Michael Petit - The Man behind the Badge
Posted
on Sep 05, 2012
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A "Man Behind the Badge" presentation from a more recent member gives us the opportunity to learn more about them. As chairman Ian Stoney concluded at the end of Michael Petit's soul baring presentation our club has a remarkable and diverse collection of members who have very varied and rich interesting stories to tell of their life and background. Michael's address continued that theme. |
Michael started with an account of his French Chinese Ceylonese ancestry and early life in Sydney. After leaving behind his beach boy activities after many years of indulgence on the Sydney surf beaches his prime undergraduate study lead to a hybrid law/accounting degree. This naturally gave way to employment in a wide selection of banking/finance/insurance entities including the Stock exchange, banks and stock brokers. Mostly capitalizing on his strong analytical skills his roles focussed on strategic analysis aspects of business ( Michael described himself as a match for Thomas Jefferson with "INTJ" characteristics ?)
Michael mixed employment with further tertiary study and did an MBA at MacQuarie University still in Sydney.
Melbourne beckoned and he continued his finance career with roles with banks in Melbourne and indeed this saw him, his 2 boys and wife become Melburnians ( I not sure if there was mention of an AFL team). The attraction of a senior post in Sydney in a major bank broke this continuity and he returned to Sydney for a year or so but this time his external interests and life were too strongly biased to Melbourne so that he returned.
The love of study continued and Michael embarked upon a Ph.D at Swinbourne titled a "A New Theory for Organizational Management" but in his words really a study and analysis of why business's fail. He cited examples of how diversification by big business often failed. This proved a fruitful area for questions and discussion from the audience and Michael explained how the concepts of Culture, Strategy, Leadership and Change in an organisation were linked and how in his view Culture was the major driver/inhibitor to achievement in large organisation.
Contrary to the conservative path that Michael's education implied he is an aviator and surprised us by describing his love of aerobatics at levels down to 300 feet.
He runs his own business consultancy operations so named "MERLIN" (because he was the advisor I mostly admired).
Michael mixed employment with further tertiary study and did an MBA at MacQuarie University still in Sydney.
Melbourne beckoned and he continued his finance career with roles with banks in Melbourne and indeed this saw him, his 2 boys and wife become Melburnians ( I not sure if there was mention of an AFL team). The attraction of a senior post in Sydney in a major bank broke this continuity and he returned to Sydney for a year or so but this time his external interests and life were too strongly biased to Melbourne so that he returned.
The love of study continued and Michael embarked upon a Ph.D at Swinbourne titled a "A New Theory for Organizational Management" but in his words really a study and analysis of why business's fail. He cited examples of how diversification by big business often failed. This proved a fruitful area for questions and discussion from the audience and Michael explained how the concepts of Culture, Strategy, Leadership and Change in an organisation were linked and how in his view Culture was the major driver/inhibitor to achievement in large organisation.
Contrary to the conservative path that Michael's education implied he is an aviator and surprised us by describing his love of aerobatics at levels down to 300 feet.
He runs his own business consultancy operations so named "MERLIN" (because he was the advisor I mostly admired).