challenges and opportunities that present in risk management, risk transfer and disputes/litigation.


Steve Blinkhorn, Director Legal Affairs, Australian Banking Association
Steve Blinkhorn is the Director of Legal Affairs for the Australian Banking Association, based in Sydney. The ABA is an association of 20 member banks in Australia and works with government, regulators, and other stakeholders to improve public awareness and understanding of the industry’s contribution to the economy and, to ensure Australia’s banking customers continue to benefit from a stable, competitive, and accessible banking industry. Steve is primarily responsible for leading the ABA’s response to the Banking Code of Practice review, in addition to assessing competition, insolvency, and freedom of information law requirements. Steve appeared at the Parliamentary Joint Committee Inquiry on Corporate Insolvency in February 2023 and in October 2022, collaborated with Treasury and Regulators to amend the Telecommunications Act and enable the sharing of data with APRA regulated entities to enhance protections for bank customers following the Optus data breach.


Susan Bennett PhD, MBA, FGIA, CIPP/E, CIPT, Principal, Sibenco Legal & Advisory
Susan is a corporate governance and privacy lawyer who works with Boards, senior executives and cross-functional multi-disciplinary teams on governance and data-driven technology transformation projects to minimise risks, comply with regulatory requirements and deliver on organisational objectives. Recognised for her global thought leadership in information governance, Susan brings deep corporate expertise to enable robust governance to be implemented to safely achieve the benefits derived from new technologies while simultaneously reducing risks through integrated and holistic governance in response to the growing legal and regulatory compliance challenges. These include privacy, cybersecurity, AML and emerging AI and ESG regulations, which require that technology systems be properly integrated and monitored, and that data is accurate and reliable for internal decision-making and external reporting, and that it is adequately protected and disposed of when no longer needed. Susan’s PhD thesis is on Privacy and Data Protection: the interaction of meta-regulation and information governance. Susan’s articles and publications are available on the Sibenco and InfoGovANZ websites – www.sibenco.com and www.infogovanz.com.


Mr. Mark Addison, Consulting Principal, Keypoint Law
Mark Addison has over 30 years’ experience in the areas of insolvency, commercial disputes and litigation. He has acted for many of Australia’s largest organisations, including listed companies, banks, large private companies, and government bodies both at the State and Commonwealth level. Mark has also represented a wide variety of Australia’s insolvency practitioners in corporate and bankruptcy insolvency matters. Prior to joining Keypoint Law as a consulting principal, Mark was a senior partner at DibbsBarker. Mark is known for providing advice for value and works hard to achieve practical and commercial outcomes for his clients.


Ms. Zoe Lonard, Special Counsel, Norton Rose Fulbright
Zoe Lonard is an antitrust and competition lawyer based in Sydney. Zoe advises clients on a range of competition and consumer issues, including obtaining merger clearance from the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), ACCC investigations and litigation, and competition and consumer law compliance, to clients in sectors including life sciences and healthcare, financial institutions, technology, energy and resources. Prior to joining private practice, Zoe held various roles at the ACCC, including in cartel investigations and prosecutions, competition, and consumer law investigations, as well as merger investigations. Zoe also has experience as a Legal Adviser at the Competition & Markets Authority in the United Kingdom.


Dr. Martyn Taylor, Partner, Norton Rose Fulbright
Dr Martyn Taylor is a corporate and commercial Partner in the Sydney office of global law firm Norton Rose Fulbright. He has some 30 years’ experience in competition law. He sits on the board and also heads the telecommunications and media group, and the Australian competition and trade group. He is described as “smart, efficient, friendly”. Martyn’s practice covers transactional, contentious and advisory. He is a well-known TMT, infrastructure, energy, competition and regulatory lawyer. Martyn is recommended by the key legal directories and has been named as one of the ‘top 10’ TMT legal advisors in Asia. Martyn has won numerous prizes and awards, including recently for the $15 billion merger of Vodafone with TPG Telecom (M&A deal of the year 2021). He has attended Harvard University and Oxford University. He has published well over 100 publications, including the award-nominated book 'International Competition Law'. Qualifications: PhD(Law), CME(Harvard), LLM(Law), MFin(Corporate Finance), LLB(Hons), BA(Economics)(Hons), BSc, GAICD.


Judy Tomas, GM Commercial, Mission Australia Housing
After more than three decades working in the legal profession, Judy Tomas is currently General Manager, Commercial Contracts & Compliance for Housing at national charity, Mission Australia. She leads the contracting and compliance function and works with the Board on corporate governance to deliver wellbeing and housing outcomes for vulnerable Australians. Judy is also company secretary for a small not for profit focussing on older men’s wellbeing. Her career has included legal roles with top tier firms, including partnership and she has also spent more than 10 years in house in both for profit and not for profit environments. She is a member of the senior management team at Mission Australia. Apart from her legal qualifications, Judy is a graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors and has an MBA from Macquarie University.


Lucy Shanahan, Partner, Kingston Reid
Lucy helps clients create a better future for their businesses by helping them successfully navigate their most difficult and complex employee issues and industrial challenges. She is an experienced investigator and is regularly engaged to facilitate and report on complex and sensitive employment-related investigations. A highly experienced litigator, Lucy assists clients on a range of contentious employment and industrial relations issues. These include applications relating to bargaining and industrial action, unfair dismissal and bullying claims, actions by senior executives, and post-employment restraint matters. She has appeared in the Federal Circuit Court and Federal Court in multiple adverse action and harassment claims. Clients value Lucy’s intrinsic ability to contemplate a myriad of strategic legal issues whilst guiding them through the day-to-day employment matters that come with running often complex, multi-faceted businesses with many employees in multiple jurisdictions. She takes pride in building exceptional relationships with her clients, and knowing them and their businesses inside and out. Her advice is practical, timely and concise, and reflects her deep expertise as well as her focus on remaining on top of legislative and regulatory changes that may affect her clients. Her successful practice is focused on the financial services, government, electricity, retail, transport and health industries. Lucy is highly regarded for her strong communication skills and engaging presentation style. She has extensive experience as a trainer and presenter and is often called upon to help train, inform and educate at client and industry forums.


Ms. Olga Ganopolsky, General Counsel, Macquarie Group Limited
Olga Ganopolsky is Macquarie Group’s General Counsel - Privacy and Data and is versed in the subject of data protection with extensive experience in detailed privacy policy challenges, law reform and ongoing management of legal and strategic issues. Much of Olga’s work involves implementing new technologies and addressing privacy requirements in an increasingly complex co-regulatory and sometimes contentious environment. Most recently this has included work on implementations of GDPR and the reforms to Security of Critical Infrastructure Act and related regimes, artificial intelligence, CPS 234, Covid-19 related matters, the Consumer Data Right and addressing cross border issues considering the Schrems II Decision of the European Court of Justice and the newly updated Standard Contractual Clause as approved by the Commission.


Phoebe Arcus, Barrister, 5 Wentworth Chambers
Phoebe Arcus is a Barrister at 5 Wentworth Chambers, specialising in intellectual property (including patent, trade mark, copyright, design and domain name disputes), corporate law and trade practices and is recognised as a leading junior counsel in intellectual property in numerous legal ranking guides, such as Chambers & Partners, the Doyle’s Guide and Best Lawyers, among others. Phoebe is a member of the Intellectual Property Committee, Business Law Section of the Law Council of Australia and a member of the Wellbeing Committee of the New South Wales Bar Association. Prior to the bar, Phoebe worked as a solicitor for King & Wood, Mallesons, Sydney and as an Associate to Hon. Justice Bennett SC AC AO of the Federal Court of Australia. She is also admitted in the United States (New York) and is a current member of the New York Bar.