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Clare Payne is a leading voice on ethics and trust and the author of two books, 'A Matter of Trust - The Practice of Ethics' and 'One - Valuing the Single Life'. She has been recognised as a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader and an Australian ‘100 Women of Influence’.

With low unemployment rates, a highly competitive job market and the post-pandemic 'great resignation' phenomenon, attracting and retaining talent is an increasing challenge for our sector, particularly in executive roles and in corporate areas such as IT and finance. We are also facing serious skills shortages and training constraints for technical and specialist roles, both in traditional water operations and emerging business areas like energy and emissions. Added to all this is the need to prioritise the health, safety and wellbeing of our workforce while still maintaining essential service provision and productivity.

Our panelists will share their insights into the current and future workforce risks and challenges facing our sector, and how we might address them.

Facilitator: Christina Bassani, General Manager-People & Customers, Goulburn Valley Water

Climate change impacts our lives in varied ways, most often from the perspective of weather, catastrophes and social changes. We look at it from a macroeconomics perspective and outline the physical risks, as well as transition risks. Each come with their own challenges and no one believes there is a simple solution. However, these changes will impact economies for decades to come, and this, in turn, will have their own impacts on interest rates.

A changing climate, increasing extreme weather, the global energy crisis, rapid urbanisation and population growth all present unprecedented challenges for the Australian Water industry.

However, the acceleration towards a net zero future also presents significant opportunities to become customer-centric businesses, able to harness the power of data to build sustainable communities and deliver efficient capital infrastructure.

What does really good/ best practice risk reporting look like. How can we do this in an engaging and informative manner, whilst sharing key risks without the noise.

VAGO will share themes arising from financial audits and insights from recent performance audits across the water sector.

The threat of cyber attacks is real and growing. Water corporations carry significant risk in relation to both their IT and OT environments, and a successful attack on water assets could have catastrophic consequences for public health and safety.

With increasing cyber risk comes increasing regulatory oversight and management accountability. How do boards and executives know that their cyber risk program is adequate, and that their organisation will be able to contain, respond and recover from a cyber attack?

This session will feature a presentation by John O’Driscoll and Anafrid Bennet on the State Government’s cyber strategy and plan for the water sector, followed by a panel discussion on best practice cyber governance, roles and responsibilities.

Facilitator: Rob McKie, Pitcher Partners Executive Partner, Consulting and Digital