Episode 6: A Conversation with Professor Glyn Davis

Sue Cunningham has a conversation with Professor Glyn Davis, AC, Chief Executive Officer of the Paul Ramsay Foundation, Australia’s largest philanthropic foundation. Its ambition is unambiguous: To break cycles of disadvantage in Australia. He began his role at the Foundation in early 2019. Prior to this role, Professor Davis served as vice-chancellor of the University of Melbourne from 2005 through 2018. Their conversation explores the excitement of leading a foundation with such an important mission, and how relationships with their funding partners help accomplish their goals. They discuss the threefold crisis Australia has encountered over the last year (a prolonged drought, the subsequent bush fires, and COVID-19), and how the foundation is working with its partners to move them through these crises and support them in achieving their own strategic work.  They also discuss the differences in leading an institution of the scale of the University of Melbourne vs the intimacy of leading a foundation with a much smaller team, and the benefits that creates for the CEO to dig deeper into the execution of the mission. Hear his perspective on relationships with universities and other funding partners. He shares leadership advice and interesting insights about being in a two-vice-chancellor marriage, perhaps one of the only examples of such an interesting academic couple. Finally, learn about how this essential foundation confirmed its purpose even though its benefactor left no instructions for implementing his wishes.