Dr Dorothy Wood
Author, researcher, and educator in the field of commerce
PhD UWS, B.Comm. Hons. UWS, UM UWS, Dip. Ed. SYD
Dr Wood has been involved in the study of business for sixteen years. Her work has included consulting with companies around the world, analysis of the environmental impact of commerce, the investigation of mechanisms for environmental reporting and decision-making, and the publication of theses and articles based on the her research.
In 2002, working with Professor Don Ross of The School of Management at ACU, Dr Wood proposed the thesis of environmental social controls. This key concept identifies the mechanisms by which society and business interface on the issues surrounding environmental management and stewardship. This important concept has allowed scholarship to address the various ways in which business may respond to social and public concerns about management of the environment, and has provided a working platform for dialogue between business and the community.
Dr Wood, working with her son Mark, formed the business consulting arm of Time & Motion Pty. Limited offering venture consultation services and later adding business consultation services on specilised areas, such as environment, finance, efficiency, and time and motion studies. Their partnership, originally dubbed Wood & Son, was augmented by the addition of other consultants whose skills expanded the firm's capabilities.
Born in England, Dr Wood emigrated to Australia as a teenager. Initially arriving in Darwin, she travelled with her parents and brother across the harsh interior of the Australian continent eventually reaching and settling in Sydney. The journey was recorded by her father, an author, and later published by Womens Weekly.
After a career as a science educator, Dr Wood turned her attention to the study of commerce and finance in 1990, graduating a PhD in Finance in 2002. She was awarded the University Medal by the University of Western Sydney in 1998 on graduation of her honours degree in commerce for her research on the production of an environmental accounting standard, by which businesses would be able to account for environmental aspects of their operations thus providing a way for businesses to demonstrate value realised by environmental focus.
Dr Wood remains an authority on business and environment, and has presented lectures and addresses globally and has written numerous papers exploring the state of the art.
Mark Wood
Consultant, Anthropologist, Engineer
BA(Anth,Bian) ANU, Dip. Eng. (elec.), Dip. Bus. Comp.
Mark's early career was concerned with the technical aspects of computing. As a young man, he imagined a world where machine systems replaced human systems, relieving humans of the burdensome and leaving them free to explore arts and sciences. Before graduating school, he predicted the rise of the internet and described the changes that would occur as humans began to use computers as a social networking system. He began experimenting with computer systems and by the age of sixteen was testing new software mechanisms for replicating information between remote locations.
At the age of seventeen, he completed his first software development contract. He completed diplomas in engineering (electrical) and business computing after leaving school, exhibiting high performance, and embarked on a technical career. After being appointed as a project manager he supervised the implementation of the world's first automated election (computer networked tally). His work in his career included managing projects for some of the world's largest IT companies and much of his work has involved machine systems and total solution management. Initially working under the respected "managed solution pioneer", Geoff King, he took his interest in solution development further, and when appointed as a nominated "change agent", began to speculate that building computer systems to support people was the wrong approach. He began an investigation into cybernetics (the study of capacity for control in systems) and postulated the semantic intention theory, a thesis that action works best when "phrased" into meaningful sections which are connected together in an overall meaningful structure. This "semantic" quality means that actions are much like language, and that processes can be understood to be "sentences of action".
A process, then, is a verse in action. As such, he came to believe that the correct use of computing systems was not as a servant or support to human actors, but as a part of the "semantic verse" that a process represents. Computers should be seamless elements in the system or else they will become a point of disconnection where things are imperfectly entered and imperfectly acted on.
In response to his growing interest in human action and machine-synergy, he undertook a degree in anthropology at Australian National University, studying under Professor Colin Groves. He holds majors in biophysical and sociocultural anthropology with academic interests in human bioevolution and anthropological praxeology (the study of human possibility).
Mark teamed up with Dorothy Wood, a noted expert on business constraints and environmental accounting, forming the consulting firm intially dubbed, Wood & Son, and offering services supporting businesses faced with the new challenges posed by IT (which Mark once described as "a process of never ending adoption"), and on other pressing issues, such as environmental factors in business (which like IT are imposing, urgent, and important to modern businesses). Wood & Son became the consulting arm of Time & Motion Pty. Limited.
Mark's interests as a corporate anthropologist and engineer allow him to stride the space separating the human realms of business, marketing, economics, and HR and the technical realms of internet, ecommerce, computing, and IT. This combination of human, process, and machine is a critical marriage in any modern business since the impact of automation and computerisation is so great that for most organisations, if it becomes a flaw, it becomes a deadly weakness.
Jeff Lyddon
Consultant, risk management expert
Bcom(HR) UQ, BA(polsci) UQ
During his career, Jeff has had the opportunity to undertake a range of roles within a variety of environments such as government, IT, not-for-profit, education and utilities sectors with a focus on enterprise and portfolio risk management. His work in this area has involved macro-scale risk control consultation with government agencies and with private enterprise.
Risk is inherent in all organisational activities and is present at, and across, all levels of the organisation’s structure. Risks must therefore be identified, assessed and managed at each level, although a differentiated approach may be required in different contexts.
At the portfolio level, it is important to consider risk from several perspectives:
ᵒ the impact of the aggregated risk (or all of the portfolio activity) on the business
ᵒ how risk can be reduced by selecting the ‘right’ programs and projects
ᵒ how benefits realisation can be optimised by effective management of risks
ᵒ how prioritisation and scheduling of the programs and projects may affect the risk profile.
Risk strategies and objectives should use processes, tools and reports to allow for risks (preventative) and issues (reactive) to be managed across the portfolio, consistent with standards and contemporary industry practice. It also ensures that clear ownership is defined across the governance structure to ensure effective decision making is achieved. Supporting this process, a range of methodologies such as ISO31000, PMBOK, PRINCE2 and Management of Risk (M-o-R) can be drawn upon.
Governance structure should provide for communication across the project, program and portfolio levels and thus ensure that risks and issues are escalated when required, and decisions made accordingly.
The implementation and corrective review of these risk management frameworks and associated services, such as risk and exposure audit, is Jeff's core competency.
David McILwraith
Consultant, Solicitor, Educator, Advisor
BA MACQ, Dip. Ed. MACQ, Grad. Dip. (Ed. Adm.) SA, MA (Mel. Dev. Stud.) UNE, B. Leg. Stud. MACQ
M.Letters, Grad. Dip. Leg. Prac. UTS
David is one of the strongest consultants available in the world today. His background is commercial, legal, and public sector. Highly innovative, his career has included management positions in the construction industry, consultation with governments across the world, practice as a solicitor, a senior consultant in the petrochemical industry, an aid worker in Oceania, university law lecturer, real estate developer, principal of his own firm, and as a project manager to the United Nations.
He is a fellow of the Australian Taxation Institute and the Australian Anthropological Society, as well as a Public Notary and a member of the Queensland Law Society. David has worked in Australia, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Indonesia, Malaysia, Nigeria, the Caribbean, and Cambodia. He is fluent in English and Melanesian Pidgin, and has been admitted into practice as a solicitor in the Supreme Courts of New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria, South Australia, and Western Australia, and was one of the developers of the acclaimed UWS Graduate Diploma of Legal Practice.
David's focus areas as a consultant include ergonomics, business development, change management, change progression, risk management, mediation, negotiation and dispute resolution, law, human resources, sustainability, project management, environmental business practice, process and law, and paper and e-processes. Although possessing wide exposure to a number of industries, he bears special knowledge of the mining, natural resources, agricultural, development, government, marine resources, and fuels industries. He is a trained, qualified, experienced and popular educator and trainer.
David's legal skills bring further tools to the table, including alternative dispute resolution, commerce, business, taxation, injury law, succession planning, defence, evidentiary preparation and dispute resolution. His case history reveals a talent for identifying strategy and implementing the associated change to increase corporate profit and in obtaining the right negotiating outcomes. His indepth consulting and project development experience in Asia, Pacific, and Australia in green energy, mining, biofuels, and plantation development have seen him executing complex contractual arrangements, procurement, organisational structuring, human resource management and establishment of major marine infrastructures.
His career has reached a mature stage where he has high level skills in budgeting, project implementation, procurement, tendering, contractual drafting, evidence, litigation, presentation, negotiations, customer relations, leadership, mentoring, and project development.