The Board
The Employee Ownership Australia board consists of a diverse group of committed and passionate individuals from across the employee ownership space in Australia.
Chair – Benjamin Morris
Ben is an experienced Compensation and Benefits consultant and HR professional. He is currently Co-Head of HR and General Manager, Performance, Reward & HR Operations at Mirvac, an ASX Top 50 company. Previous to this, he was Head of Performance, Executive Compensation and Global Projects for Lend Lease. He has also been a consultant with PwC, Deloitte and Hay Group (where he was the Pacific Practice Leader for Executive Reward). Ben’s interest in employee ownership has been developed over many years of assisting companies to design and implement employee share schemes.
Ben is a Chartered Accountant, a Solicitor and a Chartered Company Secretary. In addition to his professional experience, Ben is a published author and an experienced lecturer having taught accounting and law subjects at UNSW and UTS (including teaching in the UTS MBA/Masters program).
Deputy Chair – Andrew Clements
Andrew is a Partner in the Melbourne office of King & Wood Mallesons where he specialises in tax with an emphasis on capital gains tax, consolidation, imputation and international tax work. His practice concentrates on corporate tax, together with the tax consequences of dealing with intellectual property rights and with the taxation treatment of the fund’s management industry. He also has extensive experience in relation to both the tax and legal issues associated with employee share schemes.
Angela Perry
Angela is a qualified English Barrister and Australian qualified solicitor. She was also the Chair of Employee Ownership Australia and New Zealand until Nov 2017. She was a member of the Board for ShareGift Australia and Down Syndrome Victoria until 2013. She was the Global Head, EPS Business Development and the Executive Client Partnership Program of Link Market Services Limited from 2009 until 2014.
She has over 14 years of consulting experience in the fields of equity plan design and executive compensation practice.
This experience was gained in the Australian, Europe, UK and US markets.
Angela has acted for some of the top Australian and UK public and private companies and large internationals in relation to design, implementation and administration of equity plans and equity-like products.
In particular, she has advised and implemented global equity plans and short-term incentive plans in over 50 countries globally.
In the UK she was part of the HM Revenue & Customs’ (formerly the Inland Revenue) consultation process for the New All Employee Share Plan. She has undertaken research for the European Commission on the prevalence, reasons for and barriers to employee share plans in Europe. She has worked with the Australian Employee Share Ownership Development Unit in the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations on the getting started kits.
She is passionate about employee ownership and increasing the companies that use it effectively. Angela is also a member of the Prime Minister’s Community and Business Partnership Committee.
Alan Greig
Alan has had a long-standing interest in employee and community ownership dating back to the 1970s. He was the Public Officer of the Australian Employee Ownership Association (AEOA) since its inception in 1986 and was its President most recently (2011) while driving the setting up of Employee Ownership Australia Ltd.
Alan is Director, Ownership Strategies at The Mercury Centre Cooperative Ltd, a social enterprise that specialises in building collaborative enterprises through research, information, advice and training. At the Mercury Centre, Alan’s focus is on participation and empowerment structures which encourage broader involvement in the governance of organisations and the widespread ownership of assets – for employees through their workplaces and for citizens through mutuals, co-operatives, community trusts and savings schemes. He is also a Director of Social Business Australia.
Alan worked in the NSW public sector for many years in ageing and disability services, primarily as an adviser to funded community services and not-for-profits.
Brett Tollman
Brett Tollman joined Westpac Group as the General Manager, Reward, Performance & Employee Relations HR in July 2017. In his role, Brett is responsible for the development and management of reward, performance and employee relations strategy, policy and risk/governance frameworks across the Group. Brett also supports the Westpac Board and the Board Remuneration Committee, providing counsel on matters relating to remuneration and performance as well as risk and governance, including preparation of the annual Remuneration report and other external stakeholder engagement activities.
Brett has 20 years’ experience as a Reward professional. Prior to joining Westpac, Brett was the Group Head of Reward & Performance at Woolworths Limited. Prior to that Brett worked in Europe, holding a number of Executive roles across the financial services sector, such as Global Head of Reward at NN Group (formerly ING Insurance & Investment Management) in Amsterdam, Senior Global Reward Manager at HSBC in London, Head of Market Reward at ABN AMRO Bank in both London and Amsterdam and Consultant Analyst for the Arthur Andersen Human Capital Services practice in London.
Brett holds a university degree in Chemistry and Management and a certification from the British Association of Tax Technicians.
James Marshall
James has a 22-year career with Computershare that enables him to bring a depth of experience from his role as Managing Director of the Computershare Plan Managers to EOA. Before becoming a Director of EOA, he most recently served as Managing Director of Computershare New Zealand, a role that saw him integrally involved in significant projects for all the company’s business lines. James also worked in Computershare’s US and Canadian offices for several years and is an expert at sharing and implementing best practice throughout the organisation.
James has developed a broad range of skills across the listed entity space and understands the role employee equity plays within a company’s strategy and support.
Mathew Ronald
Mathew is a Director in People Advisory Services at Ernst & Young. Mathew advises companies on executive remuneration and employee share plans across the full spectrum of employee share plan life-cycle, including, consulting, legal and taxation services.
Mathew is a lawyer and equity plan specialist who has spent his career designing and advising on employee equity arrangements. Prior to joining EY, Mathew was General Manager of the equity plan division of Link Market Services and worked as an equity plan lawyer at Linklaters LLP (UK) and Corrs Chambers Westgarth.
Matthew Lever
Matthew is an Executive Director at the Commonwealth Bank of Australia. Matt maintains a global perspective gained through work assignments in the UK, United States and Australia/New Zealand. His clients include both public and private financial institutions, with most transactions featuring rating agencies and regulatory relationships.
Whilst financial services sector reform in Australia continues, Matt is focused on more effective regulatory frameworks and better Government relationships.
In dealing with complex financing concepts Matts focus for employee share ownership in Australia is to improve the effectiveness of employee share plans across financial institutions. Linking these initiatives to improving productivity and competitiveness is fundamental to the wider benefits of broad equity ownership. Matthew is leading EOA’s development of Employee Ownership Index.
Micaela Costello
Micaela is currently Head of Executive Compensation and Equity at CSL Limited where her responsibilities include the design, development and implementation of the CSL Group executive compensation and equity strategies and programs. Operating in a truly global organisation, Micaela brings a global breadth of knowledge on employee share plans. With a background in performance and rewards, Micaela has over nine years’ experience specifically in the design, development, implementation and management of employee equity programs, both at the executive and broad-based employee levels.
Prior to CSL Limited Micaela worked at National Australia Bank where she managed their global employee equity programs.
Micaela holds a Bachelor of Business Studies (Human Resource Management and Communication Management) and a Postgraduate Diploma in Business and Administration (Management Systems) from Massey University, New Zealand.
Norah Seddon
Norah is part of PwC’s People business which provides an integrated people consulting and solutions services. She has over 20 years’ experience with PwC and focuses on the provision of taxation advice to individuals and corporations.
Norah’s clients include expatriate individuals, high net worth individuals and multinational companies. As the types of clients that Norah has worked with include individuals and multinational companies, she brings an ability to understand different perspectives and to develop solutions that incorporate these perspectives. As part of PwC’s People business, Norah focuses on employer taxation matters in relation to mobility, employee share schemes and expatriate taxation matters.
Norah has been involved in submissions to the Government on many topics including the changes to the Living Away from Home rules in October 2012 and the changes to the non-resident CGT rules in 2013.
Norah is a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Australia and holds a Bachelor of Commerce (Accounting) with Distinction from the University of Western Sydney.
Phillip Muhlbauer
Phillip has global and domestic CEO Financial Services experience spanning 30 years. Specific areas of focus include corporate restructuring, mergers and acquisitions, credit and treasury risk management, asset management, new product and service development, strategic business development.
Phillip was CEO of Link Markets Services for over 7 years before being Global CEO Link Markets Services Registry for almost 3 years. Phillip remains a Corporate Advisor to Link Group.
Phillip is also Director of the LBW Trust (Learning for a Better World charity) a practitioner member (Master) of Stockbrokers Association of Australia and a member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.
Tom McCarty
Tom McCarty is General Manager of the equity plan division of Link Market Services.
Company Secretary – Brett Feltham
Brett is a partner in the Sydney office of Gadens, a top 10 Australian law firm. Brett is a Law Society of New South Wales accredited specialist in employment and industrial relations law and had over twenty years’ experience in that area.
In addition to having a broad range of experience in relation to employment and workplace relations issues, Brett regularly advises both international and Australian based companies, listed and unlisted, in relation to all aspects of executive remuneration and employee equity and cash incentive arrangements. He also regularly assists clients on complex and strategic employment matters, including C-suite level terminations.
Brett has assisted numerous multinational/household name and over 40 Australian listed companies to introduce new employee incentive arrangements or to vary existing arrangements to ensure not only compliance with Australian securities and employment laws and tax efficient outcomes, but to assist those companies to drive appropriate executive and employee behaviours aligned to the overall business strategy.