Many of the people Matt Wedmaier has admired and respected most in his career are Senior Fellows at FINSIA.
“It was such an honour to be nominated successfully myself, but it also felt really strange to have achieved the same level of recognition as my mentors,” he says.
Matt is currently CFO of the Royal Flying Doctor Service (RFDS) (Queensland Section), which is best known for its emergency retrieval service. The not-for-profit also provides a wide range of essential health care services to rural and remote communities.
“In Queensland, the RFDS has 28 aircraft flying out of seven operational bases,” he says.
“Providing the services we do involves cohorts of pilots, doctors, nurses and support staff working together. There are six or seven planes in the air at any time. It’s a complicated business, even before you add in the responsibilities of dealing with patients. There are a lot of moving parts.”
He has always had a strong sense of purpose.
“Working in retail banking was great because you’re helping people to achieve their financial goals, but I do enjoy the sense of immediacy that comes with RFDS,” he says.
A pivotal point
Matt started his professional career in assurance with KPMG in Brisbane. Here, he did some work with Suncorp, which sparked his interest in banking and finance. This led to senior roles in publicly listed, private, mutual and not-for-profit organisations such as Credit Union Australia (now Great Southern Bank), Virgin Airlines Australia, Queensland Sugar, Bank of Queensland and Brisbane Catholic Education.
“The global financial crisis was a pivotal point for me,” he says. “It taught me a lot about the importance of maintaining professionalism when the industry is under pressure.
"I also learned from the Royal Commission that the public sees banking and finance as one big industry rather than a range of sectors governed by different regulations. That means a poor decision in any one those sectors can damage everyone’s reputation. I think both of these examples underscore the crucial work FINSIA does in fostering a consistent level of professionalism across the industry.”
In the future, he expects FINSIA to continue advancing industry standards.
“Unfortunately, when there’s a market failure somewhere within the industry, ASIC or APRA is often required to legislate to the lowest common denominator. As an industry, we would rather regulate ourselves but, if we can’t get it right, we can hardly be surprised if we get enforcement from outside.”
Changes in culture
Matt believes his most significant contributions to the industry have been initiatives to improve organisational culture.
“There’s a lot of interest nowadays in aligning your culture with your purpose,” he says. “Our conversations have moved away from ‘is this legal or not?’ to ‘is this right or not?’ I believe that’s the right question for us to ask on behalf of our customers.”
His advice to anyone who would like to make a significant contribution in any field is to accept the role of longevity.
“If you always act in a professional way and are clear about what you stand for, over time your decisions and behaviours will have an impact,” he says.