Meet the COSBOA Team
Matthew Addison
Chair and Director
Matthew Addison is the founding director and CEO of the Institute of Certified Bookkeepers. He trained as a Chartered Accountant in Practice which led to establishing his own small business accounting practice from 1993 until 2008. He has worked intensely with small business, advisers to small business, the tax office and multi-levels of government as an advocate and stakeholder voice.
Elizabeth Skirving
Deputy Chair and Director
Elizabeth has been Chief Executive Officer of Rural Business Tasmania since 2006 and also holds down an extensive board directorship portfolio. Her current portfolio includes Deputy Chair, Council of Small Business Organisations of Australia (National peak advocacy body), Director of Tasmanian Agricultural Productivity Group, Director of Tasmanian Small Business Council and as an Industry representative of Tasmanian Institute of Agriculture (TIA) Advisory Board.
Christine Pope
Director and Treasurer
Christine Pope is a Director and Treasurer of the Australian Traditional-Medicine Society and holds formal qualifications in Commerce (B. Comm UNSW) and Health Sciences (B. Health Science Comp Med 2010). She was elected to the COSBOA Board in 2019. The Australian Traditional Medicine Society represents over 10,000 practitioners of natural medicine around Australia.
Colm Maguire
Director and Company Secretary
Colm Maguire joined the Pharmacy Guild in August 2017 as the Group Executive Pharmacy Transformation. The position is a member of the Pharmacy Guild of Australia’s leadership and provides critical insight into the issues facing small business across Australia. Colm previously was the CEO of Touch Football Australia, where he had led the overall recovery of the organisation, significant growth, a collaborative focus to outcomes and achieved outstanding results.
Jos de Bruin
Director
Jos is CEO of Master Grocers Australia Ltd. which trades as MGA Independent Retailers & Timber Merchants Australia (MGATMA), a leading a national registered industry organisation dedicated to supporting the needs of independently owned supermarket, bottleshop, timber and hardware businesses and other retail outlet owners. MGATMA represents more than 2700 members who generate more than $16 billion in sales per annum and employ over 120,000 staff members.
David Gandolfo OAM
Director
David is the Chair of Advocacy at CAFBA, The Commercial & Asset Finance Brokers Association of Australia Ltd. CAFBA represents Commercial Finance Broking firms whose prime area of business is the distribution of commercial finance facilities to business clients.
Ben Kearney
Director
Ben Kearney is the Chief Executive Officer of the Australian Lottery and Newsagents’ Association (ALNA), the peak national industry body for Australia’s newsagents and lottery agents, and influential authority on small business. Having spent more than 10 years at ALNA, Ben has been instrumental in some of the biggest legislative changes to help ALNAs members...
Wes Lambert
Director
Wes is the former CEO of the 2020 Association of the Year, Restaurant & Catering Australia (R&CA),the national industry association representing the interests of more than 48,000 restaurants, cafés and catering businesses across Australia. Wes is IFRS CPA Qualified, a Fellow of the Governance Institute, recently earned his Certified Association Executive accreditation and for over 20 years, has progressively built his executive level change management, lobbying, negotiation, governance, finance & accounting experience in diverse roles across multiple industries and sectors around the globe and enjoys the art of dealmaking. He was also named and AuSAE Influencer for 2020.
Simon Foster
Director
Currently President of DSPANZ, and a Director since 2016. Professionally, GM Product – eInvoicing at Xero, and previously ran a small technology business, Shoeboxed Australia, from 2010 until selling in 2020. I therefore have direct experience of the challenges of small business both as an owner and as a service provider. I am also Treasurer of the Pearcey Foundation (Australian ICT public policy non-profit), hold several governance roles at OpenPeppol (global eInvoicing standards & governance body), sit on the Commonwealth Business Registry Service Strategic Council, co-chair the ATO DSP Strategic Working Group and co-chair the ANZ Peppol All Stakeholders Working Group.
Australian small businesses lead the world in adoption of business management software such as cloud accounting. Driven by ATO compliance activity like eTax, Superstream and STP, most small businesses are online courtesy of effective communications from their trusted advisors - bookkeepers, accountants and industry associations. There is more work to be done as government and enterprise undertake digital transformation sometimes ignoring the impact to small businesses.
