RACHEL WATERHOUSE | CEO Australian Shareholders' Association

In a world where business ethics often (but not always) take a backseat to scandal and boardroom drama, our latest episode tackles the murky maze of corporate governance. I’m joined by Rachel Waterhouse, CEO of the Australian Shareholders' Association, to dig into ethical leadership and what it really means for companies, their shareholders, and ultimately, for your investments.

We discuss the challenges faced by ASX 200 companies, where leadership scandals and ethical missteps threaten shareholder value.

Rachel shares insights from the latest edition of Equity magazine, highlighting the importance of trust and accountability in leadership. Discover how retail shareholders can navigate the turbulent waters of founder-led firms and the critical role of boards in maintaining ethical governance.

Our discussion takes a tour through some of the more lurid boardroom controversies rocking the ASX 200 and dives into the expectations that retail shareholders like us should have when it comes to ethical leadership. From the tough questions we ought to ask at AGMs to the long-term impacts of CEO incentives, it’s all about equipping you to navigate corporate accountability and safeguard your investments.

Then we tackle the “alpha male” approach to leadership. Contrary to popular belief, bad behavior isn’t a requirement for success, and Rachel argues for leaders who focus on a strong, ethical company culture. For anyone watching recent controversies around WiseTech and Qantas, you’ll hear how these serve as cautionary tales—and a reminder of the risks of poor governance.

For anyone looking to dig even deeper into the world of corporate governance, listeners can check out the Companies We Monitor page on the ASA website. This section includes Voting Intentions (VIs), which provide detailed insights into the companies ASA monitors, backed by volunteers with years—sometimes decades—of experience with specific organizations. They attend AGMs, engage directly with board members, and ask the hard questions on behalf of everyday shareholders.

Whether you’re a seasoned investor or just starting out, this episode unpacks how ethical governance can protect your investments and help build a more transparent corporate landscape. Join us for an eye-opening conversation on the power of business ethics and its impact on shareholder value.

TRANSCRIPT FOLLOWS AFTER THIS BRIEF MESSAGE

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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Chloe: Shares for Beginners. Phil Muscatello and Finpods are authorised reps of MoneySherpa. The information in this podcast is general in nature and doesn't take into account your personal situation.

Rachel Waterhouse: The challenge is the CEO role is not a 9 to 5 role. Uh, a lot of CEOs are, uh, working continuously throughout the day and night, so it's important to be of sound mind when making decisions. In that example.

Phil: G'day and welcome back to Shares for Beginners. I'm Phil Muscatello. Boardroom drama, financial manipulation and tawdry sex scandals. Today we're peeling back the glossy layers of the world of business to discuss how the brightest of business stars can lose their way. It's businessmen behaving badly and fixing the mess they leave behind. G'day, Rachel.

Rachel Waterhouse: Hi, Phil.

Phil: I guess in ASA terms that's called ethical governance, the way to avoid turmoil in founder led firms.

Rachel Waterhouse: Absolutely. So just, uh, you know, it's been an interesting AGM season so far. We have a lot of topics that I didn't think we would be covering. So it is all about behaving appropriately.

Phil: Yes, that's the right word. It's saying it nicely. So, Rachel, I'll just introduce you. Rachel Waterhouse is the CEO of that fine organisation and friend of the podcast, the Australian Shareholders Association. So it's been a lurid year for the ASX 200, hasn't it?

Rachel Waterhouse: Yeah, definitely. I think in my time looking at companies, probably 10 years in total, there's a lot going on here and, you know, a lot of scandals that I didn't think we would be covering this year, which is really unfortunate to see that top performing companies and those that are, ah, well known have challenges around leadership and we really expect as retail shareholders that the leader's going to behave.

Phil: So the latest edition of Equity magazine came out yesterday and you've covered this in depth and it seems to be. Well, I'm just quoting here, Steve Mabb, who's quoting Charlie and Warren, of course, about if you don't trust the leader or founder of a business, how can you trust them to look after your interests? Do you feel that's part of the aspect of the ASA and making sure that they're looking after retail shareholders?

Rachel Waterhouse: Yeah, absolutely. And you know, it's quite interesting that when we were both preparing for this month's magazine, we separately were thinking the same thing. So there's the theme there around truth and accountability and governance and the expectation of retail shareholders is that our leaders will perform well, do the right thing. And I Think do the right thing is the framework for good behavior and what you see around you. And unfortunately, the media headlines are full of leaders doing the wrong thing. So we do expect them to step up. And really stepping up are, uh, the boards. The boards are responsible for CEO appointment and firing. And they need to know what's going on within these organizations.

Phil: Yeah, and just one aspect of this, though. I mean, a lot of these guys are alpha. They're usually guys. They're alpha males, aren't they? And aren't, um, their behavior. Isn't their behavior in some sense the kind of urge that drives them to create the great businesses that they've created?

Rachel Waterhouse: I guess that could be argued, but I'd be really disappointed if that's the case, that to create value you need to have bad behavior in your work and personal life. I think as a society, we're more than that. I think there is a challenge around ego and taming the ego. And if you're a leader and you're creating value and you have a lot of people around you that continue to say you're doing a great job saying all the right things, maybe there's a disconnect with what society expects of you. So maybe that's the issue. It's definitely a challenge. But also it's important to highlight it's not all leaders. And male or female, it's not all leaders. And so we can see leaders out there that think about culture, not just say culture is important. And I think as a retail investor looking at annual reports, it's a little bit of corporate governance. Bingo. A lot of comments around culture, employees being important, stakeholders being important, but it's that doing the right thing and really doing it in the workplace, doing the right thing. So I think that's the challenge. And how do you, as a board or a retail investor, uh, know what's really going on? Because the CEOs are there to create value, but it can all drop in a day when something comes out that doesn't seem appropriate for the leader of that organization.

Phil: And that's part of it, is the destruction of value. I mean, that's one of the highlights, isn't it, that shareholders want to make sure that

00:05:00

Phil: their value is not being destroyed by this kind of behavior. That's the case, isn't it?

Rachel Waterhouse: Yeah, it is. All around value. Shareholders expect value. They expect that from a financial perspective, but they often want things to be done the right way. So there's that ethical framework that sits over behaviours.

Phil: And this is really a part of owning Shares is that it is a company. And rather than just tickers on a board, there is really a lot of work that's done behind the scenes to make sure and ensure that these companies are actually working for shareholder value.

Rachel Waterhouse: Yeah, and I remember our conference earlier this year that you fabulously hosted.

Phil: Oh, thank you.

Rachel Waterhouse: There was definitely a lot of talk there around, you know, ethics and the importance of doing the right thing. So as shareholders we rely on the shares and equity to give us a return often. And uh, that return is to help us, whether it's to buy a house or to retire and be able to have some funds to do the things that you want to do. So when you might have a company in your portfolio and it drops in a day or it drops because it's so reliant on that founder, uh, it can be really disappointing and it can impact your financial goals. And that's where shareholders are coming from when they see the headlines.

Phil: And speaking of the annual conference, Richard White was one of the stars there, wasn't he?

Rachel Waterhouse: He was and he had a lot of interesting things to say there on technology and cyber. The challenge for the organization is he has created a lot of value for that organization and they're doing extremely well. But you're reliant on one leader and that's the challenge. Anything can happen to a leader, whether it's health or behaviors or whatever it might be and then you know, who's there to step up. And uh, that's the question that our shareholders should be asking when we're at agms is we should be thinking about success and we should be thinking about who can step up.

Phil: And of course we're talking about wise tech. And people have seen the stories in the news lately about the bad behavior of Richard White and what's that that's done to the value. But he's not actually leaving completely. He's going to be employed in a consultancy role, isn't it? But it's also important, as you say, to have a succession plan because whether or not it's bad behavior or they might just get hit by a bus, you've got to keep the company running. Apart from the rockstar founder of the company itself.

Rachel Waterhouse: Yeah, that's right. There's a lot of rock stars when it comes to founder led companies and you just need to know that there is someone that can step up. Hopefully it's not just one person. Hopefully they've got a great management team that can step up and fill in whether that's leave health or death or whatever. It might be in an organization that's really important because hopefully an organization can return value, a lot of value to retail shareholders over a significant period of time.

Phil: So I'm going to quote from the vis the voting intentions of the shareholders association, because the AGM's coming up on November 22nd and this is a direct quote. The market and media was grappling whether this, his behaviour was a purely personal matter or a professional matter at odds with his responsibilities as a CEO, uh, and director. So you're firmly in the camp that his behavior is not something that reflects very well on the company. Is that the case?

Rachel Waterhouse: Yeah, I think it's a reputational issue. Whether allegations are true or not in any organization. It has an impact and it did have an impact. You could see that in the share price. So that is a good question around personal life versus business life. But when it does impact share price and reputation, I'll, uh, bring into the credibility of decision making that that is a business issue. Similarly, we. Well, not similarly, but last year we had, we were questioned around a CEO having meth, taking meth in their spare time. And so there are challenges around decision making here in private versus your business life. And you know, because initially in this example there were a lot of headlines that were all about the private life. There wasn't a lot coming through. But then the headlines started talking about decisions that may have been made that impacted the business, business life. And again, that's really around the board making sure they've got the right controls in place and when these issues come up, that they're investigated appropriately.

Phil: Wow. Crystal meth. It's not usually conducive to making good business decisions. You would expect.

Rachel Waterhouse: Yeah, you would think that maybe you don't make the best judgments because the challenge is the CEO role is not a, um, nine to five role. A, uh, lot of CEOs are working continuously throughout the day and night. So it's important to be of sound mind when making decisions. In that example.

Phil: So I didn't complete that quote from

00:10:00

Phil: the vis before because it went on to read and, um, I'm quoting again, the accusation that sex was traded for advice and favours was at odds with all the company had talked about and written about its culture, inclusiveness and transparency. Because these are kind of statements that companies present about themselves and the way that they want to present themselves to the world. And they really have to live up to that, don't they?

Rachel Waterhouse: They do. Uh, it's also important to say that when reading headlines, they are allegations, you know, ASA is not aware of any detail here or the facts. So it is around more allegations and the risk to an organisation. And if that was the case and if we knew all of the facts and favours were being traded for sex and gosh, haven't had that on a podcast before, Phil, you know, that would be an issue and it would question judgment and judgment potentially in the workplace.

Phil: So the other part of the voting intentions is to do with no long term incentives. And just to explain for people, management and board have incentives, they can have long term incentives or they can have short term incentives. And the association's position is that there should be a balance between the two. What's the difference between the two and how does this particularly affect Wise Tech?

Rachel Waterhouse: Yeah, as far as our general view is, we have a view that there should be short term and long term incentives for CEOs of organizations and a small amount of cash as far as how they're remunerated. The reason for why we want it split out the remuneration is long term goals. Shareholders want long term performance. Therefore if you give a CEO, uh, a whole stack of money in the short term, they might make decisions that are not the right decisions. And we've seen that in other organizations there's things you can do from an accounting perspective and it could be that the behaviours just aren't there because of that. So really we would like to see long term remuneration. We'd like to see that vested, we use the word vested over four years and that just means that if something comes to light during that period of time, some of the remuneration can be clawed back.

Phil: Because one of the playbooks for many CEOs when they take over a company is to start doing acquisitions and if their long term incentives aren't properly in place, and let's face it, Wise Tech is all about acquisitions. They could be making very, very short term decisions but will not play out in the long term. That's the case, isn't it?

Rachel Waterhouse: Yeah, absolutely the case. The whole point of how remuneration is done is to make sure that there is a good strategy in place, it's executed and that you reward management and the CEO over time just in case things like, you know, manipulation of accounts, things that you think are going to have a long term contract but they're not come to light. So that is really important. We want people to be remunerated fairly for what they do. They do an amazing, uh, job many leaders of organisations and so they should be rewarded but not in the Short term.

Phil: And that's also not to say that the acquisition strategy of wisetech hasn't been working out very well as well.

Rachel Waterhouse: Yeah, yeah. No, I think Wise Tech have been performing extremely well as a company.

Phil: Okay, let's move on to Qantas. Now, this is not a founder led company. Obviously they'd be long gone by now. Now, the AGM was on October 25th. Now, you believe that Qantas has listened to Asa's concerns. What were those concerns briefly? There's a lot to say.

Rachel Waterhouse: Okay, where to start? So last year we had concerns and you know, we still have concerns, so I'll talk to that. We have concerns around not investing appropriately in planes. So we also had concerns around the remuneration of the CEO and the behaviors when 1700 people had been sacked illegally. So. And the ghost flights that ACCC were finding them. So there was a lot that came together last year, unfortunately, bad things in a short period of time when their CEO received a large amount of money. Well, what have they done since then, we were asking. Last year the chair needed to go, they needed to appoint CEO with the right skills. So right now where we're at is they have done a governance review. They have published at uh, Warts and all, which they should be commended for because a lot of organizations might do a private report and it not be published, but they published it. They had their employees involved, they had stakeholders involved and they admitted the issues and they had 32 recommendations there and an action plan. So there are an example of when things have gone wrong to put in place a plan, communicate it. And

00:15:00

Rachel Waterhouse: what we're looking for now is to see that progress continue over time and culture and brand. And when things go wrong, they take a long time to address. We did have concerns around the CEO and her involvement in past decision making, given she headed up finance. But we can see progress there. So I guess, you know, it's not all solved. There's a lot to do, but there's definitely progress. There's thinking of succession planning, which we've just been talking about, making sure that the right people are on the board. Probably still got some challenges and thoughts around that. So, you know, that can evolve over time. And there's been a lot of change in the management team. So they are, uh, communicating more with stakeholders than they have as well.

Phil: Yeah, I thought this was an interesting quote from the VI, is that the idea is to turn its culture from CEO centric to one that operates for the benefits of customers, staff and shareholders. It's yet to be Realised, but change is happening. I just don't really understand how it became such a CEO centric culture.

Rachel Waterhouse: Yeah, not really sure there, but definitely that was an, uh, insight from last year. There was too much reliance on the CEO and the CEO, uh, was making decisions that the rest of the business weren't aware of and the board weren't aware of. Again, it comes down to leadership and governance. What were the board doing? How was that? Okay. And it's a good case study for other directors to really think about. Do I know what is going on in the company that I'm a director of and am m I oversighting the CEO appropriately? Again, you talked about Rockstar CEOs, maybe that Rockstar, uh, CEO as well, where people didn't ask a lot of questions, but it's really important from a succession perspective.

Phil: They liked all the smoke and mirrors.

Rachel Waterhouse: Yeah. So it's really important and progress is being made, which is really good to see.

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Phil: So let's talk about the chair, Mr. Mullen. John Mullen, who I think as a friend of the Shareholders Association. He comes across as a really nice, genuine bloke, doesn't he?

Rachel Waterhouse: He does. And we have been impressed with his leadership in the organisations he's been involved in. We have had issues around his workload given its quite high and it's above what we would expect of a chair. But he has committed publicly to reassessing his workload and making some changes and recognizes that that sometimes takes a little bit of time. So we're going to get there. He's uh, very valued director by many of our members, so we're looking forward to seeing what he can do at Qantas.

Phil: Yeah. And he was ex Telstra as well, wasn't he?

Rachel Waterhouse: He was ex Telstra when he was at Telstra. He spoke at our conference and they also had a site tour, uh, and he welcomed in, I think, for a lunch and a chat. And so he just sat there with 20 to 30 members having a chat. And they really enjoyed that.

Phil: And speaking of the workload, this is another quote from the vis. Generally we would vote against, uh, this amount of work and if we were voting for Mr. Mullen this year in any other board role, we would definitely vote against. But there was a vote for.

Rachel Waterhouse: Yeah, we had the same issue for Treasury Wine Estate. So effectively the same situation in both organizations with an ag, I think about two weeks apart. So he's given us the answer that we want to hear as shareholders, and we're looking forward to hearing what he's dropping. But, you know, it depends what shareholder you are and what companies you own to what you want him to drop. But he's definitely not dropping Qantas, and he's got a big job there.

Phil: So, in the context of Qantas, you recently went to Joe Aston's book launch for the Chairman's Lounge, and we haven't actually named the CEO, uh, by name, but I think we all know who we're talking about. How was the book launch? Have you read the book yet?

Rachel Waterhouse: I haven't read it yet. I'm, um, aware there's a mention of ASA in there and a comment from the AGM last year and how we were disappointed that none of the directors came out and spoke directly with retail shareholders, which they did do this year. So it's good to know that change has happened. It was very interesting. He was interviewed around Qantas and what had happened over the years. Really insightful. I think a lot of it's in the book that I need to sit down and read, so I'm looking forward to reading it. I shared a copy with Fiona in the team, so I know she's made more progress than I have.

Phil: Yeah, I'm sure it's great reading. So let's get on to Mineral Resources and their AGM

00:20:00

Phil: is on November 21st. And this is the story all around about Mineral Resources managing director and founder Chris Ellison. Now he will step down from the board after the tax evasion probe. Ellison's been fined $8.8 million by the firm. He will also forfeit his salary and other incentives of up to $9.6 million. There's evidence of widespread misconduct, including failing to properly disclose revenue from his overseas entities to the ato. This is an incredible story, isn't it.

Rachel Waterhouse: M. It seems to be a, uh, smorgasbord of governance issues. It's not just one or two things. It's claims of. Well, it's more than a claim there of tax evasion. Employees being on the work like home, staff being on the payroll. A lot of things around, conflicts of interest that are coming through. And again, a rockstar CEO who.

Phil: A major founder. A major founder of the company. And it's been a great company for many years.

Rachel Waterhouse: Yeah, definitely.

Phil: Yeah. I think he has put a lot of noses out of joint over the years as well.

Rachel Waterhouse: Yeah. And I Think again. All of this comes down to value. So CEO, uh, value creation can also. A founder can destroy value through allegations of misconduct. And you know, there's a lot in this one and a lot of questions for the board of what did they know and when and what oversight of the CEO they've had. Do they have the right skills on the board? I could probably bang on for 10 minutes. So, you know, there's.

Phil: Please do.

Rachel Waterhouse: There's some real challenges in this one. I think here. Again, it's around. Well, okay, the board are now aware of all of this. When they were aware, uh, the headlines say different things, but they did say they were doing an independent review. When's that going to come out? Is that going to be shared? Is there going to be an action plan? Those would be the questions because we can see that nine and Qantas and other companies, when these allegations come to light, they really think deeply about it and they have that independent review and then have a plan. Of course we don't want to even see this happen in the first place, but when it does, what's happening next? And really that leadership from the board.

Phil: And this is one of the things about a listed company as opposed to a private company. I mean, a lot less oversight in a private company so you can run it like your own fiefdom. Like possibly the way Ellison conceived of mineral resources, where, you know, you can just, you know, write off a few things to the company which you normally wouldn't be allowed to do.

Rachel Waterhouse: But on that, but on that, I mean, if I was a shareholder, even a private shareholder, and the CEO, uh, was doing those things, I would have a concern. But could I dig deep enough to know that was going on would probably be the issue.

Phil: Well, that's right. And there's so much more oversight in a listed company, isn't there?

Rachel Waterhouse: Yeah, yeah. Even in these examples, it's important for continuous disclosure. When media reports, whatever those allegations are impacting the share price, there needs to be an alert. So there's quite a lot of governance that does sit around it. But ultimately shareholders just want a good strategy, a well run company with the right ethics and the right outcomes.

Phil: I could see that the vis. The voting intentions hadn't been published as yet for this one. Do you have any insights into what the positions the ASA will be taking?

Rachel Waterhouse: Yeah, I've started engaging with shareholders on this. I haven't seen the voting intentions. They are coming through this week, so we'll have them shortly. Some of the initial thinking on this was around even in One of the announcements this week, the CEO was quoted as a high performing value creating md, which seems at odds with the governance issues and current financial performance was one of the views that was shared with me this week. There were also some questions around. One of the releases this week talked about the establishment of an ethics and governance committee and then they talked about who might be, who was going to be on that committee. But one of the high level questions is, all right, well, who's the board member that's going to be the chair of that committee? There's also questions around the longevity here and the succession planning. That chair has been within the organisation for a long period of time, has had a role on the finance, audit and Risk committee, which would have been looking at, ah, the risks of the organisation and having those conversations. So he is going to leave. He said he's departing and the CEO's departing. But how does that handover, uh, happen? Effectively those are some of the questions we have there because it's not just allegation, it's kind of serious wrongdoing here. And you know, 12 to 18 months for the CEO to remain in place

00:25:00

Rachel Waterhouse: and then the chair is going to depart before the next agm. And what we saw at Qantas when they announced that Richard Goyder, the chair, was going to go by the next agm, he actually left early. So I do wonder whether that might be a plan that is, you know, buy next AGM, which is about 12 months time, but maybe around that succession, could someone else be stepping up before then? There's a lot of value creation in a CEO and a lot of IP here. So you would hope that everything is very well documented and I do think an independent review that's published with findings and recommendations would help the organization, it would help the employees as well to rebuild that trust and it would help with shareholders to understand what's going to happen next.

Phil: There's an interesting line that you in the latest Equity magazine in your column where you talk about the moral dimension to governance. What is that?

Rachel Waterhouse: Yeah, so governance is a word that when I started working with it about 10 years ago, a lot of people didn't know what it was.

Phil: Yeah, it's the G in esg and.

Rachel Waterhouse: It'S always tacked on at the end new. So that is around, I guess a lot of it would be ethics to me and the framework and um, moral hazard is all around working from the heart and it might sound, I don't know, a little wishy washy, but it's around that whole Heart and doing the right thing and being able to live with the decisions that are made. And for publicly listed companies, it's around having the right policies in place and that they come to life through decisions and actions that happen in organizations. So yeah, moral hazards are where things go wrong. But do you as a leader, do you have the right people around you? Do you have people that are working from a place of ethics? Do you have code of conduct? Do you have values? Not just tick a box there in your annual report and they're on your website and you hope the staff knows of uh, people making their decisions by them. So I think ethics is more important than it ever has been. I think the word governance is really important, which as you said, it's part of the esg. But I really see governance as running a business effectively having robust systems, having transparency and accountability. And that's at the top level of an organization and sits alongside leadership.

Phil: Yeah, it comes back to that idea that, you know, there are companies that are run by like the alpha male of the chimp pack, but then there's also many companies that are really, well run by very, very nice people with the highest ethical standards, you know, and really as investors we have that choice, don't we?

Rachel Waterhouse: Yeah, we do. And you know, you could do your homework, but you sometimes just don't know either. And it can impact your portfolio, uh, greatly when things do go wrong. Like Wise Tech. I haven't looked at the price recently, but that really bounced back at the time of the announcement around what was going to be done, that Richard White, who has created a lot of value, was going to be in that advisory to the side role and they were progressing their succession plan. So. But mineral resources, if that timeline is things are happening over 12 to 18 months, whatever those things might be. What does that mean for the confidence of a shareholder, whether it is going to bounce back or not?

Phil: Yep. And although he's lost nearly $20 million out of all this, it'd be a drop in the bucket for a billionaire, wouldn't it?

Rachel Waterhouse: Yeah, it would be a billionaire bouncing badly. I can't even think that those numbers what that means in your day to day life.

Phil: Yeah. Okay, let's move on to Harvey Norman and their AGM is coming up on November 27th. And again, I don't think the vis are available for this one yet either. But a court ruled that Harvey Norman, Mormon and Latitude Advertising misled consumers. And this is all to do with those deals where you can pay, you know, five years interest free, but no one Ever mentioned the costs that are involved in this, which are quite high, so they're not allowed to make that offer anymore. But the interesting thing about this, and again, it comes back to ethics and what they're saying. I mean, it sounds like an outright lie to me. But then interestingly, Media Watch pointed out this week that this story was barely reported across the nine media. And this is to do with Harvey Norman being the biggest advertiser in Australia. There's some real moral questions going on there as well, aren't there?

Rachel Waterhouse: Yeah, I'm not across all of the detail on this one, but obviously.

Phil: No, I just, I just threw this at you at the last minute, didn't I?

Rachel Waterhouse: Yeah, no, no, all good misleading conduct is not just doing the right thing, it's breaching law. So, you know, that is a real issue here. And then as far as the moral hazard and the ethics of this situation, I do think the media have a role to play on reporting

00:30:00

Rachel Waterhouse: on all organizations and that's what we expect as part of society. I'm not talking as the ASA, but with Channel 9, when their challenges came to light, they did report on themselves there. So, uh, I would give that to them. I did see that they did report on their allegations and the issues for staff. And yeah, I just encourage as an individual, as um, in society, that media organisations do report on things even when there might be a conflict of interest that exists.

Phil: So we still haven't found out the outcome of that court procedure as well. But it sounds like they'll be seeking relief, including pecuniary penalties against latitude and Harvey Norman, which seems to be the start. But then you really have to think, is the culture of those companies going to be changing? We can have our doubts about that, can't we?

Rachel Waterhouse: Yeah. And these examples without all the detail necessarily bring to light, you know, how are employees remunerated? How are the staff in a shop remunerated? Do they get a percentage of certain sales? Are ah, they recommending the right thing for you based on your circumstances? So there's a whole stack of questions there, but yeah, equal a legal aspect and an ethical aspect.

Phil: So we're winding down to the end of the year. But what are you excited about in the new year and upcoming work with the association?

Rachel Waterhouse: I'm excited about so much. So we just had a whole stack of events and we had an engage event which was ASX listed companies talking to our members and our members being able to ask them questions and we had I think 700 or 800 people with that event and we had a Virtual Investor Summit which was more focused on estate planning and AI. That was very interesting. So as far as next year, we just had a planning session. We've got our conference in May and that's what we're excited about. So we're excited about the conference that's happening right now. Oh, yeah, it's not slowing down yet because the AGM season, we've got a lot more voting intentions to pump out. And that's worth just mentioning to anyone that's listening today is you can get the voting intentions on the Australian Shareholders association website. You can look up any company that you're interested in and see voting intentions. You can see a summary of what happened at the AGM afterwards. And then we're just talking about how can we use AI more in our organization and, you know, what could we do as far as our analysis of organizations. So I think there'll be more about that next year. The Virtual Investor Summit had someone speak about how to use AI in your own investing decisions and gave a great example of looking at Coles versus Woolworths and the performance using AI. And we'd love to do a session or a workshop at our conference on AI because often people hear about it but they don't know how they might be able to use it themselves. And a few of our members have reached out and said that was the best session and they're starting to use it now and, and someone used it the other day and ASA came up as a recommendation. So yeah, there's quite a lot there.

Phil: Oh, we love it then, don't we?

Rachel Waterhouse: Absolutely, yeah.

Phil: But, uh, yeah, just getting back to those vis, they do make great reading because we've got company volunteer monitors who might have a lot of experience monitoring a company over many, many years. They have access to board and management to ask questions directly and you can get such good insights from there. So, yeah, I'd recommend listeners to go and check out on the ASA website the Companies we Monitor section, isn't it?

Rachel Waterhouse: Yeah, it is. And just on that, yeah, our, ah, volunteers are the lifeblood of this organization and to think that they GO and monitor 150 to 200 organizations each year is amazing.

Phil: And of course all this and more is available for only $149 a year, which seems like a bargain to me.

Rachel Waterhouse: Yeah, definitely, yeah.

Phil: So we'd encourage listeners to join up with the association, the Australian Shareholders Association. Go to the website, Rachel, anything else you want to pitch at us?

Rachel Waterhouse: I think that's it. Definitely join. It's not a large amount of money. It's really small. You can attend events, you can watch webinars, you can, uh, support an organization that is doing the right thing for retail shareholders. And you know, monitoring of the AGM season is definitely that.

Phil: And also the shareholder meetings as well, which are fantastic. You can join your local branch and get in touch with like minded investors and they're always fantastic. That was my gateway into the association.

Rachel Waterhouse: Yeah, I think the member meetings, they're gold. It's just finding the time in your life to attend, but once you attend one, you usually come back. So I think that's really important. I get a lot as well by attending the member meetings.

Phil: Rachel Waterhouse, thanks very much for joining me today.

Rachel Waterhouse: Thank you.

Chloe: Thanks for listening to

00:35:00

Chloe: Shares for Beginners. You can find more at sharesforbeginners.

Rachel Waterhouse: Com.

Chloe: If you enjoy listening, please take a moment to rate or review in your podcast player or tell a friend who might want to learn more about investing for their future.

00:35:11

Any advice in this blog post is general financial advice only and does not take into account your objectives, financial situation or needs. Because of that, you should consider if the advice is appropriate to you and your needs before acting on the information. If you do choose to buy a financial product read the PDS and TMD and obtain appropriate financial advice tailored to your needs. Finpods Pty Ltd & Philip Muscatello are authorised representatives of MoneySherpa Pty Ltd which holds financial services licence 451289. Here's a link to our Financial Services Guide.