Board Selection and Advisory
As in everything we do, the proof is in the data. We have successfully facilitated over 1000 board appointments which is more than any other Australian headquartered leadership advisory firm. We take great pride in our ability to deliver exceptional Board talent and, by extension, drive economic and societal impact.
An important lever in our contemporary future focused philosophy has been our approach to diversity, which in our view is about thought and experience, not simply optics. This commitment has lead to almost 70% of all our appointments delivering against diversity objectives and again impacted economically and in a societal context.
Omera Partners collaborates, aligns and handpicks the best: in a public markets context these include ASX Top 50, 100, 300 Non Executive Directors as well as Non Executive Directors for globally listed & traded organisations. The market has become increasingly fluid and we are frequently mandated to deliver Non Executive Director and / or Advisory work for a variety of organisations including privately held, superannuation or investment funds including their assets through to major government entities and significant, high impact groups in the NFP sector.
A True Collaboration
When you appoint Omera Partners on Board Selection and Advisory, you will partner with a dedicated, fully in-house team designed specifically for your sector and organisational needs.
We partner with the region’s leading organisations and help them build and maintain commercially robust, culturally representative, and intellectually inspiring boards that demonstrably outperform business growth across their peer group.
A Complete Suite of Board Services
Omera Partners can assist your organisation with every aspect of your Board Advisory requirements. We use our unique proprietary system to identify exceptional board-level talent, with four critical aspects underpinning every assignment:
Global Access – Omera Partners has over two decades of experience in successful Board searches and appointments across global markets including the Asia Pacific Region (including India), USA; LatAm, UK, Europe. We leverage our long-standing worldwide partnerships to broaden your search for assignments within the global markets we know and understand. We can also help you consider new talent for domestic appointments. Our Partners also bring vast global knowledge from both search, and sector specific operational experience to add depth and nuanced understanding of organisational needs.
Diversity – We pride ourselves on identifying divergent talent pools of experienced individuals to help organisations build Boards reflective of contemporary society. We focus on the powerful combination of diversity of all iterations in conjunction with exceptional leadership capability.
The Power of Technology – We harness the latest processes and every advancement across all aspects of cyber, AI and other technology platforms for extraordinary outcomes for your organisation. We have a very clear picture of the current and future state of the talent landscape.
Return on Investment – Our end goal is ensuring our appointments create lasting impact across all areas of your business. We readily share data and outcomes on the demonstrable financial, commercial, culture and societal impact we have helped create.
Our Board Expertise
Omera Partners board practice has partnered with clients to successfully appoint over 1000 board directors. We are well connectedand highly regarded throughout the NED community.
70% of assignments deliver genuine Diversity focussed appointments. This is one of the many ways Omera drives value creation.
> 50% of our board assignments are globally focused with our approach designed to give our clients access to the world’s best Non Executive Directors
58% of assignments are with Listed Companies
42% of assignments are with Privately Held Companies. These include entities owned /operated by investment groups, government and, where impactful, NFP’s.
With over two decades of experience, we have refined our Board Search process into a highly effective proprietary system that ensures outstanding outcomes for our clients.
Omera Partners can work with your organisation on various levels of Board Search requirements. From a deep intense search with advice on appointment and remuneration, to an overview of the market and current candidates to help with succession planning.Our approach utilises a diverse suite of tools and services:
Each assignment starts with a deep dive into your brief and organisation including strategy and operating model.
Our fully in-house research team ensures absolute confidentiality to enable deep dives across agreed sectors and markets.
We combine both the latest technology tools and our Partners’ extensive commercial networks, to identify exceptional candidates - many from beyond the traditional scope of the Australian or broader Asia Pacific corporate landscape.
We give back to the community within which we operate by taking on a select number of NED assignments in the NFP space. In circumstances where your organisation’s charter and mission are clear along with the societal impact significant, we try to help wherever we can. Quite simply your “for purpose” organisation helps give greater meaning to ours.
Ongoing organisational excellence can only be achieved through carefully reviewing every level, including the Board.
Strong and forward-thinking leaders understand the importance of systematically reviewing the performance of Boards, their Members and as importantly enabling robust planning for the future.
At Omera Partners, we partner with clients to enhance their Board performance both as a group and as individual Members. A Board Review is a valuable tool to help a highly effective Board reach even higher levels of excellence, assist an organisation facing a challenging market circumstances, or to work through a particularly nuanced internal issue.
A comprehensive Board Review is more than an evaluation. We create an environment that fosters healthy and open discussions amongst Board Members and allows for a stronger relationship between the Board and the C-suite.
We recognise that every Board is unique, which is why we adopt a flexible approach, offering a variety of tools to suit your needs. These include online questionnaires, face-to-face interviews, and where appropriate observational meetings.
This allows us to work effectively with a diverse range of clients: from those with long-established Board review processes to organisations that have yet to undertake one.
In our Board Review process, we delve into three key areas for both the Board as a whole and its individual Members:
Board:
What are the Board's core responsibilities?
How effectively are these responsibilities fulfilled?
What changes can be made to optimise performance?
Board Member:
How does each Member contribute to the Board's objectives?
What is their perspective on the Board's functioning?
What suggestions do they have for improvement?
Based on our comprehensive review against best practice elsewhere, we present results and specific recommendations. The outcome of these activities will always be impactful and measurable.
Our experience has shown that to achieve a positive and long-lasting impact for the Board, Members, and the organisation it is best to implement an ongoing combined process of self-evaluation, and regular external appraisals by a Board Review specialist. An effective and well-established Board Review process transcends the individual Board Members at any one time. It reminds everyone that no individual irrespective of talent or capability is bigger than the whole.
We believe in fostering a culture of continuous improvement within the Board, ensuring that it remains a high-performing entity even as Members inevitably cycle on or off.
We are exceptionally lucky to live in a time where diversity has become a key driver in productivity and performance. We firmly believe every Board we partner with should reflect the rich breadth in race, culture, age, identity, and beliefs that make up a contemporary multi-cultural society that reflects the world as it is today.
Omera Partners has always looked to build diverse Boards at all levels and across all sectors. Our track record to date of 1000 plus Board searches has resulted in over almost 70% of our Board appointments being both talented, which is a non-negotiable, while also highly accretive to the Non-Executive Director gene pool.
We are committed to improving representation at Board level across all elements of diversity and are proudly one of the very first Search firms to assist in the appointment of a First Nations NED to an ASX-100 Board.
Critically we never ignore the absolute core requirements of any Board appointment. It is never about diversity for diversity’s i.e. the “optics” sake but far more powerfully, identifying and championing candidates from diverse backgrounds. It is imperative that they bring demonstrable, high impact sector, organisationally sought after, characteristics and capabilities.
Whilst ASX organisations offer full transparency of their Director Fees it can be difficult to have a true gauge of remuneration across the Private, Superannuation and NFP sectors.
In order to access a broad array of data points we have partnered with Open Director to provide current sector and overall market benchmarks. This is simply the starting point before we overlay our extensive NED networks to deliver highly targeted role specific information. In our experience when used in isolation the typical generic remuneration data lacks both context and nuance.
Omera Partners is able to provide tailor made data as by-product of our NED search and selection work which translates to access to market specific remuneration advice. Directors, with whom we have long standing relationships with, are always willing provide us with real life data and views on specific structures. Clearly confidentiality is key and we cross-reference the information gathered via multiple discussions, as appropriate with fellow NED’s, stakeholders, market participants and where appropriate, the investment community. The outcome is always specific, fact based advice that helps you shape these delicate conversations with real life information not simply generic sketches of the remuneration landscape.
In summary our robust and detailed methodology allows Omera Partners to report with an unrivalled depth and specificity on Board and C-suite remuneration.
We have had the privilege of working with the leading names across many sectors of the Australian and New Zealand commercial landscape, as well as respected brands in the NFP sector and many Government organisations.
These include:
Accent
AustralianSuper
Bendigo & Adelaide Bank
nib
Iluka
Oz Minerals
Rest Super
Super Retail Group
Sydney Airport
Identifying an authentic leader for the Chair role is key to building entire Boards. Our Partners understand the need to find a talismanic business visionary who can galvanise the new Board and drive exceptional leadership outcomes. It is also important to note that we focus on substance over style – business visionaries come in a myriad of styles and forms.
We then aim to team talented Non-Executive Directors with complimentary skills so that the whole is substantially greater than the individual. The adage that a champion team will always beat a team of champions is never more accurate than when structuring Boards.
To achieve this our Partners have perfected the rare art of where talent spotting meets pattern recognition. Finding candidates with the required sector and professional skill expertise required for individual Non-Executive Director positions and the attributes to quickly come together as an united team is a skill we have nurtured over two decades of Board Search and Advisory.
Some overlap of professional skills is unavoidable at a Board level; however, we endeavour to add weight to the knowledge and expertise that will deliver maximum performance and drive genuine value for organisations.
Omera Partners has significant experience in building entire Boards for leading organisations. We relish the opportunity to partner with a client to undertake such delicate and impactful projects as it allows us to utilise our full range of knowledge and services by tapping into our core philosophy of how high performing, diverse and effective Boards should be structured.
Omera Partners works the global stage with almost 50% of our Board assignments international or genuinely global. We have partnered with domestic and international brands to successfully resolve challenging Board appointment all over the globe:
Asia Pacific - China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia and Singapore
UK
Europe – Italy, France, Germany and Sweden
North America – USA and Canada
Latin America – Argentina, Brazil and Chile
We utilise the latest technology and AI tools so there no barriers to us undertaking even the most demanding international Board Search assignments in every corner of the globe. In fact often clients approach us as they require a fresh perspective unencumbered from legacy issues. Our Partners also boast impressive international experience across Search and in-house corporate roles, bringing valuable local knowledge to global markets.
Our Team
Ciaran Donovan
Deborah Melkie
Hermina Sudar
Louella Dizon
Margaret Sammut
Russell Wilson
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