The Australian Insurance Law Association (
AILA) will be holding the finals for its annual Ron Shorter Memorial Award for Professionalism in Public Speaking in four states.
The award, conceptualised by the late Ron Shorter to give young professionals (YPs) in the insurance and legal industries invaluable public speaking skills, has trained almost 250 YPs since its inception in 2012.
The award began in NSW in 2012 and expanded to Victoria in 2015 and Queensland in 2016. This year saw the competition being opened for the first time to entrants from South Australia, Tasmania, and Western Australia.
The Victoria/Tasmania final will be held at Colin Biggers & Paisley in Melbourne on July 18, and will feature the following finalists:
- Winnie Chen of HWL Ebsworth: Judgment day: will robots terminate humans in the insurance industry?;
- Riley Gay of Norton Rose Fulbright: Weird and wonderful claims; and
- Rumesh Gnanaseelan of Minter Ellison: No fault compensation for medical injury: exploring the patient safety potential.
The NSW/South Australia final is set to take place on July 25 at Colin Biggers & Paisley, Sydney, and will include the following finalists:
- Jane-Elise Harabopoulos of Wotton + Kearney, Sydney: We can’t insure you, you smell: the science of detecting disease through smell and its impact on the insurance industry;
- Elise Holmes of Minter Ellison, Adelaide: The blame game: the relationship between doctors and nurses in private hospitals and implications for private health insurance; and
- Jackson McDonald of GSA Insurance Brokers, Sydney: Insuring autonomous technology.
The Queensland final is on August 03 at Colin Biggers & Paisley, Brisbane, and will feature the following finalists:
- Fergus Geary (McInnes Wilson): Kidnap, ransom & extortion insurance: insuring the unimaginable
- Naazihah Jamal (Gilchrist Connell): Pilates, people & productivity: the need for flexibility and diversity in the insurance industry
- William Wilson (Cunningham Lindsey): Teaching the ‘cat’ to sit
The final for the Western Australian award will be held in Perth in late August or early September, the finalists to which are yet to be selected.
Each of the four winners will receive a Ron Shorter trophy and a trip to the AsiaPacific Insurance Conference in Singapore on October 18-20.
AILA national president Angus Kench said AILA members and guests are welcome to attend the finals.
Related stories:
