How insight with risk helps brings clarity to a vision - Alicia Leis

Passionate about making a difference, Alicia Leis puts her auditing skills to work as a board member of charity World Vision.

Alicia Leis isn’t one to shy away from risk. In fact, it’s her job to find order in the chaos.

As an auditor, Leis has worked with government, industry and not-for-profits on strategy, risk, governance and stakeholder consultation.

She’s been the lead investigator on high-profile investigations for government across conduct, governance, children in state care and compliance, and holds several board positions including with a large private civil construction company.

But it’s her latest appointment she’s most passionate about. Last September, after some time as a co-opted committee member, Leis was appointed to the board of World Vision Australia.

“A co-opted committee member is effectively playing the role of director but with no formal voting rights,” Leis says. “I was helping with oversight and advice on their risk management framework and bringing in my expertise around audit and risk management.”

Leis encountered the Christian charity as a teenager. “It was my first exposure as a child to thinking about children on the other side of the world who had less than I did.”

She took part in the organisation’s fund-raising 40-Hour Famine and credits that with inspiring her life-long interest in world events and turning that interest into real help. As a board member now, she has more opportunity than ever to make a difference.

“When I had the chance to work with World Vision Australia, [CEO] Daniel Wordsworth told me we can change the world – this is a vision I am inspired by. I have a strong faith which calls me to serve, and I look forward to doing just that.”

The appointment comes after a 25-year career in the audit industry. She grew on the north-west coast of Tasmania, gained a Bachelor of Commerce at the University of Tasmania, and started work as a financial auditor.

She had spells in both Australia and London before being appointed a partner at WLF Accounting & Advisory in 2013 – only the third woman in that role in the firm’s 130-year history.

“During those years I was given the opportunity to work with a consulting division looking at strategy values and the special investigation process reviews,” she says. “It was really where my natural interest lay. The way I think about the world is more aligned with looking at the bigger picture and risk rather than just the financial side of things.”

During maternity leave 13 years ago, she suggested creating and managing a WLF department focused on risk management and governance.

“They backed me to do that. I began writing tenders and building a team and products and 13 years down the track it has evolved,” she says.

Leis says risk management offers a framework for dealing with complexity. In a world increasingly reliant on alternative media platforms, risk profiles are changing rapidly.

“The historical ways in which we could manage risk were deliberate and a lot slower,” she says. “Now there is a need to adapt to ensure boards are made aware of the fast moving and dynamic risks that are now at play.”

For World Vision, those risks are all too real.

“World Vision operates in the most challenging places on earth to assist the most vulnerable people on earth and I feel I can add some value to the work by providing a framework to do that job,” Leis says. “I want to make sure World Vision can do its job while making sure we are managing those risks effectively in a structured way.

“Safeguarding is about looking at the biggest risk and with an organisation like World Vision there are enormous risks.

“We then have a range of stakeholder and compliance issues to deal with like foreign aid funding and the range of rules and compliance issues that come with operating on international borders.”

On top of the regulations, there are the expectations of World Vision donors to meet.

“The promise World Vision makes to donors is really important to us,” she says. “If we fund raise or people join our purpose in sponsoring a child, we have to make sure those donations are going to field programs and there is lots of work we do in meeting those donor promises.

“World Vision is a really exciting organisation and we feel we have a voice in Australia around our giving platform and the generosity of Australians, and that is exciting for me.

“As Australians, we believe we can change the world and most Australians at their core are extremely generous. I want to make that contribution to World Vision for it to continue to have a voice in Australia and be a platform where Australians can respond locally and internationally. I see my job now as protecting World Vision for the long term.”

Her role involves ensuring the organisation is well resourced.

“That includes agreeing to resource particular areas to cope with the levels of complexities,” she says. “It means you have to not only understand the risk profile of an organisation, but also how it is governed.

“I think the biggest change that World Vision, as well as other global organisations, now have to cope with is the level of community expectation around corporate conduct and their expectations around how an organisation does its work.

“Organisations have to now understand that customers can express their views more publicly than they have done before, which is a big change. There is more ability to interact with important stakeholders through digital technology or social media and how organisations demonstrate integrity and ethics is an evolving challenge, and exciting one, especially with an organisation like World Vision.

“All organisations now have to put their purpose front and centre and if they are authentic to that purpose they have the ability to form relationships with people, to partner with them. For World Vision, it already interacts with its donors and it can offer insights of its impact across the world.”

While the realm of risk and compliance has traditionally been male dominated, Leis says things have moved quickly, especially for women of her generation.

"I haven’t run into any potential glass ceilings. There have been times when I have challenged the norms of the day. For example, the issue of promotions while on maternity leave was something I pushed hard for, and recognising the financial performance of women while working part-time while managing different stages of their lives – it is really important to me.

“I wouldn’t say I have been at the front of the ice-breaker. There were women before me who have had to take the hard hits. But I hope I am continuing to create pathways.

“Eighty per cent of effective risk management relies on a diversity of views so that you can understand risk, and when you can engage with a range of people you do get that diverse perspective.

“Leadership is always a crossover between skills, purpose and technical abilities – and the overlay is a lovely mix.”