Business and Economics Alumni Women's Lunch 2019

Dr Williams has had a distinguished career as a senior economist and senior executive in the Victorian and Australian public service for over 30 years.

Dr Williams has made extensive and continued contributions to the governance of the University through membership of the boards of the Faculty of Business and Economics and Melbourne University Sport; she has also been a Fellow of St Hilda’s College since 1997 and Principle Fellow since 2018.

Dr Williams is currently on several boards at both Commonwealth and state levels and is a Fellow of the Institute of Public Administration Australia.

In 2017, Dr Williams was appointed as a Member of the Order of Australia for her significant service to public sector administration, and to economic and public policy reform in Victoria.

A competitive athlete, Dr Williams held several Australian athletics records. Her achievements in sport include four Blues at the University of Melbourne and representing Australia at the International Association of Athletics Federations World Cross-Country Championships in Morocco (1975) and Ireland (1979).

Mrs West was a partner at Deloitte for 23 years, having been the first female partner the firm appointed in Australia. She was also the first female President of the Institute of Chartered Accountants, now Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand (CAANZ), and has led a number of programs to support the advancement and retention of women in Chartered Accountancy and business more generally. She has been a non-executive director of a number of not-for-profit organisations including Australian Red Cross, the National Trust, and the Keep Australia Beautiful Council.

Mrs West currently holds non-executive director roles on the boards of Australia Post, Neurosciences Victoria and Dairy Australia. Mrs West is a Fellow of CAANZ, and a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Company Directors. She has also held leadership positions with the Institute of Chartered Accountants including National President, and is currently the Chair of the Appeals Tribunal of CAANZ.

In addition to being appointed a Member of the Order of Australia in 2007, Mrs West was also awarded a Centenary Medal in 2001 for services to the accounting profession and the community.

Carsten is a Professor in the Department of Finance and Co-Director of the Brain, Mind & Markets Lab at the University of Melbourne. The lab uses experimental research to address fundamental questions on individual decision-making and markets, with the aim to identify new ways to improve both human and machine decision-making.

The current focus of Carsten's work is on determining in what ways information processing constraints in the brain affect decision-making, how they lead to phenomena such as cognitive biases and in what ways decision-making can be improved.

In 2015, Carsten was one of the co-initiators of Street Finance, a new program developed by the Faculty of Business and Economics and the Melbourne Graduate School of Education. The program aims to improve financial behaviour and outcomes of young Victorians at an important time of transition from adolescence to adulthood, on the verge of making many major financial decisions. The core of the program is a final-year undergraduate subject in the Bachelor of Commerce. Students enrolled in the subject develop and subsequently deliver lessons on basic financial knowledge in Victorian high schools.

Prior to joining the University of Melbourne, Carsten was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Zurich. He has been a visiting researcher at New York University and at Columbia University, New York and has taught at undergraduate and graduate level at The University of Melbourne, the University of Zurich and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zurich. He has spent several years in the finance industry. Carsten holds a PhD from the University of Zurich, Switzerland and a Master’s degree from the University of Bayreuth, Germany.

Corinne has been the General Manager Online and Retail at Good Shepherd Microfinance since 2016 where she is responsible for Good Money as well as the new fintech offering Speckle. Both initiatives are focused on providing Australians with fairer credit choices and independent debt advice.

Prior to joining, Corinne worked for NAB for 13 years in business banking and of social responsibility. As part of her responsibilities Corinne was responsible for NAB’s $130 million financial inclusion programs that focus on helping low income Australians access financial services. Whilst at NAB Corinne also led a team of commercial bankers who specialised in government, education and community businesses. As part of this she was involved in leading commitment to impact investment and impact measurement.

Corinne is also Director of The Difference Incubator who help social enterprises become investment ready and the Melbourne Catholic Development Fund. Prior to joining NAB, Corinne has over 10 years’ experience in consulting, and has worked for Ernst & Young and PricewaterhouseCoopers respectively. She has also worked for the Federal Department of Family and Community Services. Corinne is a CPA with postgraduate studies in environmental management and was awarded a Churchill Fellowship in 2009 and a MoneySmart award for her contribution to financial literacy in 2013.

Corinne is passionate about the outdoors and in particular going camping with her son.