We are pleased to invite you to a seminar led by Michael Bray.
Deakin Law School's Centre for Corporate Reporting Governance presents Michael Bray, KPMG Fellow in Integrated Reporting, Deakin University and Gill North, Professional Research Fellow, Deakin law School.
The Focus of the Seminar
Michael Bray will give an overview of why corporate reporting needs to change, what the principles and benefits of integrated reporting are, what integrated reporting is and what it is not.
Gill North will focus on listed corporations and their role in society and the need for them to publicly report and engage with all stakeholders. For these reasons disclosures of nonfinancial information is becoming more important in the form of management discussion and analysis, standalone sustainability reports and integrated reports. Gill will also explain the purposes and intended audience of nonfinancial disclosures; whether empirical evidence on the quality of such reporting is required; the benefits and disadvantages of voluntary and mandatory reporting frameworks governing nonfinancial information and analysis.
Who Should Attend the Forum?
All people interested in reporting of nonfinancial reporting such as auditors and people involved in corporate governance divisions companies. The Seminar will also be of particular interest to all corporate lawyers and people interested in corporate governance as the international trend is that reporting of nonfinancial information could become a powerful corporate governance tool to ensure that corporations are good corporate citizens and act responsibly to ensure sustainability
Michael Bray
Since retiring from the KPMG partnership in July 2016, Michael has become the KPMG Fellow in Integrated Reporting at Deakin University, and also continues at KPMG as Director – Better Business Reporting. At Deakin, Michael is leading a centre of excellence in Integrated Reporting so that it becomes a core competency of the University, and a core component of its research and teaching agenda, allowing Deakin to be a key player in building system capacity in Integrated Reporting as it becomes the corporate reporting norm. Michael was made an Ambassador of the International Integrated Reporting Council in 2016.
He is integral to Deakin and KPMG collaborating with the International Integrated Reporting Council on widespread global adoption of and education on its Integrated Reporting (IR) framework. He played a key role in the creation of the Integrated Reporting Australia Education Consortium (comprised of KPMG, Deakin University and the University of New South Wales), and that Consortium’s selection by the International Integrated Reporting Council as an Integrated Reporting Foundation Training Partner. There are only seven Foundation partners and ours is the only one in Australia.
Gill North
Gill is a professorial research fellow in the law school at Deakin University. She has a doctorate in law and is a chartered accountant and experienced financial analyst. Prior to joining academia, Gill worked at multinational corporations and investment banks in major financial centres (London, Tokyo, New York and Sydney). Her roles included senior executive positions in corporate strategy, corporate finance, mergers and acquisitions, and funds management.
Gill’s current areas of research focus include the law and practice of corporate disclosure, corporate governance, corporate sustainability, financial services, consumer finance, banking, and finance.
Gill has published widely on these topics in Australia and internationally. Her most recent book is Effective Company Disclosure in the Digital Age (Kluwer Law International, The Netherlands, 2015).