The Institute of Certified Management Accountants (ICMA) celebrated the induction of three outstanding champions into its Global Accounting and Management Accounting Hall of Fame at an awards dinner held at the RACV City Club Melbourne on 20 November 2019.
Professor Brendan O’Connell, President of ICMA Australia and host of the awards dinner, said, “While selection to the Hall of Fame is intended to honour the people so chosen, it is also intended to be a recognition of distinguished service contributions in fields related to accounting and management accounting.”
Professor O’Connell explained that while the accounting profession concentrates on compliance and taxation, management accounting professionals are involved in value creation, business analysis, cost, performance and risk management, environmental and social reporting, and strategic auditing.
He said, “Of particular interest to management accountants is ‘enterprise governance’, which includes areas of ethics, transparency and whistle-blower protection. Therefore, it is no surprise that ICMA inducted Adele Ferguson AM for her role in bringing about the Royal Commission into Misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation and Financial Services Industry.”
Ms Ferguson is a multi-award-winning senior business writer and columnist whose investigations go behind the spin to expose corporate wrongdoing. Her exposés include the 7-Eleven wage fraud scandal, which has, to-date, resulted in compensation payments of more than $150 million to thousands of vulnerable foreign workers and brought about changes to the law. Ms Ferguson also exposed wage fraud inside other franchise giants, including Domino’s Pizza and Caltex, and helped trigger a parliamentary inquiry into the $170 billion franchise sector.
Fellow inductee, Dr Samer Shahin, CEO of Peregrine, used management accounting extensively in the construction of the world’s largest motorsport park. This year, The Bend Motorsport Park, in South Australia, claimed the prestigious International Motorsport Facility of the Year Award at the Professional Motorsport World Expo Awards in Germany. Peregrine Corporation is Australia’s eleventh-largest private company, South Australia’s largest private company and that State’s largest private employer.
The third inductee was Ron Pitcher AM, the Founder of Pitcher partners – Australia’s largest ‘middle market’ accounting advisory firm and the fifth-largest Melbourne-based accounting firm. Following his retirement, Mr Pitcher has extended his portfolio of directorships. His dedication to the wellbeing of his clients and his generous community service was recognised with the award of Member of the Order of Australia (AM).
The Guest of Honour and Keynote speaker at the event was John Stanhope AM, the Chancellor of Deakin University and Chairman of Australia Post; himself a Management Accounting Hall of Fame inductee in 2016. Amongst the other inductees from previous years who attended the event were Bill Dix AO, the former Chairman of Ford and Qantas and Dr John Miller AO, a former Professor at the David Syme Business School of Monash University. Other guests at the awards dinner included senior business leaders, accounting professionals, and notable academics.
