I was thrilled and humbled to recently be re-appointed as Chair of RDA Pilbara.
I love the Pilbara and believe this organisation can play an extremely important role in ensuring the region and its communities reach their full potential. It’s a great privilege to be entrusted with continuing to help lead RDA Pilbara and I’m thankful to the Minister for Regional Development, Kristy McBain, and our Canberra stakeholders for the support they have shown in reappointing me.
I know the RDA Pilbara staff and my fellow committee members are strongly committed to driving equitable and sustainable development of the Pilbara. I look forward to working alongside them and building further on what we have achieved over the past few years.
Last week I had the opportunity to travel to Sydney for the Australian Institute of Company Directors (AICD) 2025 Governance Summit. The theme of the event was “Beyond the Horizon” and there was a strong theme of futurism that ties in well with much of the work we are undertaking at RDA Pilbara.
As AICD Chair Naomi Edwards told attendees, the role of boards has shifted from oversight to increasingly include foresight. There is now a clear need to not only understand the impact of a range of external pressures but to identify ways to respond to them.
One of them is artificial intelligence, a strong topic of conversation at the summit that John Mullen (Chair of Qantas, Brambles and Treasury Wine Estates) devoted considerable time to talking about. John outlined how AI currently has an IQ between 2000 and 4000, a figure that could eventually grow to a million times greater than the average human IQ of 100.
Very clearly, AI – and the potential risk it poses to cybersecurity – is something that will increasingly have to be factored into governance. So too will geopolitical instability, with Michele Flournoy, former US Under Secretary of Defense for Policy in the Obama Administration, providing some telling insights into the impact of recent and ongoing trade sanctions.
More than 1700 people attended the conference and, while many of the key themes and talking points were global issues, each of them have implications for local communities. I imagine most people walked away thinking about how they could incorporate this information into everyday life and work – I know I certainly did!
I dare say some of these topics will be central to conversations that RDA Pilbara will be having with key regional stakeholders in the weeks and months ahead.
RDA Pilbara is grateful to have been selected to provide input into the forward planning and long-term visions of a range of organisations, including Woodside Energy, the City of Karratha and the Newman Futures initiative.
More than just a seat at the table, these are opportunities to help shape the future of communities in the Pilbara and contribute to roadmaps for how our region might look in the 2030s, 2040s and beyond.
Based on what I heard last week, there will be a whole lot more AI. But the human experience will remain as important as ever.
Comments