Student enrichment: John Bertrand Leadership Series

The Honourable RJL
Bob Hawke AC (middle)

A new initiative was launched last year to provide Monash students and alumni with unique high level leadership training and exposure. This will assist in producing the next generation of Australia’s legal, professional and community leaders.

Monash University ran the first of its new ‘John Bertrand Leadership Series: Explore the Essence of Leadership’ from July to October last year. The course combines academic leadership principles and hands-on learning with a speaker series.

Senior academic leaders from the Monash MBA program ran the academic component while the speaker series of conversational sessions was run by Mr John Bertrand AM (1983 America’s Cup winning captain) with six outstanding leaders from politics, commerce, science, the military and sport. Last year’s speakers were The Honourable RJL Bob Hawke AC (former Prime Minister of Australia), Dr Fiona Wood AM (Director Royal Perth Hospital, Burns Unit), Mr Paul Roos (AFL Premiership winning coach), Major General Agnus Campbell, DSC, AM (Deputy Chief of Army), Professor Christine Kilpatrick (CEO of the Royal Children’s Hospital) and Mr Alan Joyce (Chief Executive Officer of Qantas Airways Limited).

The purpose of the sessions was to distill the essence of great leadership and to provide an opportunity for participants to network and learn from the best. The speaker series was also broadcast by ABC television.


Monash Faculty of Law alumnus
Kiran Iyer with Professor John Bertrand

The course was offered by invitation only to Monash students and alumni who have demonstrated outstanding leadership qualities and who are among the best in their chosen fields. The participants were nominated by the Deans of Monash faculties based on their accomplishments, attributes and experiences. Four Law students and four Law alumni participated in the initial series last year. The two-part course ran over four months (from July to October) and was fully funded for participants.

“The John Bertrand Leadership Series has given me the opportunity to speak to top leaders from many different sides of Australian society. We've been able to get very practical insights into the struggles these leaders face every day, and the strategies they employ to deal with them. Through the JBLS, we've learnt that leaders are real human beings and shoulder the same insecurities, deficiencies and setbacks that everyone else does, but what really makes them leaders is their ability to keep going in spite of these challenges and motivate themselves and others around them to make up for their weaknesses.” Joseph Valente, 5th year Law/Commerce student who participated in the program this year.

Please visit our website to find out more about this inspiring series.