July 2019 Directors' Column

Simon Terry - July 2019

Supporting those who care.

When I joined the Board of Bank First over a year ago, the Bank's focus on supporting those who care for community was a key reason that I wanted to be involved with Bank First. Care and compassion is embedded into the culture of Bank First and stretches back to the founders' decision to create a financial institution that valued people for what they did. From its first loan to today, Bank First has acted consistently with that purpose.

Compassion is rarely made the centrepiece of business strategy in the modern era. For the health of our community, we need that to change. All the evidence suggests that supporting those who bring compassion to their work and foster them to achieve their work and life goals is critical to the success of our society and a healthy and happy future together. We have only to look at the outcomes of a number of recent Royal Commissions to see the consequences of what can go wrong when compassion is not the primary focus in education, healthcare, aged care and financial services.

As Australia's working future increasingly is built on a services economy we need to continue to foster compassion and the people who deliver education, health and care for others. Australia is seen as a leader in education and education services in the Asian region and the Victorian education sector is a key part of that success. Australia's population is ageing and our healthcare sectors continue to grow in response, creating new jobs and better meeting the needs of our country.

Through my work career, I have had the opportunity to meet people contributing to community across a wide number of domains in education, in disability services, in aged care and in healthcare. The common theme of these interactions is the focus on purpose and the compassion of these people. These growing industries are filled with people making a difference every day to the lives of others. I am very excited that Bank First can focus on helping make a difference to their lives and I can play a part in supporting the team at Bank First. There is much more for Bank First to do and many ways we will improve the organisation for our Members, but we will keep the focus on compassion and care at the heart of everything we do.

Simon Terry
Director