With a judging panel including respected professionals and business leaders, academics, business executives, entrepreneurs and innovators, the Australian Accounting Awards are peer-reviewed recognition of your or your business’ capabilities for supporting the accounting sector and passion for driving the industry forward.
Dr Vincent Bicudo de Castro is a Senior Lecturer at Deakin Business School. Vincent started his academic career in his native Brazil, earning two bachelor degrees and a master by research before gaining his PhD in Accounting at Monash University. Whilst studying, he also held accounting positions with KPMG, PwC and Gávea Investimentos and lecturing appointments at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Monash and Deakin University. At Deakin University, Vincent was recognised with the Vice-Chancellor's Award for Outstanding Contribution to Partnerships and the Faculty Staff Award for Effectiveness, Excellence and Exemplar Practice in Research.
Drew is an award-winning Writer, Speaker, Financial Advisor, Writer, Speaker & Family Small Business Advocate. He specialises in helping modern small business owners and their families, better protect themselves - from their own businesses.
His company’s speciality brand, Unusual Risks Insured, is the first Trauma Informed Organisation (TIO) working in Australian Financial Services. In his free time Drew writes for small business leadership, volunteers as a Mentor, and repeatedly burns things on the BBQ to the dismay of his long-suffering friends and family.
He’s been recognised and awarded by non-industry bodies for his use of technology to connect people and markets and his call for greater diversity and inclusion across the Australian Financial Services community.
Lielette is well-respected in the business world as an influential leader with a genuine interest in her clients' success.
Lielette has a comprehensive knowledge of all aspects of a business including operations, sales, marketing, and finance. When consulting, she applies her experience in corporate as well as her strategic thinking and analytical prowess to ask business owners a series of probing questions designed to draw out their thoughts on a wide range of issues.
Over the years, Lielette has worked with start-ups and small enterprises in a wide variety of fields, transforming them into big players.
She is well-known for her precision, expertise, promptness and calm demeanour, and clients trust Lielette to provide them with the clarity they need to make informed business decisions.
Lielette worked with the Institute of Public Accountants to develop the Certified Accounting Technician program and represented BAS Agents on several advisory roles with the Australian Taxation office.
For 18 years, Lielette lead the award-winning cloud accounting bookkeeping firm All That Counts before joining businessDEPOT. According to Lielette, it's imperative for business owners to have someone who can serve as both an industry and business thought leader.
Jeremy Danon has undertaken compliance work in a variety of businesses and industries – futures and securities broking, market regulatory, market making, foreign exchange, accounting, banking, insurance, managed investment schemes, Registered Schemes and remittance dealing. Jeremy Danon has gained an extensive insight in providing compliance expertise to a wide cross section of clients in the financial services industry, by virtue of his experience with boards, committees and management.
With formal qualifications in business, accounting and corporate governance, Jeremy Danon has maintained his competencies with memberships of the following industry bodies:
Fellow of the Governance Institute of Australia.
Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Secretaries and Administrators.
Member of Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand.
Master Member of the Stockbrokers and Financial Advisers Association.
After 25 years in the financial services sector, Michael now runs a group of companies operating in the energy efficient home sector. With National Awards across Design, Sustainable Housing and Documentation the group is a leading voice in the move to building energy efficient, healthy homes. He also uses his financial background to lead Research and Development programs in the sector.
David currently heads up the FTSE Russell indexing business in Australia and New Zealand and looks to bring personalisation, innovation and sustainability options to the indexing market. David sits on the APAC leadership team and has a deep understanding of the asset management industry having held critical and senior roles throughout the asset management vaue chain.
Previously David worked with a global ETF issuer tasked with bringing their range of products to the Australian market and prior to that spent over 7.5 years with the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) looking after the cash equity trading platform working with investment banks, portfolio managers and dealing desks as well as with the ASX Investment products business – tasked with and succeeding in building investor preferences in listed assets and listed managed investment schemes
This was achieved through building out the supply of new listed investment products such as ETFs, Active ETFs and mFunds and developing distribution channels to key client segments including AFS License holders (Dealergroups), financial planners, accountants, retail brokers and retail investors.
David is passionate about giving back and dedicates a large proportion of his spare time on philanthropic activities being the Head of APAC for the London Stock Exchange Foundation, donating over a million dollars each year to much needed charities in the region, he sits on the committee of the Australian Stockbrokers Foundation and is a guest lecturer and program sponsor at UNSW looking to improve financial literacy particularly in future female leaders and making the students “work ready”.
Peter Lynch is a leader in Professional Indemnity Insurance in the real estate, valuation and management right industry sectors.
He boasts over 30 years’ experience with Aon Risk Solutions and as the Client Manager is responsible for developing new business within the real estate sector including the identification of business opportunities with franchise groups and other stakeholders.
He took a significant role in providing advice and support to introduce a Real Estate specific indemnity insurance scheme and is responsible for the highly successful REIQ/REINT schemes which he coordinated with the assistance of industry, lawyers, underwriters and claims staff.
Peter has a strong interest in promoting safe and quality business practices in real estate and has been a regular contributor to course materials, presentations and editorial submissions. He has been called upon to be a guest speaker at training forums for the REIQ, REIA, REINT, REIWA and various franchise groups.
Peter also provides individual Risk Management training to a number of his Franchise Group clients.
Isha Miglani
Isha Miglani is a Chartered Accountant and a Senior Risk Consultant at Grant Thornton Australia. She won the Accountant of the Year (Boutique Firm) and Rising Star of the Year awards in 2021. Isha is also a passionate advocate of social causes and actively volunteers at Blackdog Institute and Opera Australia, and is currently helping women in her community build financial independence.
Dr Rahat Munir is a Professor and Head of Department of Accounting and Corporate Governance, Macquarie University. He is FCA, FCPA and PhD. For over 30 years Professor Munir has been at the forefront of initiatives that have positioned organisations to support significant development and change. He is internationally renowned for curriculum development, pioneering innovative learning and teaching (L&T) practices, Micro Credentials and academic standards (including TEQSA and Australian Qualification Framework), Accreditation (AACSB, AMBA, EQUIS, Professional Accounting Bodies), student experience and research. He has played a pivotal role in creation of research and teaching collaborations with professional accounting bodies, Universities in China, Southeast Asia, South Asia and Europe. He has served on the panel for Faculty/Course Reviews of various Universities in Australia and New Zealand.
His research is across management accounting and controls and related subjects. He supervises Master of Research and Ph.D. students. His research interests include from management accounting systems, performance measurement systems, CSR, corporate governance, and management control systems. He has published in leading international journals as well as presented at international conferences in many parts of the world. He is affiliated with several professional bodies including the Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, Professional Risk Managers International Association, USA, American Accounting Association and European Accounting Association.
Professor Munir serves on various high-level Committees and Advisory Boards. Professor Munir has also served on the TAFE NSW Higher Education Academic Board. He has served as guest editor and referee/scientific program committee of various international journals, and organised conferences & workshops. He has been invited for Keynote lectures and Policy presentations in international conferences and public sector institutions. With his strong engagement with industry, he leads CFO Forum, Industry Academic Series, Thought Leadership and Business Leaders Roundtables.
Professor Munir’s sustained excellence in teaching and research has been recognised through international and national awards, including:
2 x Macquarie University Vice Chancellor’s awards for developing programs and outstanding contributions to student learning,
Dean’s teaching excellence award,
2 x CPA Australia’s award for achievement in academia, and
Business/Higher Education Roundtable Award for excellence in accounting teaching collaborations.
Professor Munir's contribution has also been acknowledged for his projects in 2015 and 2021 for the Wharton-QS Stars Reimagine Education Awards at the University of Pennsylvania in the Nurturing Employability Award category for the most innovative pedagogical approach to learning and teaching. He has served on the judging panel of the Momentum Media and Accountants Daily’s Australian Accounting and Australian Digital Technology and 30 Under 30 Awards. Professor Munir's case study - The Ethics of Profit in the Australian Retail Industry was amongst the top 4 teaching cases globally by the Decision Sciences Institute, Washington DC for the ‘Best Teaching Case Studies Award’ competition.
The co-founder and CEO of Ignition, the world’s first client engagement and commerce platform for professional services.
Prior to Ignition, Guy founded Scendar (formerly Interactive Accounting), a cloud-based online accounting firm, and has more than a decades’ experience in successfully building and scaling software companies.
Guy is a Chartered Accountant by trade, angel investor and entrepreneur, who is passionate about fusing technology and accounting to solve small business problems and growing Australia’s startup ecosystem.
Is the founder and Managing Director of Forte Asset Solutions, Forte Licensing Solutions and Forte Consulting Solutions. Forte’s Asset Solutions core activity is selling financial services businesses. Forte Licensing Solutions assist practices to find the right Dealer group or become self- licenced. Forte Consulting Solutions assists business to grow.
Steve has enjoyed a successful 30 plus year career in financial services.
Steve was a Partner in Deloitte and CEO of DFS Financial Services a HNW Advisory Group. After selling DFS Steve created Australia’s first specialist financial services M&A group.
Steve is a member of the International Association of Consultants, Valuators and Analysts.
Dr. Maryam Safari is a senior lecturer at RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia. She has published in multiple high-quality outlets on a wide range of topics in the domain of corporate governance and accountability. Maryam has led multiple projects in collaboration with industry partners over the past decades and has been awarded several research grants and awards. Maryam's teaching experience spans a range of subjects in accounting at undergraduate and postgraduate levels.
Tanya Sale is the Founder, CEO and Managing Director of multi award-winning, national Aggregator group, outsource Financial. Tanya is the only female CEO / Managing Director of a mortgage Aggregator in Australia. Having extensive banking and finance experience, Tanya pioneered the third-party mortgage sector, by creating diverse models to change the way lending was conducted in Australia.
In 2019 Tanya appeared on the expert's panel, for the Channel 9 television show, Secrets of the Money Masters, she won 'CEO of the Year' at the Women in Finance Awards and was named as one of MPA’s Global 100. In 2020 Tanya was inducted as a Fellow of the FBAA by their Board of Directors and in 2021 was named again, in the MPA Global 100. Most recently, Tanya was named as one of the MPA’s inaugural ‘Elite Women’ 2022.
Ting Song, Certified Public Accountant (CPA), Executive Director at JP Morgan Chase, is specialized in the field of Private Equity and Hedge Fund (Alternative Investments) accounting and operations. Before specializing in Alternative Investment Fund Accounting, she worked in non-profit accounting and consulting. She received the 2023 CPA to Watch Award and has been named as one of the Top 100 Accountants of Los Angeles for 2023 by Los Angeles Business Journal.
Helen Spiropoulos is an Associate Professor in Accounting and Associate Editor of Australian Journal of Management and Managerial Auditing Journal. Helen is a Chartered Accountant and researches and teaches in the areas of sustainability and financial reporting, corporate governance and gender-diversity. Helen has published in a number of leading academic journals and her research has featured in the Australian Financial Review, BOSS magazine, ABC Radio and many others.
Vicki is currently employed by the Institute of Public Accountants (IPA), which is one of the professional accounting bodies in Australia, with over 35,000 members in 65 countries worldwide. The IPA has offices across Australia, in London, Beijing, Guangzhou, Hong Kong and Kuala Lumpur. Two-thirds of the IPA’s members work in or with small business or SMEs. Further information can be found at, www.publicaccountants.org.au.
Vicki came to the IPA in 2007 from the Australian Federal Treasury, where she worked in business tax policy, prudential regulation of the banking sector, financial literacy and in the Office of Best Practice Regulation. Prior to this, Vicki was a practicing lawyer specialising in commercial litigation, working in Australia and overseas. Vicki holds a BJuris, LLB, BA, MBA (international business) and DFP.
