It is well recognised that the very best boards attract directors with different backgrounds and experiences; people who are difficult to pigeon hole. Anna will certainly contribute her individual edge to your board’s roles and responsibilities. She is a qualified economist with a blue chip background as a specialist corporate strategy consultant. International experience, impressive academic qualifications, and personal development achievements sit on top of her early careers in piano playing and professional photography.
Anna has worked in South Africa and Australia, and studied in Hong Kong, South Africa and the United States.
From humble beginnings, an eclectic twist on Directorship experience is gained. The path to being a highly respected strategy consultant began with flipping burgers at McDonald’s (Geelong and Hong Kong), entertaining people on the piano in the foyer of the local Performing Arts Centre, winning a Hong Kong all schools music challenge, reporting for a local paper and speaking on radio, being a qualified professional photographic studio technician, hosting a cocktail bar in Perth… led to the completion of her business degree and a management program placement at ANZ Bank…
Anna spent over 12 years fine tuning her strategy skills within both ANZ Banking Group Limited and Deloitte Consulting. A further ten years’ experience was gained working within the private and public sectors on a variety of special projects. Deliverables include:
- Core competency assessment for an international energy utility
- New market entry strategy for an international energy utility
- Centralisation of a municipal council’s property management services
- Due diligence and recommendations regarding the purchase and sale of a waste treatment plant
- Due diligence on the operations, profitability and management of regional airports
- Executive coaching
- Powerful presentation and public speaking workshops
- Operational strategy and property management review for a multi-storey car park
- Shopping centre tenant turn-around strategies
- Cost of capital recommendations
- Budget recommendations
- Urban water pricing recommendations
- Executive analysis and support to the managing director of a second generation private property developer.
Complementing these capabilities, Ms Searle is also a qualified executive coach and NLP (neuro-linguistic programming) trainer and practitioner; and member of the International Coach Federation. Anna has several executive and business coaching clients, and runs workshops on powerful presentation and public speaking skills for business people, TAFE, universities and organisations.
“…a tailored presentation [was prepared] to fit into our busy schedule and provided a comprehensive insight into the skills to capture, hold and inform an audience. As a group we believe we needed skills to better equip our teams with a leader able to give hard hitting presentations to prospective clients. Anna was great to watch, from a trainer’s perspective, as she controlled the group and drew the best from every participant in the room. Each person left the session with a heightened awareness of their ability in delivering a vital message.”
Multi-national listed property and construction group
A commitment to community is a vital component of Anna’s personal responsibilities with a mix of mentoring and MC’ing for organisations including:
- Beacon Foundation, Lunch with the Girls & Speed Careering programs
- Leukaemia Foundation
- Maroochydore State High School
- Queensland State Government, Mentoring 4 Growth
- Sunshine Coast Business Women’s Network
A strong academic background supports her eclectic mix of professional experience. Anna was sponsored by ANZ to complete her MBA at Melbourne Business School, graduating in the top 15% of her year. A double major commerce degree – graduating with Distinction – was previously gained in Economics and Finance from Edith Cowan University, where she was also employed as a finance tutor.
Continual personal and professional development is important to Anna with her subsequent completion of coaching and NLP qualifications, together with the professional development programs associated with memberships of the International Coach Federation, Australian Institute of Management and Australian Institute of Company Directors.
A’Ohlin Commercial Insights understands that for a board or directors or – for smaller firms – an advisory board to be effective, a broad mix of skills and experience must be possessed by the appointed members.
Director – download or read the Directorship profile
Consultant – download or read the CV profile
Change Manager – download or read change profile
Better understanding of my experience – download or read the file with more detail on consulting jobs.