Paul Zahra has spent his career leading through disruption - as CEO of David Jones, head of the Australian Retailers Association during Covid, board director and founder of the Pinnacle Foundation. In this conversation, Paul reflects on what crisis reveals about leadership, governance and values.

He discusses why visibility matters in the boardroom, particularly for LGBTQIA+ leaders, and how boards can move beyond tokenism to genuine inclusion. Paul also unpacks the chair's role in setting culture, managing diverse voices and balancing social impact with fiduciary responsibility.

Drawing on his experiences across ASX companies, private equity and not-for-profits, Paul shares practical lessons on transformation, stakeholder management and why disruption - from digital to AI - should be treated as an opportunity, not a threat. It's a candid discussion about values under pressure, inclusive leadership and what modern boards need to get right.

Key Takeaways:

• Visibility and leadership — why representation at board and CEO level matters for aspiration, pipelines and culture.
• Beyond gender diversity — inclusion across sexuality, disability and lived experience as a source of better governance.
• The chair's role in inclusion — setting tone, managing board dynamics, and creating psychological safety.
• Values in practice — when leaders should speak publicly, how to weigh risk, and aligning social impact with strategy.
• Crisis leadership — lessons from retail transformation, Covid and sector-wide disruption.
• Governance across contexts — ASX companies, private equity, not-for-profits and where boards succeed or fail.

Susan Lloyd-Hurwitz reflects on a career shaped by unexpected turns, major leadership challenges and a decade transforming Mirvac as CEO - and how those experiences now inform her work in the boardroom.

In this conversation, Susan discusses the mindset shift from executive to non-executive roles, the discipline of governing without managing, and what effective boards get right in uncertain times. She explores the balance between being supportive and challenging, the central role of the chair, and why CEO succession is the most important decision a board makes.

Susan also shares insights from her work on housing affordability, the realities of leading through complex, politically charged issues, and how boards should think about ESG, diversity and AI in a rapidly shifting global environment.

Key Takeaways:

· Board effectiveness — creating the right balance between being supportive and constructively challenging management.

· Time and focus in the boardroom — avoiding over-indexing on compliance at the expense of strategy, culture and long-term value.

· CEO succession — why pipeline development, transparency and early planning matter more than last-minute decisions.

· Navigating ESG and geopolitics — boards operating amid shifting expectations on climate, diversity and shareholder primacy.

· AI as a governance tool — using AI to sharpen questions and insight, without outsourcing judgement.

· Housing affordability — supply-side reform, productivity, planning and the long game required for meaningful change.

· Gender diversity and talent pipelines — where progress has been made, where blockages persist, and the board's role in calling out bias.

Alastair McEwin has spent his career pushing for a more inclusive Australia — as a lawyer, board director, Disability Discrimination Commissioner and a commissioner on the Disability Royal Commission. In this conversation, he reflects on what drew him to disability advocacy, what he learned starting out on boards in his twenties, and why great governance is a team sport.

Alastair unpacks why representation at the top still lags, how boards can move beyond tokenism, and the practical changes that make boardrooms genuinely accessible. He also shares the Royal Commission's central message: Australia is failing people with disability in mainstream settings — and why lasting reform requires leaders to change systems, culture and expectations, not just policies.

Key Takeaways:

• Early board experience: purpose, patience, and learning the room
• What makes a good chair: relationships, trust, and drawing out every voice
• "Nothing about us without us": representation, accessibility, and culture
• Practical steps for boards: ask, don't assume; provide supports; build capability
• The Royal Commission's core finding: mainstream systems are failing people with disability

Geopolitics is no longer just background noise — it's now central to how organisations plan, invest and manage risk. In this episode, foreign affairs expert Merriden Varrall, joins Boardroom Confidential to unpack what today's "polycrisis" world really means for directors.

Drawing on her experience at KPMG, the Lowy Institute and the UN in China, Merriden explains why boards must look beyond daily headlines to the deeper megatrends: converging climate, energy and food risks; the erosion of trust in institutions and the rise of populism; and a fragmenting global economy shaped by national security and values-based blocs. She explores the practical implications for Australian boards — from managing exposure to the US–China rivalry and rebuilding supply chain resilience, to understanding how these dynamics affect SMEs and NFPs.

Merriden also outlines how boards can become more geopolitically literate: the questions to ask management, how to set up horizon scanning and scenario planning, and why a more nuanced understanding of other countries' perspectives is now essential to good governance.

Key Themes:

• From headlines to megatrends — directors need to look past daily news and focus on structural geopolitical scenarios and megatrends.

• Polycrisis as the new normal — risks like climate, energy, food, tech and conflict are increasingly interconnected and compounding.

• Trust gap and populism — erosion of trust in institutions and the rise of populism are reshaping regulation, policy and expectations of business.

• Geo-economic fragmentation — values-based blocs, national security logic and "de-risking" are changing trade, investment and tech choices.

• It's not just big corporates — SMEs and NFPs are exposed through supply chains, cyber risk, regulation, funding and talent.

• Boards' core questions — are we thinking about geopolitics, how are we monitoring it, what scenarios have we planned for, and are our responses sufficient?

• Supply chain resilience — having "just in case" models ready, mapping choke points, and setting up data and signals to act early.

Brad Welsh has built a career defined by reinvention — from child protection officer to political adviser, CEO of Energy Resources of Australia, board member at nib, and now founder of Mawal. In this conversation, Brad reflects on the choices, opportunities and turning points that shaped his path, and how curiosity and ambition have guided every reinvention.

Brad discusses the lessons learned leading ERA through the complex rehabilitation of a major uranium mine, what long-term projects teach leaders about managing risk, and how to balance the expectations of diverse stakeholders. He also shares his powerful vision for the next generation of First Nations leadership in Australia — building capability in capital and risk, broadening pathways into commercial roles, and helping more Indigenous talent step into the boardroom.

Key Themes:

• Career reinvention and ambition — seizing "windows" of opportunity, stepping back to go forward, and using each pivot to build range.

• Curiosity as a governing principle — staying relentlessly curious about how organisations, balance sheets and communities actually work.

• Capital and risk as a global language — why cultures flourish by managing capital and risk in their own way, and what that means for First Nations Australia.

• Long-term rehabilitation, short-term milestones — lessons from ERA's Ranger uranium rehabilitation on balancing horizon goals with near-term delivery.

• Stakeholders and judgement — putting yourself in others' shoes, making decisions with imperfect information, and knowing when to change course.

• The next generation — building a cohort of First Nations leaders for executive and board roles.

Over the holidays, we'll be bringing you some earlier episodes of our Boardroom Confidential podcast.

This time it's Audette Exel, the founder and chair of Adara Group. She's also a former director with Suncorp and Westpac and previously served as Chair of the Bermuda Stock Exchange.

Audette shares the story behind Adara's unique model, which channels profits from corporate advisory work directly into life-saving development programs in some of the world's most remote communities. She reflects candidly on the mistakes she's made along the way, what they taught her, and why boards need to talk more openly about failure.

The conversation also explores governance across complex global organisations, the responsibilities of boards in philanthropy and social impact, and how purpose should sit at the centre of corporate decision-making. Audette offers practical insights for directors seeking to use their influence — and their organisations — to create lasting value for society.

Key Themes

• Purpose-led leadership and social entrepreneurship
• Innovative funding models for not-for-profits
• Governance, risk and accountability across complex global organisations
• Learning from failure and embracing mistakes in leadership
• The role of boards in philanthropy and social licence to operate
• Diversity of thought and values at the board table

Over the holidays, we'll be bringing you some earlier episodes of our Boardroom Confidential podcast.

This time it's David Kirk, the co-founder of listed venture capital fund Bailador and chair at a range of organisations including KMD Brands, Forsyth Barr and KiwiHarvest. David was also the CEO of Fairfax Limited and had an extremely successful career on the sporting field, captaining the mighty All Blacks to victory in the first Rugby World Cup in 1987.

David shares what he's learned moving from executive leadership into chair and portfolio roles, including how to stay focused across competing priorities. He unpacks the chair–CEO relationship: how to be a genuine supporter while maintaining clear accountability, and why trust and expectations matter.

The conversation also explores what high-performing boards look like in practice — from encouraging healthy disagreement to avoiding unhelpful conflict, and the simple disciplines that improve decision-making. David also reflects on growth-stage investing, founder dynamics, and why not-for-profits benefit from a stronger "social venture" approach. Finally, he draws leadership lessons from elite sport — and explains why governance in sporting organisations can go wrong when it becomes too representative.

Key Themes

• The shift from executive leadership to a portfolio of board roles
• What makes a strong chair–CEO partnership (and where it can go wrong)
• How chairs build effective board culture, debate and decision-making
• Practical board discipline: preparation, focus, and "reading the papers"
• Growth-stage investing and governance in tech businesses
• What business can learn from elite sport—and what sport gets wrong in governance

Over the holidays, we'll be bringing you some earlier episodes of our Boardroom Confidential podcast.

This time it's Marina Go, a board member with Metcash, Southern Cross Media and the AICD itself. She's also been a chair or director with several other organisations including Adore Beauty, Energy Australia, the West Tigers NRL club and Netball Australia. On top of that, Marina was also the GM of magazine company Bauer Media Australia and Private Media.

She tells us how her media career prepared her for the boardroom. Plus: advice on being an effective chair, tips for finding your first director position, and lessons from the boardroom of an NRL club.