The continuing shift in focus from Australia’s manufacturing heritage to an expanding service-based business economy will be reflected in the introduction of a new Melbourne Business Awards category in 2016.

Ready to kick off another year recognising and rewarding some of the amazing industrial businesses operating in Melbourne’s southeast region?

To help launch the 24^th year of the Melbourne Business Awards, we’re delighted to announce Matt Finnis, CEO of St Kilda Football Club, as our guest speaker for the first breakfast of the year on Friday, March 4^th.

As the Saints return to their spiritual home in Moorabbin, Matt will be speaking about the cultural change the club has undergone in recent times and its focus on re-igniting a sense of ‘belonging’ and ‘community’ – two values that the Melbourne Business Awards hold dearly.

It’s fair to say sport runs thick through Matt’s blood. As well as the day-to-day running of the St Kilda Football Club, Matt has previously been CEO of the AFL Players’ Association, Chairman of Ladder – an AFL Players charitable initiative to tackle youth homelessness, and beyond footy is also a director of Surfing Australia. 

Matt was born and raised within the city of Kingston and still lives locally with his wife and three children. We look forward to welcoming Matt to the stage and hearing the Saints story.

BOOK TODAY 

Special Guest Speaker: 

Matt Finnis, CEO St Kilda Football Club

Along with our first two Buiness of the Year Award Nominees:

TomCar & Zenith Interiors

Melbourne Business Awards

"When you are powered by passion all things are possible"

Guest Speaker: Stacey Currie, Managing Director of Brand Print Australia

By rights, Stacey Currie should be dead, in jail or somewhere else. Anywhere but in business.

After a young life as a victim of domestic abuse, abandonment, teenage pregnancy, homelessness and worse, few would bank on her ever becoming anything other than another statistic blighting society’s conscience.

Instead, despite no prior business experience, Stacey defied her circumstances to transform a $100/month pay cheque into a multi-million dollar company. Join us at the September 5th Breakfast Event as Stacey shares her inspiring journey from extreme hopelessness to the highs of success building an award-winning print, packaging and signage business.

Networking from 6.30am, formal proceedings begin @ 7am.

Hemisphere Conference Centre

Melbourne Business Awards

Guest Speaker: Melinda Walker

Networking from 6.30am, formal proceedings begin @ 7am

As well as heralding a fresh start to the business year, January 1st also saw the ushering in of new legislation to tackle the vexed issue of workplace bullying. It is a problem that should challenge all of us who are responsible not only for ensuring business success but also for our staff, the people who help ensure our businesses are successful.

With this in mind, our first breakfast on Friday, February 21st we will be hearing from guest speaker, Melinda Walker, a specialist in Organisational Behaviour, Bullying Prevention and Leadership. Melinda will unpack key aspects of the workplace bullying legislation and challenge us to think about how we should approach such a sensitive topic in our own work environments. www.melindawalker.com.au

Remarkable People

Melinda Walker specialises in Organisational Behaviour, Bullying Prevention and Leadership.

For 20 years Melinda worked in real estate with a range of different people, some resourceful and others not so. This experience taught her that intimidation tactics or bullying often resulted in poor performance and lack of stability amongst the team and the organization.

Since real estate Melinda moved on to studied extensively to enhance her understanding of people and team dynamics and why some organizations consistently achieve and others fall miserably behind - noticing that the biggest gap between these organizations came down to 3 main things- Attitude, Respect and Communication.

Through her compnay Melinda's aim is to teach her clients how to have greater respect for each other, and how to communicate in a way that doesn’t require intimidation or bullying. By working with and around people’s differences individuals learn to further enhance their strengths and their capabilities for the betterment of the team and the organization.

When people learn to work to their strengths there is less micro-managing required for the leader as well as less staff frustration and despondency. The more a person learns to enhance their strengths the more effective they will be in the workplace and the more they will work together collectively as a team. 

As 2019 comes to a close the MBA community gathered together on November 29th to celebrate and reward the achievements of the outstanding and diverse businesses located across our dynamic patch in the South East region of Melbourne. This event provided the opportunity to showcase the outstanding Business of the Year nominees and award the prestige title to Footwork Podiatric Laboratory, along with crowning our Innovation Award winner - Prana Chai, 2019 Young Achiever and the Service Business Excellence Award winner Chatfield Ozcool. The morning also featured special guest speaker JB Hi-Fi CEO, Richard Murray, who presented his insights into innovation and success in challenging environments.