Profile: Mark Davies FCA

By Leigh Sujanto

It was during the late 70s when Mark Davies FCA first first fell in love with numbers. While in high school, he took bookkeeping as an elective for years 10 and 11 and found that it just came naturally to him.

In his final year, Davies’ maths teacher encouraged him to put more of his focus towards maths and science so accounting took a backseat until Davies rediscovered his passion for it while working at his first job as a laboratory technician for a tile manufacturer. “The production accountant was going on long-service leave so I decided to step into his role and it instantly brought back my love of numbers. My interest in accounting continued over the next few years as I moved into a management role in a paint store looking after the day-to-day activities for the franchise owner and keeping the books,” recalls Davies.

He eventually began studying part-time for a business degree at the University of Ballarat and won the Coopers & Lybrand (now PwC) accounting prize for the best first-year student. After winning the prize, Davies convinced the audit partner at Coopers & Lybrand to give him a job in the Ballarat office, where he worked until 1992 completing his business degree and Professional Year (now Chartered Accountants Program) in the process.

From 1992-99 Davies worked for PwC in Melbourne as the senior audit manager and principal consultant respectively. In 1999, he worked for the Darebin City Council in Melbourne as chief financial officer and then general manager corporate services, before leaving in 2008 to be the chief executive officer of the Surf Coast Shire Council in Torquay, a role he currently holds.

Domestic violence initiative

In 2010, the Surf Coast Shire, with Davies at the helm, became the first public sector employer to offer, as part of its new enterprise agreement, a special paid leave to employees affected by domestic violence. How did this all come about?

“The enterprise agreement discussions started in March 2010 and were still going by August that year without a lot of headway being made. The management negotiating team came to my office to give me one of their regular updates and said that the Australian Services Union (ASU) had brought a new claim to the table around family violence leave. After initially thinking that this was another stalling tactic by the union, we quickly realised that there was merit in considering this initiative as it was consistent with our push to make Surf Coast Shire an employer of choice and to improve the working environment we offer our staff. In the end it was a win-win for all negotiating parties,” explains Davies.

The Surf Coast Shire Enterprise Agreement No. 7, which is certified by Fair Work Australia, contains a clause which will provide up to 20 days’ special leave for staff to attend medical appointments, legal proceedings and other activities relating to family violence. The clause also includes carer’s leave for any staff member supporting a person experiencing family violence and a council staff member will also be trained in family violence and privacy issues as a liaison point. The leave covers physical, sexual, emotional, financial or verbal abuse by a family member. All information must be kept confidential and no adverse action can be taken against an employee whose work suffers.

It is still early days in terms of its implementation in the workplace with the agreement having only being certified prior to Christmas 2010. However, Davies believes that just the organisation recognising that family violence exists and trying to establish a safe environment for it to be dealt with in the workplace has already had a positive impact on the culture of the organisation.

“The initiative has been received extremely positively by employees and, to my surprise, the community. I have received many emails and letters personally thanking me for including this groundbreaking clause in the agreement – some have come from practitioners working in this area and some have come from people who have suffered family violence. My partner of 10 years who works in the family violence area has also been approached by many of her colleagues with congratulatory comments about the initiative. It even made the international media including top news in the United Kingdom and the French Tribune in France.”

Institute involvement 

Aside from his work at the South Coast Shire, Davies has also made a conscious effort to become more involved with the Institute over the last few years as a way of giving something back to the profession. He recently retired as chair of the local government taskforce after having being involved since 2001. He has been on the Victorian Regional Council since 2006 and is looking forward to overseeing some major changes to the delivery of the Chartered Accountants Program during his current term. “A lot has changed in the profession since I joined in 1994 with more Chartered Accountants now in business than in practice. It is a continual challenge to keep the Institute relevant to such a diverse range of members.”

Lately, Davies has started to contemplate the next decade of his career, having been in the workforce for more than 30 years. “I feel that I need to take a different course to get a better work/life balance. My partner and I have aspirations of owning some acreage north of Melbourne and getting back to a more sustainable way of life. “I recently attended a seminar where the Reverend Tim Costello, CEO World Vision Australia, spoke about his career and his decision to become a minister. In looking back he believes that there are three things needed to have a fulfilling career – you must be passionate about what you do, it must give meaning to your life and you must enjoy it. This seems like a good roadmap to identify the next chapter of my career,” says Davies.

In his personal life, Davies is close with his three children who are all pursuing their own careers. Nicholas, 23, is a builder, Lauren, 20, is studying to be a civil engineer and Sam, 19 is an apprentice chef. Davies also loves running to stay fit, having completed his first marathon in 2008 in Canberra. He enjoys travelling and goes overseas every year with his partner Jo. These trips also provide plenty of opportunities for him to pursue his interest in photography. He is also an avid collector of red wine. His collection, which he started 10 years ago, currently boasts more than 320 bottles of wine, with his pride and joy being a 1993 Wynns Black Label Cabernet Sauvignon.

While a lot has changed since Davies began his Chartered Accounting career, he still believes that it is important to spend time in the beginning learning and getting the basics right. “In the end it still all comes down to debits and credits! I spent the first eight years in audit, which was a great learning experience – being exposed to hundreds of different organisations and learning to work as part of a team. That experience has carried me in good stead throughout my varied career. Once you have the basic foundations in place my advice would be to follow your heart and try as many things as you can until you find your vocation.”

A closer look at family violence

A 2004 Access Economics report put the annual cost of domestic violence in Australia at $8 billion with women overwhelmingly the victims. Victorian crime statistics show in the year 2009-10 there were 35,720 cases of police submitting a family incident report after a call out. Overseas research has found up to 10 per cent of the workforce, male and female, suffer family abuse.

(Extract from The Age, 24 September 2010)

Article last updated 22 December 2011