Media releases
Westpac announces Australian-first partnership with TED Institute
11 December, 2017
- Westpac announces partnership with TED Institute to foster a culture of innovation and thought leadership as it enters its third century.
- Speaker topics include how corporate leaders can be more powerful by drawing on insights from the Australian Defence Force; 3D printing as an affordable housing solution; and how organisations can better support those with serious illnesses.
- TED Institute partnerships have enabled organisations including IBM, Boston Consulting Group and Unilever to source ideas to benefit employees, customers and communities.
Westpac has today become the first Australian company to join the TED Institute program with an event featuring 15 speakers on the theme of ‘The Future Legacy’.
The TED@Westpac event featured TED Talks from leading thinkers and speakers from within Westpac’s networks, including employees and partner organisations. The majority of the speakers are Westpac employees working in a variety of roles across business areas including Strategy, Sustainability, Inclusion & Diversity and Customer Transformation roles.
Speaker topics included: the future of work, the use of Artificial Intelligence; human behaviour including philosophy, leadership and values. Many talks are also on health & wellbeing including how organisations can better support individuals with serious illness, as well as encouraging people to talk openly about taboo subjects like preparing for death.
Additional speakers included a 2017 Westpac Bicentennial Scholar and leaders of Westpac partner organisations, Mathspace, Q-Labs and GRONADE.
Westpac Group Executive Strategy & Enterprise Services, Gary Thursby, said the partnership with TED Institute offered many benefits to Westpac and has the potential to have broader impacts on local and international communities.
“For the past 200 years we have played a role in shaping the Australian economy, society, culture and helped to advance local communities. As we enter our third century, this partnership will help to shape our organisation – it will influence our business strategy and the way we interact with our customers and communities. It will also help us to maintain and attract the type of people we want to work at Westpac.
“The presentations speakers shared at this event reflect the passion, diversity of thinking and creativity of our people. These highlight the opportunity we have to change our business and importantly, have a broader application and benefit to other organisations, communities, or to spark new ideas or concepts,” Mr Thursby added.
The partnership will also enable Westpac access to TED networks, offering opportunities to develop and enrich employee engagement across the Westpac Group.
Head of Global Partnerships TED, Lisa Choi Owens, said the TED Institute’s business partnership program is focused on reaching a thoughtful business audience by unlocking institutional knowledge and spreading interesting business thinking.
“Each year, TED works with a group of select companies to identify internal ideators, inventors, connectors and creators. We chose Westpac to participate in this program based on the richness of its experiences, the breadth of the enterprise and the potential to create impact by leveraging TED’s storytelling, curation and strategic thinking capabilities.
“TED@Westpac was a fantastic demonstration of how Westpac is leading the way in capturing progressive ideas and staff engagement to take the business further,” Lisa said.
Westpac is among a group of select companies worldwide to be given the opportunity this year. Presentations made at the event, which are considered outstanding by the TED team, will be featured on TED.com in 2018. The site receives 18 million unique visitors per month.
Over the past five months, TED’s curatorial team worked closely with the selected speakers to provide intensive one-on-one training, sharpen ideas and fine tune presentation skills. The inspirational talks were presented to the Westpac community at TED@Westpac, and a dedicated TED Institute page showcases the library of talks online which will be available in 2018.
Further information about TED@Westpac and the speakers is available at ted.westpac.com.au.