2025 Education & Seminar Series
There will be no Education Seminar in February 2025.
A Collaborative Approach to Fighting Corruption
Time: Wednesday 19 March 2025 @ 12:30pm-1:30pm
Venue: Online & In person at Sydney Mechanic’s School of Arts, Level 1, 280 Pitt Street, Sydney, NSW, 2000
Speaker: Mr. Bruce Wymond, Founding Director of GIACC Australia (Global Infrastructure Anti-Corruption Centre)
Topic Description: A Collaborative Approach to Fighting Corruption
There are numerous very well aligned and capable organisations that are fighting corruption, all with different resources, focus and areas of expertise.
In addition to the Corruption Prevention Network there is also Transparency International, UNGC Bribery Prevention Network, FIDIC, CoST and GIACC. We will take a look at each organisation to understand what they are doing, how they all fit together, and where there are gaps in resources and capabilities, particularly for building and construction industries.
We will then explore ways of filling these gaps, and methods of delivering holistic anti-corruption resources to different audiences including tertiary students, the public sector, professionals, contractors and anti-corruption agencies.
About the Speaker: Mr. Bruce Wymond
Bruce Wymond literally wrote the textbook
Bruce Wymond has been a professional engineer for over 40 years, and in senior management for 25 years as a founding partner, a director, and managing director of two firms – most recently Inhabit Group with a team of 350 engineers in 26 offices across 15 countries.
He has provided governance and technical oversight based on extensive construction experience which has included exposure to corruption across Southeast Asia, China, India, the Middle East, and Australia.
Between 2022 and 2024 he wrote a textbook “Corruption in the Construction Industry”, and in July 2024 was appointed as Founding Director of GIACC Australia as part of the Global Infrastructure Anti-Corruption Centre operating around the world. He is also a Nuclear Engineer and a Director of C2N Australia.
SEMINAR RECORDING – Note you need to download the file to view the full recording
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Take control of the unexpected: integrated framework for managing modern cyber threats
Time: Wednesday 16 April 2025 @ 12:30pm-1:30pm
Venue: Sydney Mechanic’s School of Arts, Level 1, 280 Pitt Street, Sydney, NSW, 2000 & Online
Speaker: Ms Simona Dimovski, CIO at Lighthouse Industries, CEO and Founder of Skygrid Industries
Topic Description:
When a cyber incident hits, the difference between chaos and control is your readiness to respond. In this engaging session, “Take Control of the Unexpected,” you’ll discover how an integrated framework can transform your organization’s approach to modern cyber threats—from zero-day exploits and ransomware to sophisticated credential breaches. Learn practical strategies to anticipate, respond, and recover swiftly from cyber disruptions, turning unforeseen risks into manageable events. Equip your team to move beyond reaction, build resilience, and confidently navigate the ever-changing cybersecurity landscape.
About the Speaker: Ms Simona Dimovski
Ms Simona Dimovski, CIO at Lighthouse Industries, CEO and Founder of Skygrid Industries
Simona Dimovski is a strategic technology and cybersecurity executive with over 25 years of experience driving transformational change across finance, aviation, energy, and government sectors. Known for her visionary leadership and passion for leveraging technology to deliver tangible business value, Simona has excelled in roles such as CIO and CISO, successfully steering organizations through complex, regulated environments. Her expertise encompasses cyber risk management, strategic governance, incident response preparedness, and developing high-performing teams to achieve organizational resilience and growth.
As the CEO and Founder of Skygrid, Simona empowers businesses—especially small-to-medium enterprises and local governments—to uplift their cybersecurity posture through innovative, tailored strategies. A dynamic communicator, she regularly speaks at conferences and industry events, advocating for stronger cyber awareness and incident preparedness. Simona also serves as a mentor and advisor, championing diversity and supporting the next generation of technology leaders.
SEMINAR RECORDING – Note you need to download the file to view the entire session
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How psychological biases can undermine corruption risk assessments
Time: Wednesday 21 May 2025 @ 12:30pm-1:30pm
Venue: Sydney Mechanic’s School of Arts, Level 1, 280 Pitt Street, Sydney, NSW, 2000 & Online
Session Speaker: Dr Benjamin Marx, Principal Officer Corruption Prevention Division at NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption
Topic Description:
ICAC investigations sometimes identify cases where risk assessment processes have not identified readily apparent corruption risks. This presentation explores how cognitive biases may result in poor risk assessment outcomes despite a genuine effort to identify risks. It will consider how cognitive biases may influence individual risk judgements and how socio-cognitive biases may influence processes such as risk workshops. It will also discuss some techniques you can employ to help counteract the effects of these biases.
About the Speaker: Dr Benjamin Marx
Dr Benjamin Marx, Principal Officer, Corruption Prevention Division, NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption
Benjamin Marx is currently a Principal Officer in ICAC’s Corruption Prevention Division, having commenced at ICAC in 2006. He has performed or managed corruption prevention analysis on dozens of Commission investigations, and managed or led many Commission corruption prevention projects, including the Commission’s recent work on corruption control maturity. He has also led or managed many analyses of Commission datasets, including analyses of complaint, survey, and document data.
Prior to working at the Commission, Ben completed a PhD in Psychology at the University of Sydney that explored some of the cognitive and attitudinal elements of moral reasoning, having previously conducted research on relative risk judgments. From 2018-2020, he seconded to Transport for NSW for 18 months where he was responsible for TfNSW’s corruption prevention program. Ben is also a Certified Fraud Examiner.
Psychosocial Risk: Compliance, Culture, and the Cost of Inaction
Time: Wednesday 16 June 2025 @ 12:30pm-1:30pm
Venue: Sydney Mechanic’s School of Arts, Level 1, 280 Pitt Street, Sydney, NSW, 2000
Remote: Zoom Online
Session Speaker: Michael Krawczyk MAHRI CAMS CFCI, Principal Consultant at Riskwise Consulting
Topic Description:
In this session, we’ll explore why psychosocial safety is more than a health and wellbeing initiative – it is a core organisational risk and compliance obligation. Unaddressed psychosocial hazards can result in staff turnover, reputational damage, reduced productivity, and regulatory exposure. Workplaces that lack psychological safety also risk suppressing misconduct reporting, allowing inappropriate behaviours to escalate unchecked. This presentation examines employer responsibilities under psychosocial safety guidelines and demonstrates how fostering a safe, accountable workplace culture is not only the right thing to do – it’s essential for protecting your people, your reputation, and the overall performance of your organisation.
About the Speaker: Michael Krawczyk
Michael Krawczyk, Principal Consultant at Riskwise Consulting
Michael is a highly accomplished investigator and integrity management consultant with over 17 years of experience spanning law enforcement, corporate enterprise, and professional services. As a former Detective Sergeant with the NSW Police Force, Michael led high-profile strike forces targeting organised crime syndicates involved in large-scale fraud, money laundering, and multi-million-dollar drug importations. He was also a key member of the NSW Police Homicide Squad, where he managed complex and sensitive homicide investigations.
After transitioning to the private sector, Michael took on a leadership role as Investigations Manager at The Star Casino, where he restructured and elevated the performance of the internal investigations function. He was instrumental in embedding proactive fraud prevention strategies and driving cultural change through transparency and education, enhancing both investigative outcomes and organisational accountability. In his professional services career, Michael partners with government and corporate clients to investigate serious misconduct, manage whistleblower matters, and deliver end-to-end AML compliance solutions. He supports clients through regulatory reviews, develops risk-based frameworks, and provides practical strategies to strengthen governance and build psychologically safe, accountable cultures.
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CPN KEYNOTE: Demystifying Artificial Intelligence – AI and Corruption Detection
Time: Wednesday 16 July 2025 @ 12:30pm-1:30pm
Format: 45-minute presentation followed by 15 minutes for questions
Venue: Sydney Mechanic’s School of Arts (SMSA), Level 1, 280 Pitt Street, Sydney, NSW, 2000
Remote: Zoom Online
Session Speaker: Dr Colm Flanagan BEng, PhD
Description
This keynote offers a clear, practical introduction to artificial intelligence.
- Part 1 – What AI Really Is
We strip away the hype and explain, in plain language, what qualifies as artificial intelligence and why it matters. - Part 2 – Putting AI to Work
Concrete, actionable advice on how professionals and individuals can begin using AI tools to improve their day-to-day tasks and decision-making. - Part 3 – AI and Corruption
A look at the technology’s double-edged role: how AI is exploited to commit corruption, and how the same techniques can detect, deter and investigate corruption.
One of the biggest challenges that logisticians face today is also the one area that has seen the least technological innovation: operational planning.
HIROCO believe the solution to this is not just through cleaner and faster data, but through intelligent, AI-driven orchestration. Specifically, multi-agent orchestration (MAO): a rapidly developing field of AI that treats planning not as a static task, but as a dynamic, adaptive ecosystem. Many organisations may not even realise how much money they’re losing each year, because the benchmark for success is often just “getting it done,” regardless of the cost in time, money, or effort.
But operational inefficiency is just one-way poor planning eats into margins. Often, the true cost of a bad plan isn’t known until it fails. By then, it’s too late. The result? Further delays, more wasted resources, and an increase of missed opportunities. At the heart of the issue is a hard truth: planning is incredibly complex. Often people are required to juggle thousands of variables at the same time and determine how they all interact.
What’s needed is a fundamental shift in how we approach these challenges. AI is often met with a sense of trepidation, largely due to the fear that it will replace people. But at Hiroco, they see things differently. They design AI to complement human capabilities and build technologies that work with, rather than replace, people. MAO provides the glue, the logic that binds them into coherent, collaborative systems that work together to achieve a common objective.
Rethinking the Role of Humans: One of the most exciting aspects of MAO is its human-centred design. Rather than replacing people, it augments them, freeing planners from micromanagement and enabling them to focus on strategy, creativity, and oversight. In high-stakes environments, this isn’t just efficient, it’s empowering. Hiroco enhances people’s abilities rather than replaces them, allowing them to devote their time and efforts on the areas they bring true operational value.
Looking Ahead in Corruption Prevention – Proactive not reactive: The future of planning isn’t about better spreadsheets or faster dashboards. It’s about systems that can think, adapt, and collaborate. It’s about moving from reactive ‘corruption prevention’ firefighting to proactive orchestration.
About the Speaker: Dr Colm Flanagan
Dr Colm Flanagan, founder and Managing Director of Hirocco.
Dr Colm Flanagan is the founder and Managing Director of Hirocco. He received a PhD from the University of NSW in 2022. His research was in the field of cognitive robotics and looked at how concepts from cognitive psychology can be applied to artificial agents to improve how humans and robots collaborate. The specifics of this research regarded episodic memory and how it could be used to train robots to identify subtle contextual differences between seemingly identical events. The research findings were that by using episodic memory, robots could more effectively anticipate behaviours that were to be expected of them, based on contextual observations of events, before being explicitly requested.
Before moving to Australia to pursue a PhD in the field of robotics, Dr Flanagan received a BEng from University College Dublin and worked as a research assistant at the University of Tehran in the cognitive robotics research group.
Dr Flanagan oversaw the UNSW@Home robotics team to four international competitions and in 2024 was nominated as a finalist in the Al Rising Star of the Year SME category of the Australian Al Awards. Hiroco was also nominated as a finalist in the Al Innovator of the Year Defence & National Security category.
(the below links will be made live after the seminar)
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Whistle While you Work: Case management considerations for whistleblower investigations
Time: Wednesday 20 August 2025 @ 12:30pm-1:30pm
Format: 45-minute presentation followed by 15 minutes for questions
Venue: Sydney Mechanic’s School of Arts, Level 1, 280 Pitt Street, Sydney, NSW, 2000
Remote: Zoom Online
Session Speaker: Nicholas Fisher, CEO Polonious
Topic Description:
Nick Fisher will pull apart how a correctly set-up case management system will safeguard whistleblower wellbeing and encourage a speak up culture by: 1) allowing whistleblowers to communicate and stay engaged while remaining anonymous, and 2) ensure transparency (anonymity requirements notwithstanding), repeatability, and fairness in the process.
About the Speaker: Nick Fisher
Nicholas (Nick) Fisher, CEO @ Polonious
Nick has spent the last 8 years implementing rigorous and efficient investigation workflows both as a client and later an employee (and now CEO) of Polonious.
Nick has worked within a range of industries across Polonious’ client base and implemented a number of use cases, including fraud and financial crime across both banks and insurers, as well as non financial crime use cases like academic misconduct, workplace misconduct, and child protection.
Nick’s background in analytical philosophy, as well as his deep aversion to pointless paperwork, has made him an excellent business analyst as well as a strong ally for any investigator looking to implement an effective, efficient, and ethical investigation process.
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There will be no Education Seminar in September. This is because we instead hold a major annual event, our Annual Forum, in September. To find out more or to register, click here or follow the link below:
From Scandal to Strategy: Evidence-Based Approaches to Upskilling in Fraud and Corruption Prevention
Time: Wednesday 15 October 2025 @ 12:30pm-1:30pm
Format: 45-minute presentation followed by 15 minutes for questions
Venue: Sydney Mechanic’s School of Arts, Level 1, 280 Pitt Street, Sydney, NSW, 2000
Remote: Zoom Online
Session Speaker: Dr James Wakefield CA, Associate Professor, University of Technology Sydney
Description:
Discover practical strategies to upskill your team in fraud and corruption prevention with reference to academic case work and internal control frameworks.
This session explores case-based learning to strengthen internal control design, featuring the real-world example involving the McDonald’s Monopoly game.
Learn how internal control failures unfolded and how they could have been prevented. This seminar is ideal for practitioners seeking actionable insights and ways to collaborate with academics to enhance anti-fraud and corruption practices.
About the Speaker: Dr. James Wakefield
Dr James Wakefield CA, nationally awarded educator and researcher
James Wakefield is Associate Professor and MBA Program Director at UTS Business School.
A nationally awarded educator and researcher, James specialises in innovative strategies to enhance student engagement in accounting and business education, including AI integration, peer learning, and digital teaching tools. His research spans management accounting, internal control systems, and accounting education, with work featured in top-ranking journals, Times Higher Education, and CNN, and recognised by multiple grant bodies.
James also contributes to the sector as a Director at the Corruption Prevention Network of NSW and the Accounting and Finance Australia and New Zealand Education Sub-committee and Accounting Education Special Interest Group.
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Corruptible Events: Why Festivals and Events Foster Misconduct
Time: Wednesday 19 November 2025 @ 12:30pm-1:30pm
Format: 45-minute presentation followed by 15 minutes for questions
Venue: Sydney Mechanic’s School of Arts, Level 1, 280 Pitt Street, Sydney, NSW, 2000
Remote: Zoom Online
Session Speaker: William O’Toole, Events Development Specialist
Description:
Festivals, concerts and even academic conferences, being international, cross border, multi funding and temporary are a perfect target for the corrupt. William will cover some case studies and what the event team can do to minimise its occurrence.
About the Speaker: William O’Toole
William O’Toole, Events Development Specialist
William John O’Toole is a globally recognised authority in event management with over four decades of experience shaping the industry across more than 40 countries.
Holding an M.Eng in Project Management and a B.Sc in Pure Mathematics from the University of Sydney, he has pioneered innovative approaches to event planning, risk management, and corruption mitigation, notably through his development of the Event Management Body of Knowledge (EMBOK) and his induction into the International Festivals & Events Association (IFEA) Hall of Fame in 2018. His current research into Bayesian models for detecting corruption using operational heuristics offers groundbreaking insights into safeguarding large-scale events.
As a consultant for high-profile projects like Saudi Arabia’s countrywide festivals, Vivid Sydney, and Deloitte’s event risk assessments, O’Toole combines practical expertise with academic rigour, having authored influential texts such as The Dark Side of Events: Navigating Corruption and Risk Management (2024) and Risk Management for Events (2021). His engaging, evidence-based perspective on corruption and event integrity makes him a compelling speaker for audiences seeking to understand the complexities of managing safe, ethical, and impactful events.
(will be made available after the session)
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