We held our second breakfast for The CFO Incubator program with guest speaker Brent Cubis, who is the CFO at Cochlear, a global leader in implantable hearing solutions.
He began his career with Deloitte and enjoyed the great experience and travel associated with the job until economic pressure left him looking to commerce. Brent reminded the participants that they need to know what they are passionate about and provided suggestions for them to work out what those passions might be.
Brent described how his career had been in hotels and property, but his passion meant he wanted to be in media and he achieved his goal working for PBL Media. Working under Kerry Packer at ACP, Brent realised that he could work for big personalities because he maintains his integrity and ethics and is valued for that.
When deciding on a role he believed an important consideration is that it should pass the “BBQ Test”. Brent said his role at Cochlear is one he is very proud to talk about. Cochlear helps people hear and be heard. Its vision is to make implantable hearing solutions the standard of care for people with severe to profound hearing loss. He loves being part of an organisation having such a positive impact on the community.
His final 3 pieces of advice for our aspiring CFOS were as follows:
We are thankful to Brent for an extremely engaging session and the detailed advice he provided to our CFO Incubator participants.
