News
Issue No. 28 - April/May 2006
Talent goes by the Board
Occupying a lynch-pin position between government, the community and business demands a lot of explaining, but outstpoken vivasa chief, Donny Walford, is certainly up to the job.
At the moment Donny and her team are gearing up for a congress in July, when she axnd her team will contribute to the ‘report card’ on progress towards the State Government’s maturing Strategic Plan.
But vivasa doesn’t wait for others to act. The organisation, a descendant of Business Vision 2010, is busy launching programs of its own that address perceived gaps in SA’s business development framework. vivasa will pilot the programs, then hand them over to an appropriate organisation to carry on long-term.
Several vivasa programs are focused on young people, schooling them in leadership and helping with the transition from tertiary education to the business world.
For instance Classroom Connections intends to inform school leavers of what business expectations of them are, in general, and gather the students’ aspirations and expectations of employed life.
“There’s a subliminal element of educating teachers and parents,” Donny says. “Some teachers are career-counselling kids, but can they do it well if they haven’t been in the (private sector) workforce?”
A consistent theme is the aim of keeping skilled South Australians at home to help head off the impending skills shortage. An important need is to provide opportunities for advancement — rare in a small, insular population like ours.
Donny has been surprised by the response to vivasa’s new Board Direct program, which aims to foster board-level talent among go-ahead young people who aspire to board positions in due course.
Board Direct offsets a trend vivasa has observed, a bias towards “known quantities” at board level. Appointments tend to go to an inner circle of long-term acquaintances, rather than to outsiders, however accompl...
