Murray was a driving force behind the successful transformation of the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) as its CEO from 1992 – 2005. His other roles have included the inaugural Chair of both the Future Fund and the International Forum of Sovereign Wealth Funds. He is currently a member of the Oliver Wyman Senior Advisory Board and Senior Advisor at Credit Suisse, Sydney.
In 2001, Murray was awarded the Centenary Medal for service to Australian Society in banking and corporate governance, and was made an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) in 2007 for his service to the finance sector domestically and globally, and service to the community.
Third Sector was lucky enough to catch up with Murray to discuss his new role at the Butterfly Foundation.
TS: How did you become involved with the Butterfly Foundation?
DM: I knew people who had been affected by eating disorders and it was through their experiences with the Butterfly Foundation that I became aware of the Foundation’s initiatives. It wasn’t, however, until the 2012 Deloitte Access Economics Report found that there were more than 913,000 Australian’s with eating disorders, which had a socio economic cost to the country of $69.7 billion in 2012 that I was made aware to the magnitude of the problem. The future of Australia is a big focus for me – the intergenerational objective is where my heart is, so when I was approached by the team at the Butterfly Foundation I wanted to give it a go.
TS: You’ve had impressive roles at both the Future Fund and CBA, what can you take from these and apply to your new role?
DM: There are common links between all three roles – a clear objective must be identified and everyone within the organisation must be working towards this all the time. There’s also the notion of how to add value and at what pace – the commercial world moves a lot faster, so the team might need to hold me back.
TS: Do you have any immediate plans that you want to implement straight away?
DM: No, not right now – we are an not-for-profit (NFP) that has a problem to solve that is far greater than the resources available but we are working on a plan to tackle this.
TS: What are the plans for the future of the Butterfly Foundation?
DM: Awareness is the key – we need to make the wider community aware of just how big this problem is. More research, changes in the health system and school programs are all on the list of things that we’d like to help facilitate. We need to get to a point where we can envisage a time that we are moving from treatment to prevention.
The Butterfly Foundation CEO, Morgan has also been appointed to the Board.
Third Sector would like to congratulate both Morgan and Murray on their new roles.