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With over 25 years’ experience helping executives, CEOs and boards build better reputations through people, Anna is a widely recognised leader in Asia-Pacific for designing C-Suite functions and securing ‘fit for purpose’ executives to lead them.
Today, Anna leads Teneo’s ambitious growth plans for the People Advisory practice across Asia-Pacific, while continuing to provide executive search and strategic counsel to the region’s largest companies. She is building a portfolio of regional capabilities, as part of Teneo’s global People Advisory practice, that encompasses executive search, executive board advisory, organisational strategy, DE&I and corporate culture transformation.
Anna was founder and CEO of AWPeople, an executive search firm specialising in the disciplines that impact reputation, including corporate affairs, investor relations, ESG and marketing. After 11 years of growth under Anna’s leadership, AWPeople was acquired in August 2021 by Teneo, the global CEO advisory firm.
A passionate advocate for the value of comprehensive and nimble reputation management, Anna and her team deliver bespoke solutions for business leaders that meet their specific needs and flex to fast changing environments.
A serial entrepreneur, Anna founded MarketU in 2003, and later sold it to global management consulting firm WDScott in 2008. She founded AWPeople in 2010.
Anna is an alumna of Harvard Business School in Boston (USA) and INSEAD in Singapore. Her qualifications include a Bachelor of Business and the Australian Institute of Company Directors (AICD), Directors’ accreditation.
Is your future important to you? Do you want to build your best career? What are the skills most in demand today? What can executives do to stand out in a competitive market? What can employers do to attract the highest quality talent? In this Three Things, Anna Whitlam tells…
Australia is not just The Lucky Country – we are spoiled rotten. It is a good place to live, we pay high taxes so our living environment is well tended, we sail through global economic storms relatively unscathed and we have not faced an earth-shaking crisis on home soil since…
We are pleased to be able to share an extract from Asialink's special report "Winning in Asia- Creating Long-Term Value" (www.winninginasia.com.au). The below extract is written by Penny Burtt, Group Chief Executive Officer, Asialink and Mukund Narayanamurti, Chief Executive Officer, Asialink Business, with input from our CEO, People Advisory,…
In the latest in our series “Corporate Affairs Insights on moving beyond the Crisis”, Anna Whitlam shares lessons learnt from COVID-19, and in particular observations on work habits of successful teams. From the accelerated use of technology, to working from home, and the challenges that can pose. …
The world has changed post COVID-19, and the crisis is far from over. Anna Whitlam gives her insight into what the most successful teams are doing in this environment, from a Communications and Corporate Affairs perspective. She details how to bring out the best in teams to keep that competitive…
Anna Whitlam shares her views on Future of Work for Corporate Affairs & Communications, and in particular how COVID19 has impacted our discipline and what capabilities and behaviours will be required to shine in as a future leader. Anna was joined by Luisa Megale, Group Head of Corporate Affairs &…
Anna Whitlam shares her insights to why communicating is now more important than ever! Interviewer: Oriel Morrison, International Broadcaster. …
Last month, we and host Rio Tinto were honoured to have Dr Ziggy Switkowski AO, Chancellor of RMIT University, Chairman of nbn™ Australia and a Director of Tabcorp, lead a roundtable discussion on “Our Digitally Enhanced Lives in the 2020s”. As a former CEO of Telstra, and Fellow of the…
Last week I had the privilege of hosting, together with McKinsey & Company, our Corporate Affairs Roundtable in Singapore. Parag Khanna, Founder & MD at FutureMap, led our discussion on The Future of Asia, which focused on Asia's influence on world economic growth. Although the regions contribution to global trade is obvious,…
After a dynamic and seismic past 12 months, and as we move closer to the end of the first quarter of the new year, the following four themes will become increasingly more important for corporate affairs leaders in 2019 and beyond. We are living in a world where the rules…
2018 is not a year that would go gently into the good night. From corporate scandals to political dramas and a growing public trust deficit – the annual Edelman Trust Barometer showed no general recovery of trust in institutions globally – this is a year marked by reputational gaffes that…
I have been interested in this topic for a while and after the response to my previous article The New Corporate Affairs Leader, my interest was further sparked in the skills that CEO’s were seeking in other jurisdictions. I reached out to my colleagues and peers who…
I was fortunate enough to share the stage, and microphone, with Wallabies legend John Eales at a “fireside chat” last week hosted by Commtract, and sponsored by Streem, at the very impressive offices of Corrs Chambers in Melbourne. Rugby is not my strong suit, as those who know me would…
In engaging with candidates and clients, which is a part of the job I really enjoy, the discussions often turn to the corporate affairs function, and the most sought-after qualities in corporate affairs leaders. In fact, I’ve recently made a number of presentations to corporate teams on this very same…
As a frequent visitor to Asia, the UK and the US, it occurred to me recently how differently we, in Australia, treat the discipline of corporate affairs and the corporate affairs function. And by that, I mean how differently senior candidates are viewed when executive searches are carried out for…
Former Minerals Council of Australia CEO Mitch Hooke, architect of the 2010 mining tax campaign, identifies empathy, credibility and integrity as the essential ingredients to the campaign’s ultimate success. In considering the relevance of empathy to the success of the campaign, we are given pause to ask, how exactly does…
There certainly has been plenty to interest and perplex Australia’s corporate communications professionals in 2017. Front and centre was ongoing media and political attention on the big banks. The ongoing question (and subsequent confirmation) of a full royal commission saw the ABA strengthen its team with some heavy political campaigning…
Out of the blocks, leaders on both sides identified that defining the battle ground was critical in determining the outcome. While the Yes forces spent the first weeks of the campaign embroiled in the (very legitimate) debate about whether the postal survey could be legally upheld before the High Court,…
As the fall-out from the last US election continues to plague the White House, the term “fake news” has now well and truly entered the global lexicon. And far from politics being its sole province, my recent trip to the US reinforced the significance of this phenomenon in the world…
Pierre kindly interrupted his holiday to speak to us about world events, the challenges of running a global business in increasingly uncertain times, as well as his view of how our profession is changing. As you all know, AWP events are conducted under the Chatham House Rule, and without breaking…
Private sector supply chains must take responsibility to help solve modern slavery and commit to ensuring human rights are protected - It was only 25 years ago that scandals started to surface with US factories who had moved production to low cost locations and assumed little or no responsibility for…
It’s rare in Australia to meet a CEO who has been sought out around the world for his ability to transform companies – largely because Australia doesn’t have a high volume of listed corporate headquarters. However, we are lucky enough that our lifestyle, stable regulatory and banking system and our…
The growth of the mining industry in Australia over the last two decades has firmly positioned the minerals and resources sector at the forefront of Australia’s international engagement and trade, and at the heart of domestic politics. For the industry, this has created both challenges and opportunities within its mining…
It would be unfair to say that most of Australia’s biggest businesses have an unsophisticated view of the corporate reputational challenges they face. But when Anna Whitlam brought together some of Australia’s leading Corporate Affairs practitioners recently, there was a ripple of recognition as one of them lamented the simplistic…
At big companies, they are seen as the elite – Direct Reports are regarded as the leadership group, the people who really matter. Increasingly over the past decade, Heads of Corporate Affairs have broken into this group. CEOs who understand the importance of reputation to their business want the person…
Besides being CEOs of some of the top companies listed on the Australian Securities Exchange, they all recognise the critical importance of Corporate Affairs to the businesses they run, and they have all been speakers at Corporate Affairs Thought Leadership Forums run by Anna Whitlam People. In the latest event,…
As every corporate affairs practitioner will tell you, some CEOs “get” corporate affairs better than others. There have always been some who do, and some who don’t. The good news for practitioners is that the proportion of business leaders who understand the role of the function and the value it…
There will always be room for specialists in corporate affairs team. If you’re hiring a government relations manager, for example, you’re want them to have a well-developed understanding of how the public service and Ministers' offices work, how they interact and what influences and drives them. But talking to some…
Yes, in some ways social media has changed everything. It’s reduced the media cycle to a nanosecond. It’s turned the general public into a watchdog for ethics and opinions. It’s handed power to the customer and the voter. Even older stakeholders are now part of the digital age and if…
