Phillip Cenere

Phillip Cenere FAIM GAICD

Phillip Cenere FAIM GAICD is a chief executive and company director with more than 20 years’ experience leading large, complex organisations across education, research and the not-for-profit sector. He is currently CEO of Australian Vision Research, a national health promotion charity that distributes millions of dollars in annual grants to fund sight-saving medical research. He also chairs the UniMinistry Foundation and serves as a Director of Chancellor Institute.

His executive career spans higher education, health and advisory work, including appointments as CEO, Executive Dean and Professor of the Australian Institute of Business Intelligence, and Associate Vice Chancellor and Head of Campus (NSW) at CQUniversity. He previously spent six years as Associate Dean of the School of Business and Senior Lecturer in Public Relations at The University of Notre Dame, Sydney, and has taught at the University of Adelaide, Macquarie University, UTS and the University of Wollongong. He has audited colleges as a registered expert for the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (TEQSA), served on the Academic Board of UTS, and advised global investment clients as a Specialist Consultant (Higher Education) with Third Bridge Group and through his own management and board consultancy.

Phillip has made a sustained contribution to governance and director education in Australia. He served on the Australian Institute of Company Directors’ NSW Council and on its National Education Advisory, Curriculum Development and Director Professional Development Committees, which oversee the institute’s flagship Company Directors Course. He has also served on the councils and committees of the Banking and Finance Oath, RDA Sydney, the Australian Business Deans Council, the Australia China Business Council, the Association for Tertiary Education Management (ATEM), the Public Relations Institute of Australia and Early Birds Marketplace. He is a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Management and a Trustee of the Committee for Economic Development of Australia (CEDA).

A published voice on governance in higher education, Phillip has written for the AICD’s Company Director magazine, co-authored Communication Skills for Business Professionals (Cambridge University Press) and peer-reviewed works for Pearson Australia and McGraw-Hill Australia. He has organised and chaired national conferences and director workshops, including a long-running AICD–ATEM partnership on good governance, strategy and risk in the tertiary education sector, the Corporate Social Responsibility Summit (CPA Australia), The New Silk Road (PwC and AICD) and Expecting the Unexpected: Crisis Management for Directors (AICD). For several years he also chaired the annual Marketing, Advertising and Public Relations Expo (MAPexpo), an event inducting students and graduates into the professions.

Phillip has a long record of service to charitable and not-for-profit causes. He has served on the boards of the Centre for Disability Studies, affiliated with the University of Sydney’s Medical School and the Royal Rehabilitation Centre Sydney, and Nutrition Australia, the organisation behind the original Healthy Eating Pyramid, and on the remuneration committee of the National Congress of Australia’s First Peoples.