About the fellowship

In 2007, the QUT Business School was fortunate to have received an endowment from Ferriscorp Group Pty Ltd in honour of their retiring Managing Director, Chief Financial Controller and Company Secretary, Mr Colin Brain. Mr Brain had an extensive and stellar career as a Managing Director, Chief Financial Controller and Company Secretary in Australian multi-national companies and joined Ferriscorp in 1972 where he served 35 years managing and growing the business at the international level. The endowment provides for a perpetual award, aptly titled, ‘The Colin Brain Governance Fellowship’ for the furthering of education or research in corporate governance, financial management and business ethics.

The fellowship supports research into contemporary challenges and opportunities in corporate governance and/or business ethics including the financial management of organisations, undertaken by:

  • a Faculty of Business and Law postgraduate research student
  • a QUT early career academic (5 years or less post PhD)
  • an overseas visiting scholar
  • a candidate for an executive-in-residence
  • any other applicant deemed suitable.

Event series

The Colin Brain Governance Fellowship in partnership with QUT regularly hosts ‘Future Boards’ events designed to disseminate contemporary advances in governance research, opportunities and challenges informed by academic and industry experts.

“Cyber Security and Other Threats to Modern Governance” was the theme of the Colin Brain Governance Fellowship - Future Boards Event in November 2022, which featured panellists Andrew Bills (CS Energy), Kerryn Newton (Directors Australia), Tim Timchur (365 Architechs) and Heinrich Viljoen (Youi), moderated by Dr Kirstin Ferguson.

Student prizes

In addition to the Colin Brain Governance Fellowship, the endowment from Ferriscorp Group Pty Ltd also funds:

  • the undergraduate Colin Brain Prize for Ethics and Accountability
  • the postgraduate Colin Brain Governance Prize for Enterprise Ethics
  • the postgraduate executive Colin Brain Prize for Ethics.

The fellowship also supports research dissemination to practitioners in the form of orations/events.

Colin Brain Governance Fellowship Panel

Professor Amanda Gudmundsson (Chair)
Executive Dean, Faculty of Business and Law (QUT)

Professor Cameron Newton
Deputy Dean, Faculty of Business and Law (QUT)

Mr Ken Brain
Principal Coordinator, Strategy and Governance, Dept of Youth Justice, Employment, Small Business and Training

Ms Kathleen Grace
Member Services Manager, CEO Institute

Ms Sally Frazer
State Council Member, Governance Institute of Australia

Professor Gavin Nicholson
School of Accountancy, Faculty of Business and Law (QUT)

Ms Carolyn Kirk
Scholarships Officer, Faculty of Business and Law (QUT)

Dr Gareth Simpson (Secretary)
Executive Officer, Faculty of Business and Law (QUT)

About Colin

Colin Brain, FCA, ACIS was Chief Financial Officer of a group of electrical engineering companies and Company Secretary of a listed company in Sydney. For 11 years he worked as an accountant with Price Waterhouse and was involved with the auditing of a large number of small to medium enterprises and many of Australia’s best known blue-chip companies.

It was during this period that Colin first became aware of the shortfalls in the standards that some of these organisations were applying in relation to their fiduciary responsibilities.

In 1972 he joined what was to become the Ferriscorp Group of Companies based in Brisbane and materially assisted in the Australian and international growth that followed. During the 35 years that he spent with Ferriscorp, Colin demonstrated that building and managing a successful international business can co-exist very effectively with ethics and good corporate governance, even in a highly entrepreneurial and competitive environment.

Alarmed by the business excesses of the late 1980s and a plethora of corporate crashes (Bond Group; Enron; One-Tel; HIH for example), he was delighted that, on his retirement in April 2007, The Ferriscorp Group offered to make a donation to establish an endowment in his honour at QUT for the purposes of fiduciary business education.

Colin was convinced that if the various management personnel of these organisations had learnt good financial management skills and applied the principles of good business ethics, then good governance would have naturally followed.

It was Colin’s fervent wish on retirement to see solid education in good corporate governance, financial management and business ethics taught to our future business leaders, and the QUT Business School is committed to fulfilling this wish.

Colin Brain Governance Fellows

Dr Jackie Bettington (2024 - 2025)

Research topic

Director Cybersecurity Literacy: Defining and assessing the competencies for effective cyber governance

Published articles

Dr Natalie Elms (2022 - 2023)

Research topic

Conceptualising an alternative corporate governance model for high-tech firms.

Published articles

Dr Annette Quayle (2019 - 2020)

Research topic

Improving integrity and financial accountability in local government: the role of good governance.

Published articles

Dr Alistair Ping (2017 - 2018)

Research topic

Why good people do bad things - Reducing unethical outcomes through causal factor training.

Published articles

Dr Amadeo Pugliese (2015 - 2016)

Research topic

Mitigating information risk: A board-level analysis of information exchange in the boardroom.

Published articles

Dr Kirstin Ferguson (2013 - 2014)

Research topic

Focusing attention on workplace safety:  Addressing the impact of board attention on organizational safety outcomes.

Published articles

Professor Boris Kabanoff (2011 - 2012)

Research topic

Governance themes in annual reports of Australian firms over time: Theoretical and empirical observations.

Published articles

Colin Brain fellows

Dr Alistair Ping

2017 - 2018

Fellowship topic

Why good people do bad things - Reducing unethical outcomes through causal factor training

Dr Amadeo Pugliese

2015 - 2016

Fellowship topic

Mitigating information risk: A board-level analysis of information exchange in the boardroom

Dr Kirstin Ferguson

2013 - 2014

Fellowship topic

Focusing attention on workplace safety:  Addressing the impact of board attention on organizational safety outcomes

Professor Boris Kabanoff

2011 - 2012

Fellowship topic

Governance themes in annual reports of Australian firms over time: Theoretical and empirical observations

Dr Annette Quayle

2019-2020

Fellowship topic

Improving integrity and financial accountability in local government: the role of good governance

Contact us

Contact us if you have more questions about the Colin Brain Governance Fellowship.